S/O Husband work hrs...Can you/are you able to describe his job?

[Barry Goldwater]

In Detail? For example:

 

My Husband is an engineer...

versus

My husband designes CNC machines that mill precision aeronautical components for the commercial airline industry.

 

OR

 

My Husband is in law enforcement...

versus

DH is a detective in a state wide money-laundering task force targeting Mexican drug gangs.

 

How many of you are aware or can explain the DH's day-to-day business/wage or income earning activities? Just curious...

[TXMomof4]

I can with dh's position now that Dh is in the army full time. When he was NG his civilian job was a 'telecom engineer' and I know he worked with routers, basically. T1, multiplexer, fiber - plus all the trade names of their equipment are all things that had my eyes glazed over the minute he started talking.

 

I hope it will be the same when he gets back to a signal company in the army. He is great at his job, but he doesn't love it right now. He loves computer geek stuff. (hows that for a technical term?)

[Carrie12345]

My dh drives a lot, and talks on the phone constantly. :lol:

 

He manages the remediation of (mostly) commercial buildings and contents damaged by water and mold. I *could give more details, but they're pretty boring. I typically know more than I need to about his job!

[mrs.m]

I can but I'm not exactly certain of what it is that he does. It's over my head! As I understand it my DH is a consultant for a major corporation. More specifically an IT infrastructure engineer. So he helps major corporations build their network system and integrates software to help them get their work done. He also has an emphasis in network security.

 

He's awesome! :D

[The Girls' Mom]

My dh wears so many hats in his company that it IS hard to describe his job.

 

Technically he's phone support for the service group for Cummins Power Generation. But he's also an engineer, manual writer, software designer, teacher and hand holder depending on who's on the other end of the phone. He's spent 20 years in the business and has an uncanny knack for memory. This has led to him being the "go to guy" for a myriad of problems.

[abbeyej]

I like it when people accept, "He's a professor" and don't press me for further details. 'Cause it *is* hard to explain! And I rarely do a good job of conveying his actual area of study and expertise, and he doesn't fit neatly into a category people are familiar with...

[Pamela H in Texas]

I can for most jobs hubby has had. He's pretty detailed in his descriptions of situations, usually while complaining about some coworker :) Also, he's helped both kids be able to do the figuring required as well as read prints.

[Wheres Toto]

I can. He's a vice president of Analytical R&D for a generic pharmaceutical company. He analyzes formulations to ensure they are bioequivalent to the accepted brands, prepares ANDA's for the FDA, inspects and prepares in the set-up of foreign and domestic manufacturing facilities to make sure they are GMP compliant.

 

My understanding is probably helped by the fact that I worked in the same industry.

[nukeswife]

I could explain it in much more depth, if he was allowed to tell me more about it.

He's a Nuclear Propulsion officer for the Navy and when he's in the reactor dept. there isn't much he can tell me. Currently he's the Executive Officer of the ship, which means he's 2nd in command and it involves lots of paperwork, making sure the things that need to be done in preparation for deployments or underways are completed and he coordinates any disciplinary actions with the CO. Nothing too exciting.

[elegantlion]

Yes, my dh is a self-employed carpenter. He can replace your toilet, build you a house, or anything in between. His specialty is finish carpentry. You should see the glazing he put on the textured plaster walls in our former home, it looked like golden leather. I miss those walls.

 

So, yes, I can. I remember years ago being shocked that a teenager had no clue what her dad did for a living. She was working at a grocery store and told the other cashier that her dad did something and people at the store knew him. I thought it was SO sad.

 

My ds can describe what my dh does as he goes to work with him from time to time. He recently spent three weeks out of town working with him. I know how hard dh works, because I've tried to do it. I'm a lousy carpenter, but I don't ask him to teach Latin, English, or History either, so it all works out.

[amy g.]

My husband is an engineer in charge of preventing natural gas pipeline explosions.

 

My brother went to work with him once, and said, "anyone could do his job. All he does is talk on the phone!" I suspect it is a little harder than that.

 

My husband travels quite a bit, and his job is never boring. It doesn't hurt that he is brilliant, but some of the same qualities that make him an incredible husband and father also make him great at his job.

 

He really knows how to build relationships, and people trust him because he has proven himself trustworthy. He has so much empathy for others, but doesn't care if they get mad when he gives them a badly needed kick in the pants.

[Melissa B]

I generally say my husband is in sales or my husband works for ______. People generally aren't interested in knowing more than that and I like to protect dh's privacy.

