I’m gonna start this new topic because I’ve been dreaming about it as long as I can remember and that job is one you can’t have anymore and that is being a “ Cabooseman” I.e. one who rides in the caboose of a train. Just think of how great it would be sitting on the little deck on one of those things seeing the world back in the day when there was little communities beside the tracks or cabins close to them before all the crap we have now a days messin everything up… man what a life! When my shift was over I’d ask if I could do it for nothing, lol And those things had Buck stoves in them to for heat and to cook on, man that’s a job/life I can only dream of…`Preformatted text
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@Mark712 Stop posting in Miscellaneous if you don’t want your post/topic to be held up.
OK but a story about a job is supposed to go where now? Man I’ve said it a hundred times this website is the worst ever. Thanks for the info. I guess where I messed up was trying to post something on this site in the first place. I guess I should’ve put it in planes trains and auto mobiles.
It somewhat doesn’t matter. I usually post in Current Events.
Thank you Bruce, but as I was saying it’s just screwed up lol ( if it WAS funny that is )
Two of my friends were switchmen on the rail road. They would have to operate the switch on the rail line. But yeah basically all they did was ride along until they needed to change tracks.
Myself, I was a grocery store butcher. I had a knife in my hand most of the day, unless I was running the saw or meat grinder. 40 to 45 degrees no matter what the weather was outside. I actually enjoyed it. Always had a love of knives. Still do.
You can thank a Union for the demise of that job, or at least in a Walmart that is. A Texas Wal-Mart’s meat department successfully Unionized it’s Meat Cutting Department. In response “allegedly” Walmart eliminated that Department nationwide.
Having been a Manager for a Sam’s Club. I have personally sat in on anti Union meetings. They have “allegedly” a complete anti Union team made up of, what I like to call “pretty young things” of men, women, of every diversity category, who will arrive at any store that there is talk of Unionizing. To wine you, and dine you, on why Walmart is better as an individual employer with benefits such as direct access to Senior Management at Corporate who will fix any problem any associate has. Rather than having to go through a Union. Woe betide you, if you are a Manager in that store/department. You, as a manager are gone. No “if’s and’s or but’s” about it. You won’t get the ax because of that though. It will be for some other eleventyseventh reason. But you are still done.
" FYI, I am not disparaging Unions. I think Unions in their original usages helped give us the Middle Class that we have in America*.
Edit: punctuation, spelling, and mark ups.
Edit the 2nd: Changed order of words on a Texas Wal-Mart’s
Putting all the politics, unions, and placement of the original post aside, I think being a cabooseman would be a very cool job to have.
Sadly, there are no more cabooses except on the vintage trains running around the country with dedicated crews of retired railway workers, so we should probably consider “best jobs to have” within the modern job market.
I feel I have a pretty good job for a guy. I am the service manager for a growing commercial vehicle repair facility. I get to go to work every day and play “trucks” with my friends. What more could an old kid like me want?
Man I love knives as much as guns and have some 300 of them As a rule ( I finally pretty much stopped almost ) but Everytime I walked into a store that had any knives I wouldn’t leave without one from the age of 15 till recently at 63, I don’t know what the heck to do with them anymore because I’ll be feeding flies in the next 3-5 yrs probably but out of all of them I love my Lucas Forge Kephart knife best prolly, all the knife a man will ever need for anything designed by Horace Cephart ( or Kephart ) who lived in the woods his entire life
@ Bruce E , that’s a pretty cool and hard job and you really gotta know a lot of certain things to do that job I’m sure . I haven’t seen him in many years but a buddy of mine did that stuff ( worked on semis) and he was in the end stages of inventing a tool to take a part off the engines of the tractors/ semis, he had it all drawn out like we would do in mechanical drawing class and found a buyer Mac I think because that’s what they worked on and sold and was in the final stages but he and his ole lady got divorced and he went somewhere but as I remember it it was just something that looked like a small oil filter wrench but that’s not what was. Take care
Spent my career around vehicles, serial entrepreneur… had 4 businesses that God blessed me with. Started in the industry as a little tiker, grandfather was a car dealer. As soon as I could reach the top he had a buffer in my hand. Over the years became ASE certified in all kinds of stuff, raced asphalt stock cars. When I finally “grew up” made a living working with shops and manufacturers in different ways. I loved every minute of my time working. One of the hardest things about the iummune disease and eventually needing a transplant was that I had to quit. Back around the industry now, but not working.
I would say be buried with the Kephart and start giving some away, that’s what I have been doing. I have been buying fish poles and tackle at thrift shops and fixing them up for years now. I go and sit at the pavilion boat launch on the Wolf River and look young people who may want a fish pole and tackle, I have even showed a few how to use it.
@Zavier_D ,Truer words have never been spoken, and the pop job I got from a union I’ll give em heck no matter who likes it. My grandfather always said that Unions will take this country down and he was right IMHO. Back when they were founded and needed especially where I’m from in coal country they were badly needed but anymore they are to protect the (I’ll be nice as I can) people who are spoiled and don’t know how easy they have it. I don’t wanna rag them all night but I got hired at a place that had just voted to go union and the bosses said “ we’ll get every one of you SOBs” he’ll I hardly knew what a union was but it was a closed shop and if you got hired in as a worker you was union. [quote=“Mark712, post:1, topic:107352, full:true”]
I’m gonna start this new topic because I’ve been dreaming about it as long as I can remember and that job is one you can’t have anymore and that is being a “ Cabooseman” I.e. one who rides in the caboose of a train. Just think of how great it would be sitting on the little deck on one of those things seeing the world back in the day when there was little communities beside the tracks or cabins close to them before all the crap we have now a days messin everything up… man what a life! When my shift was over I’d ask if I could do it for nothing, lol And those things had Buck stoves in them to for heat and to cook on, man that’s a job/life I can only dream of…`Preformatted text
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I don’t know what happened to my reply because it “ somehow “ went crazy and got stuck to the bottom of another reply, must have been a forbidden topic cause ppl are touchy about it
Best Job in the World?
