There was a time in my life when I had a low grading job and struggled to stay in the hobby.
But now that I'm sorting out trash during the day, and mopping floors at night, I have machines
that I once thought I'd never be able to afford..

Environmental Engineer (aka Tree Hugger, Environmentalist). Manage remediation and reclamation of oil and gas sites, commercial and industrial properties. Should have the last contaminated site in Canada cleaned up next week....

Product Engineering CAD Designer in interiors for a major automotive company. Fun! Too bad there's no money in CAD design for pinball makers

I&C Technician. I quit there to go to Pfizer.

25 years as a service tech in HVAC/R.
18 years as a business owner.
25 years of outdoor work in New England.
Last December I took a job as a service manager.

There are solenoids , boards and relays in HVAC/R
Pinball repair came pretty easy.

Psychologist, Trash man, Bean Counter, and Stress Bomb = Work in a family owned business

I had a heated game going on my MMR yesterday, it was chilling.

I work for SolidWorks, 3D CAD software, Stern uses it. So does Heighway. Both Alien and GB smack of it.

Ex firefighter. BMET II currently.

It's all in the size of the machine. Cars are bigger than pins and heavy trucks are bigger than cars.

I saw them in Detroit at a small hall. Around 1982 or 3.

Shoot, I guess my next job should be designing cruise ships for Royal Caribbean..

We use Icemsurf Class-A surfacing software as well as Catia V5

We own Catia. That's usually used on massive products. Learn SolidWorks and get in the Pinball industry.

Retired Air Force pilot and current pilot for Lockheed Martin.

I'm using Solidworks to design a watch! It is widely used in the horological community.

Retired family doctor. Prior CEO of medical software company I founded - sold in 2015.

I think I talked the owner of the company I work for into laying me off! With any luck I'll have something new here soon

Dassault Systemes, eh?

To be honest, the things we draw in Catia V5 could never be done in Solidworks. Too many complex Class-A surfaces that need to have the ability to be manipulated. We could use Solidworks to do the things like fasteners, Steel brackets, plastic screw grommets, etc. but never the production designs of interior trim panels that need to be fully parametric. Also, we manage large assemblies that have complex BOMs and Catia does that extremely well.

Here's a good Q&A on the differences between the 2 softwares

https://grabcad.com/questions/what-is-the-difference-between-catia-and-solidworks--1

I grew up in High Point.

As I said, learn SolidWorks if you want to get in the Pinball industry.

I am an Ambassador!!! It says so on my business card so it must be true.
Ambassador (resized).jpg
I wear shirts to work that proclaim how Outstanding!!! my custom home building company is.
Elkstanding (resized).jpg
On the back of the shirts I wear, I let the general public know about the scope of my services.
We build stuff (resized).jpg
Basically, "I'm the shit, I'm the shit, I'm the shit!!!!!"

QSS

Elk Run (resized).jpg

Awesome. Calling in a fake pizza order now.

Owner and operator of Milltown ink tattoo

Local Butcher.. I take meat in the rear!

Tube steak?

Milltown, are you near where they do that big rat rod shod every year?

IT Manager for an FFRDC (http://www.ll.mit.edu/)

• Space Control
• Air, Missile, & Maritime Defense Technology
• Communication Systems
• Cyber Security & Information Systems
• ISR Systems & Technology
• Advanced Technology
• Tactical Systems
• Homeland Protection
• Air Traffic Control
• Engineering

I had a buddy that owned a wholesale meat place. Made mostly sausage.

The real name was boring, but his name was Pete... so, the unofficial name/slogan was:

"Pete's Meats! Nobody beats my meat!"

<mic drop>
faz

LOL. I had some college students come into my pro shop a couple of years ago, looking to buy some golf clubs. One of them mentioned that they saw the same clubs at the local Dick's Sporting Goods store in the mall, about 10 miles down the road from my course. I was quick to tell them, "I'll always beat Dick's." It was one of those times that as the words were coming out of my mouth, I knew I was in trouble, but it was too late. They all looked at each other, and I just stood there shaking my head and looking at the ground. Then we all just started laughing.

Sweet! Just like any relationship it is always better to make them think it is their idea when you want out.