 

My husband is a large-format sales representative to a major beverage corporation. His current sales area is the city in which we currently reside. His primary focus is on the sale of beverages/beverage displays to the large-format businesses (generally grocery stores) in his sales area. His income is based on a secured daily rate plus weekly commission.

 

He is very good at his job, but he doesn't love it. If he was doing what he loved he would probably own a Jeep dealership and lead off-road excursions on the weekends. :D

[lionfamily1999]

Dh is an ASE certified master mechanic. He is usually the one to find out why a car is running wrong.

 

He is paid an hourly flat rate. This means that when the garage hands someone a bill and it say $X for labor that dh is actually getting a piece of that amount. It used to be that he could rely on the office workers to look up the labor for a job (there are databases and books with this information), now the office guy does his best to cheat dh out of hours in order to "save the customer money." So, dh hunts down the labor info for a particular job, finds out how many hours the job calls for and then demands that his paycheck reflect the labor hours listed, rather than whatever the guy in the office thinks is "fair." So, if a job calls for X hours and dh finishes in less than X hours, he still gets paid for X hours (and the customer still pays for X hours). However, if dh is doing a job and finishes in more than X hours, he still gets paid for X hours and the customer only pays for X hours.

 

All this goes out the window with diagnostic work, which is most of what dh does. Because there is no set time for diagnosing a car dh can get screwed badly and quickly. If a car is not taken care of and there is grime all over the engine, or the inside is cluttered with food wrappers and debris that keep him from accessing the areas under the dash, he does NOT get paid for squirming around in it. So, some of dh's time is spent cleaning out cars and cleaning their engines so he can finally start to diagnose the problem.

 

There's more... I could go on all day :p There was a time he had to clean out five pounds of dog food infested with maggots from underneath someone's dash board... He got paid for an hour labor. Yeah, not doing that again. Mystery smells mean you need to clean your car out ;)

 

:lol:

 

Dh being a mechanic, of course, means that our cars are in mediocre condition, all due for a tune up and oil change, and rarely get worked on.

Edited September 22, 2010 by lionfamily1999
didn't add enough detail

[kewb]

My dh is an IT Consultant. After that I glaze over and have absolutely no idea.

[4kiddies]

Yes, my husband is a political consultant. He manages multiple candidates campaigns dealing with grassroots organizations, media organizations, day to day scheduling and damage control when needed.

[ilovemy6kids]

My hubby is Family Nurse Practitioner. He works 12 or longer days including weekends because he does not work at a traditional clinic. He works at an express care clinic in a grocery store. He sees about 30-45 paitents a day. The clinic is very busy because they charge a flat rate to be seen and people without insurance drive for well over an hour to be seen.

Sheri

[pooh bear]

My dh kinda works for AAA.

 

If you locked your keys in the car, your tire is flat or your battery is dead, when you call AAA, my dh is who AAA call and he goes and helps. Well, if you live in this area he will help.

 

Some days he has loads of calls is out of the house all day, some days not that many calls and he is home most of the day.

[hsbaby]

My dh is an IT Consultant. After that I glaze over and have absolutely no idea.

 

:iagree: My husband does IT as well. Talking about computers makes my head spin so we leave it at that.

[Laurie4b]

Yes, I am able to describe his job in detail.

[littlebug42]

He is a computer systems administrator for a local university. He helps maintain the computer servers particularly their calendar and email servers. His employment there also gets us a huge discount on college tuition so I hope he keeps it for a good long time.

[The Girls' Mom]

Dh is an ASE certified master mechanic. He is usually the one to find out why a car is running wrong.

 

There's more... I could go on all day :p There was a time he had to clean out five pounds of dog food infested with maggots from underneath someone's dash board... He got paid for an hour labor. Yeah, not doing that again. Mystery smells mean you need to clean your car out ;)

 

:lol:

 

Dh being a mechanic, of course, means that our cars are in mediocre condition, all due for a tune up and oil change, and rarely get worked on.

 

 

Oh, those were the days! My dh was also a mechanic for the first part of our marriage....he worked on RV's and tractor trailers though. The stories he could tell you....

 

And there's also a reason we only have newer cars now with warranties. So someone else can keep them running.

[ciyates]

Yes I know ALL the details of his job :tongue_smilie: I hear about his day indepth! LOL

[FaithManor]

My dh works for a software company that I am not allowed to name because the customer he designs for has a little policy about how much he can divulge since he gets to see their design secrets.