I have to say (for me and me alone)
Was Bodyguarding MY General.
I got to see the World, earned the respect of the most Honorable man I ever met.
He saved my life (and I saved his). I met a bunch of Delta’s , Seals, SF’s and Ranger’s.
I became an honorary ‘Grunt’! and damned proud of it!
The downside was seeing some of MY BROTHER’S die very badly.
I learned a lot of skills not necessarily open to a guy like me.
ON THE JOB TRAINING THAT WAS ONE OF A KIND.
Accepted by THE BEST OF THE BEST!
I was given the chance to TAKE THE OATH
“I, Donald Isaksen, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.” SO HELP ME GOD! I still get chills from that.
That Oath doesn’t have an expiration date
I Love this topic because I got to read what is in MY New BROTHER’S hearts tonight.
Thank you Mark for creating this Topic.
I got insight into some of the fella’s that I have come to respect and admire.
My Second Brother/Sisterhood. There are no better.
Stay Frosty Folk’s (We’re going to need it!)
adonde nosotros vamos uno nosotros ir todo!!!
Nessun passo sul serpente
My “Best Job in the World” would be full time Search and Rescue “SAR” in any of its many forms.
“That Others May Live.”
I served on an all-volunteer (as in we were paid nothing and bought much of our own equipment and relied on donations.) unit for 16 years and loved it. I found out late in life I was good at it and will always wish I had found out sooner.
We were "jack of all trades and master of none.
Our main job was Auto Extraction with Lost person SAR a close second.
Also trained in Water Rescue. Rope Rescue. Dead Body SAR. I was privileged to work with some of the best in Da UP. and Northern WI.
MSP. SO. and local PDs and Wisconsin K9 SOS Search and Rescue (wik9sos.org).
My dream job, I had it but only for about a year. I was a test driver for Firestone. Back when the Wilderness Tire for Firestone got all the negative press and blame for the 1992 Ford Explorer rollovers. Firestone put together a Demo team that travelled the Country putting on Demo’s of their new brand of Performance Firehawks tires. I got paid to drive a Saleen Mustang to its very limits.
I loved every minute with of it.
There was another job that I knew of that came open that I really wanted, it’s going to sound horrific, but the only time in all the years I had heard of this job,the only opening at this job was when someone on the team had died. That was being a test rider for Harley Davidson. While I was out traveling with Firestone up North, two members of the Harley test rider crew hit a cow and passed. My friend who worked for them gave me a call and told me if I could get there the next day I could interview. Firestone didn’t allow me the time off and I was really loving the job I had so I didn’t try to hard to get there. Be danged if they didn’t discontinue that Firestone demo team within 3 months.
Another dream job, I would love to have had, would have been moving yachts. Hire on as the Captain and get them from place to place (in the water) one of my sisters ex husband’s friend did that, So I could have really had a shot at that until they got divorced (not amicably).
Another job(s) I had dreamed about was as a Marine Biologist. Jacque Cousteau was my hero as a kid. So much so I looked into and found out to much. Woods Hole was my dream so I looked into what I needed. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts was the goal. But I would have needed a post graduate degree to do what I wanted, as well as being multi lingual and the starting pay was $19,000 a year. So the Navy started looking better and better.
Lighthouse tender.
Ranger on fire watch waaaay back in the woods.
Or I wish I could have found a way to monetize my favorite volunteer position. I was part of an animal rescue group that would mobilize ahead of Natural Disasters like Hurricanes or in the aftermath. We had members that owned the rescue equiment, like I owned my dive gear, another guy owned a semi with a trailer that we built out to have a one bed veterinarian surgical suite and the ability to house rescued pets. We had agreements with 2 veterinarian schools so they had students who cycled through as needed for Vet Staff. A couple of Zods, 2 Humvees, more atv’s than we needed. All in all almost functioned like the military, we rotated through our positions like rescue team, or security, and such. I loved it but I was in such bad shape due to my disability. We operated under independent financing, 100% self funded through donations. But many of our licenses to assist came from one of the oldest and best rescue groups in the South. The small rescue, wound up folding during the COVID lockdown.
As has been said by someone somewhere said, “if I ever hit the Lottery big, I would never tell anyone, but there would be signs”. That would be one of them. Me reestablishing an Animal Rescue like that
P. S. Sorry for the massive info dump. It was a fun topic to think about.
Edit: Spalling, and punkunationd r hard. Az is sentence struktoirs.
Fun edit. Spelling and punctuation are hard. As is sentence structures.
food creator and designer.
WAIT! Thats what I do!
I am a chef!
Never mind!
WHAT? Was that English? Edit Gafilterfish, and Noodling r difficult Az a sentence building
I don’t know what you just said but you sound like you had a fun time typing it!