I learned AutoCAD in DOS when I was in college because my professor didn't trust Windows 3.1.

When I got promoted to Design Engineer at the 4x4 RV manufacturer many years later, they had SolidWorks 2005. I had to teach myself how to use it as I was the only engineer there. SolidWorks has a fantastic built-in tutorial for a lot of the basic stuff and within a month I was up and running and designing parts. I love SolidWorks, always will.

I work at the Best Buy corporate in Minneapolis. I've spent most of my 13 years here working in the music/musical instruments division. It's been a crazy ride and while it's sad to see the retail music business literally die before my eyes, I went to countless free concerts, got countless free CD's, and became friends with many of my musical heroes over the years. It's been a great ride.

Rapper.Model.Actor

Trumpet? I hauled a tuba. Try fitting that thing on a school bus

Chemical Engineer - Partner in a mid-sized engineering consulting firm designing oil and natural gas processing facilities. My training did not prepare me for pinball machines...shoulda been a Mechanical or an Electrical Engineer.

So you live with your parents or girlfriend?! Hahah..kidding man!

But you woulda missed OChem in college.

19 years as a Franchisee with 6 locations , and i also have a few rentals also.

Applications developer/director at a marketing communications company in Pittsburgh. Been building websites for about 20 years mostly in asp.net/windows.

In our company back around 2000, the president's girlfriend had an Addams family brought to the office since her ex just left it at her house. I played it a bit but the pinball bug didn't hit me until 2014 when I saw an news story about a pinball auction and picked up some woodrails. Been crazy for the hobby ever since.

Software engineer at a major automotive company. Working on advanced safety systems and soon, self driving vehicles.

Devops engineer specializing in automation in cloud computing environments.

That's because you've never designed in Catia V5. Both are owned by Dassault. If I had full range at work, i could have unobtanium plastic parts laser scanned, I would the design the production design in Catia including the tooling for either vac-form or even injection molding tooling. we do parts in mostly ABS, polypropylene (PP) and various nylons. the problem with the whole thing is production tools, especially for injection
molding (like Who Dunnits center ramp) is wildly expensive. there is always prototype aluminum tools that are not fully automated and would cut down on costs dramatically.

Urologist

My coworkers have declared my title as "King of the Lab", hence my nickname here. I always get the toughest most complicated projects ... or I turn them into that. LOL. My tests seem like they are always the highest priority in the lab, which is another reason why they declare me "the king". I am a Senior Test Engineer at a company that does testing primarily for vehicles of the automotive, military, agricultural variety and their suppliers. The most sophisticated tests involve instrumenting a vehicle, driving at a proving ground or special terrain, then bring it back into the lab and simulate all the most severe loads and displacements during the data acquisition. I primarily design custom hydraulic simulation test rigs for unique testing situations, supervise the test buildup and then make the test run. My peers across the country in the software technology we use for these tests voted me in as the chairman of the software user group ... likely because of all the weird stuff I present to them on things I do with the simulation software and test rigs.

After patting myself on the back there, I really owe a lot to some of my technicians that have used their creative talents to make my designs come to life.

Lots of stories could be told. One data acquisition we drove a truck up a couple of small shale waterfalls in a creek bed that a gas company drove to service lines and were complaining to one automotive company that their frames were breaking. Gee, I wonder why. No follow-up tests were needed after that one.

Lots of fun and stories over the past 30 years I worked there. Great people to work with. By the way, we are hiring Engineers, Mechanical Technicians, and Instrumentation Technicians. Business is the best it's been in many years ...

Really don't have any official title since the company I work for is cheap to say the least but I think the guy that cleans the toilets in the restrooms once referred to me as a "Packaging Engineer" so I guess coming from him that's as good as anything else. They did just acknowledge my 25 year anniversary with a cake so I guess that's something.

John

My 25th anniversary cake. March 10th, 2017 (resized).jpg

Trunking & Switching Technician for a Telecom.

almost 20 years, the job had created me to be just dangerous enough right off the bat as an early pinhead.

yard maintenance device operator...

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Then you are an agricultural architect!

It hurts when I pee!