 

That said, he is a Senior Oracle Database Architect and Administrator who designs large data storage systems using Oracle in the back end and Java as the front end.....he normally does not have to do the Java programming because he has a team and some of them are Java certified. However, 80% of his team is off shore and while they have been taught how to write code, they do not understand the American business culture which means that many times, their Java code doesn't actually do the job the American company wanted it to do and DH has to do his job and clean up their mess as well.

 

A good week for him is 58-65 hours and good weeks are not the norm. A typical week is 70 hours. Bad weeks are 80-92 hours. He hasn't had a pay raise or a bonus in 5 years and took a pay cut two years ago. He does have a fair amount of job security. The American Customer likes him so much that when they renegotiated the contract with the company there is a 4.5 million dollar penalty if his company let's him go before the five year contract expires. So, we are thankful for that.

 

In a regular week he is splitting his time between:

a. Writing code

b. Supporting the end users (the call center and the overseas techs are very rarely able to field even simple calls because of, well, a lot of things.....the overseas workers are not unintelligent...I don't mean to even hint at that. They just don't have a fundamental concept of U.S. business needs and come from a culture that is never really in a hurry. So they are very slow to return phone calls and poor at prioritizing the problems.)

c. Leading LONG conference calls gathering program requirements for the next software releases or helping his boss price out work for new contracts.

 

He really hates his job and would love to work somewhere else. His firm treats their employees horridly. Some of the managers refer to the U.S. team members as "our American slaves" and "indentured servants". So, if this economy should ever turn around, he will be looking to get out.

 

I can name most of his team and all of the upper management he reports to. Unfortunately, I can not begin to spell the names of many of his team members.

 

Quite often I bring him hot tea, coffee, or his lunch while he works because he hardly even gets bathroom breaks....they schedule his day that tightly when he works from home. So, I get to catch snippets of his conversations since he does them on speaker phone so he can program and be in a meeting at the same time. It's ridiculous and I have a very hard time not picking up the receiver and telling people off!

 

So I know quite a lot but I don't know even one company secret from his company and that's the way it is supposed to be.

 

Faith

[Renee in NC]

My dh does maintenance and landscaping at a major racetrack.:D

[lionfamily1999]

Oh, those were the days! My dh was also a mechanic for the first part of our marriage....he worked on RV's and tractor trailers though. The stories he could tell you....

 

And there's also a reason we only have newer cars now with warranties. So someone else can keep them running.

He started off working on small engines as a preteen, worked on heavy trucks until he was around 20, then he went into construction and vowed never to work on vehicles ever again...................

 

Then we met and he needed to work to woo me and he went back to being a mechanic :p

 

We drive ancient cars we got for next to nothing from people that didn't want to or couldn't afford to fix them. :glare: Granted, the taxes are low and I drive a Volvo station wagon :D , but it would be nice to be the first (or tenth) owner of a car.

[hsm6kids]

My DH is a corrections officer for the local sheriff dept. and county Jail. He works in the tower which is a privileged pod, Not because the inmates have privileges but because they only allow certain officers to work that floor. It houses the inmates that due to the nature of their crime, the fact they they assault staff, or because they need to be in protective custody can not be house in general population. He basically makes sure that all their physical needs are met, gets them to any legal or medical apt. they may have etc. all while keeping them from hurting themselves, other inmates, or any staff including himself and the nurses who frequently have to hand out meds. and check on inmates. He as been assaulted 2 times in the last 3 mths. but that is part of his job and an inmate has never got the better of him yet. Thank GOD. He says that the worst part is that he feels like he is surrounded by evil all day. The inmates he deals with the most are ones who have been involved in pretty disturbing crimes.

[Kathleen in VA]

Yes, I'm pretty sure I could describe what dh does all day. He sorts mail into little wickets for about 2 hours. Then he takes all that mail and distributes it to a bunch of houses for about 6 hours.

 

His second job is even more exciting. He vacuums, cleans toilets and sinks, and removes trash from several doctors' offices.:D

[Lolly]

I cannot. He owns his company. They do digital work with documents for doctors, hospitals, lawyers, city, other businesses. Much of his work is confidential. He is not even allowed to disclose who some of his clients are because of security clearances required. He does not like to discuss work when he is home anyway. He wants to leave it at the office.

[MBM]

My husband's work varies from day to day. In essence, he works with numbers and budgets and has a good deal of contact with politicians. No day is typical as far as what is done, but he and his staff usually only work eight-hour days.

[Parrothead]

Yes I can tell you exactly what dh does all day and who he works for. Dh would prefer that I simply say that he is employed by the federal government in a law enforcement capacity.

[GWOB]

I can because I did the exact same thing for a while. DH and I met in the Navy while in training for the Navy Nuclear program. He was a nuke Electrician on a sub. I understood most things he spoke of. Now, he is a Senior Reactor Operator at a civilian nuke plant. The acronyms are different, so I often have to ask for clarification when he starts speaking acronymese. Still, I get the gist of what he does on his 12-hour shifts.

[mom31257]

I can. My dh is a public school high school teacher. He teaches 5 classes of World History, none of which are Honors or AP courses.

 

Another description might be, my dh spends all day attempting to manage a bunch of hormonal, immature people, while at the same time being expected to somehow enlighten them and increase their interest in a world they don't care about because all they want to do while they are there is to socialize. :001_smile:

 

Seriously, it is a difficult job. He thinks what makes it more difficult is there is some much discussion of what is wrong in education, yet there is no place that people can have an honest and open discussion about what's really wrong. If a teacher brings up what he/she sees is the "reality" of the situation, the teacher is labeled as negative and a trouble maker.

 

Everyone wants to say it's demographics or poverty that make kids perform poorly. My dh says it's a "want to" problem. He says give me a poor kid that wants to learn and he will. Give me a rich, white kid who doesn't care, and he won't learn.

 

He does see that the poor students from bad neighborhoods have a larger percentage of kids that don't "want to". He has 10th graders. Some of them are having their second child, or even fathering their third. Yet no one seems to be discouraging this from happening, especially in their own communities.

 

His job is really tough. He has always wanted to make a difference in kids' lives. He just sees less and less fruit of that. I think if the economy were better, he would try to leave education, but we don't see that happening anytime soon.

 

If he left, it would have a lot more to do with administration of schools than the kids. When a school is performing poorly (his is), they send in all kinds of people who give tons more work to the teachers. He thinks it is only to justify their jobs, because none of it makes any difference in the lives of the kids or helps them be better teachers. They all want to quote Ron Clark and other people movies were made about. You can't expect 99.9% of the teachers in this country to be just like those people.

 

Sorry for the vent! His job is a dear and touchy subject!

[GraciebytheBay]

My dh is a college professor of history and political science. He is also a local and national political analyst for local TV and radio stations. With the current state of NY politics and the upcoming election, he is very busy right now!

[Miss Peregrine]

My DH is a CHP officer. He works at a commercial facility inspecting trucks, writing tickets :D, working as Range Master, and Training Officer.

[Daisy]

Yeah, here is what my husband does...

 

 

 

I love this Youtube video. LOL.

[KrissiK]

My husband is a mechanical engineer.

 

He designs man-lifts. Is that specific enough?

[DawnM]

Kind of.

 

DH is an accounting manager for one of the Big 4 accounting firms in the country. He does taxes for ex-pats and in-pats (Americans working overseas and Foreigners working in the United States).

 

Beyond that.....I honestly have glazed eyes while he describes it! :lol: I can't think of a more boring job than sitting at a computer crunching numbers....but he loves it.

 

Dawn

[Mejane]

My husband plays golf and eats at nice restaurants.

 

;)

 

Seriously, he sells power plants and their components, specifically steam turbine generators, for a "major multi-national corporation." :D

Edited September 22, 2010 by Mejane

[justlittleoldme]

I guess since I answered the other one I will answer here. My hubby is a TV director. He directs people around to make TV shows. He shoots video and edits video too.

[dansamy]

In Detail?

 

I can. My DH is a licensed Airframe & Powerplant mechanic. He currently works on cargo jets doing heavy maintenance checks, where most of the panels are removed from the plane and the components are all cleaned, inspected and repaired. Any components not part of the check that are found to need repair are also handled at the same time.

[Dandelion]

Yes, I've always known - and been able to describe - what DH does. However, when I was still working, there were many years when DH could not remember or describe exactly what I did (and we worked for the same company at the time).... ;)

 

DH has his own government contracting company, which provides consulting services to the military on how the military can optimize its use of next-generation satellite and space communications technology. He develops proposals that look about 5-10 years out, incorporating anticipated advancements in the technology and ensuring that the military's use of that technology continues to keep step (it seems that the technology often advances and yet the military is several years behind in taking advantage of it - his work attempts to close that gap).

 

And yes, I wrote that entire paragraph without needing a "what do you do refresher" from DH... ;)

[Dawn in OH]

My husband is a chemical mixing engineer

 

or

 

My husband combines nasty chemicals together to make plastics and rubbers that are purchased by other companies that use them in the production of baby bottle nipples, golf balls, tires and other products.

[WarriorMama]

I can, but people usually just look baffled when I do...so I don't. :tongue_smilie:

[Tutor]

My dh is a PhD student in English. When he is on campus, he is TAing a class (it is an American Lit survey class, but I can't remember the years) two days a week. A third day, he runs four discussion sections for the same class. He just finished grading papers where the students had to look up a critical essay on a popular work from the time period they are studying and analyze the quality of the criticism. (He actually had a student email him to inform him that no critical essays have been written about Huck Finn.)

 

One night a week he gets together with other PhDs in his program to encourage each other in their research. When not in class, he is reading and preparing for his comps which cover American Literature and Film from 1894-1993. He just finished reading Tobacco Road. His thesis is going to have something to do with representations of minorities in respect to technology, but he hasn't quite narrowed down the specifics yet. His first chapter (aka his written comp) was on representations of Native Americans and the automobile in Leslie Marmon Silko's novel... ugh, the name escapes me.

[Harriet Vane]

Dh is an actuary.

 

In his former job, two years ago, he worked 8-5 with occasional overtime.

 

In his current job as a consultant, he works 8-5, but OFTEN has loooooooong hours of overtime in the evenings and weekends. He also often has to work through his lunch hour. It's more like 60+ hours per week. When a project is due to a client, he goes in early, comes home late, bolts down his dinner, and works all evening. He is looking for a non-consulting job with more reasonable expectations (sigh).

[Nestof3]

Of course.

 

He mows, trims and blows lawns. In the fall, he puts a mulching bagger system on so he doesn't have to hand bag. It also makes great leaf mulch to add to our compost. He has a 52-inch walk-behind Toro Z-Master and a smaller 36" one for smaller areas. He has a pushmower too.

 

He applies pesticides and herbicides according to the desires of the customer. Some are weed killers; others are pre-emergents (stopping germination). He hand-weeds beds when needed. He treats plant diseases. He goes to horiculture conventions and has tested for his certification. He fertilizes lawns.

 

He dethatches, areates and seeds lawns in the fall (most people want fescue seeded in the spring because that's when they realize the lawn needs help, but it needs to be done in the fall. It has a better chance if it has the time to strengthen before the summer heat and drought comes).

 

He mulches with tree mulch or pine straw. He plants flowers -- pansies in the fall, vinca and impatiens in the spring. He also plants trees, shrubs and perennials. He digs up shrubs customers no longer want. He trims shrubs and hedges and delimbs trees if he can reach the branches. He cuts up long limbs with his chain saw when necessary.

 

He tills beds and gardens. He has designed beds for customers.

 

He walks in dog poop, gets stung by yellow jackets, killed copperheads, has cut himself with hedge trimmers before, had sticks poke him in the eye, etc. He deals with customers who leave toys and dog poop lying around the backyard for him to deal with. For some reason, it doesn't occur to them to clean it up before he comes.

 

He repairs his equipment most of the time.

 

He repairs sprinkler heads and sets timers for people. He even flipped a mattress for an elderly couple once.

 

He buys all of the materials for the business. He handles any employees.

 

He works anywhere from 15 to 50 hours a week -- depending on the help and the time of year. He used to build things like garages for people during the winter or paint and do odd jobs to make extra money during his down-time. Once, he performed daily parking lot cleaning early in the morning. Now, he repairs and renovates things around our house in the winter. I know his exact salary because I'm the one who pays him ;). He's had the business for about 17 years and doesn't advertise. All of his customers come from recommendations.

 

*******************

 

I do the invoices, the tax paperwork, call late-paying customers, balance the checkbook, pay the taxes, etc. We usually stuff the envelopes together or I have the boys help me with it after I type them up. I hand make the 70 customer Christmas cards each year (my husband helps -- we hand-stamp each one). One year, we took candy and cookies by to all of our customers. I also send sympathy cards when needed. I have met most of his customers or at least seen their properties.

 

I'm an officer and VP of the corporation. ;)

 

PS -- I am not a slacker. We started school early this year, and the boys and I are sick -- so we're lounging around. :)

Edited September 22, 2010 by nestof3

[MariannNOVA]

Yes, I am able to describe what dh does -- but for the most part, I do not discuss it in detail owing to various other issues.

[eclipse]

My husband is a retail manager. I worked in retail for many years so, while I've never worked for the company he's with now, I feel fairly confident that I could describe his day to day activities.

[dansamy]

.. He even flipped a mattress for an elderly couple once..

 

That was sweet of him to do!

[Nestof3]

Another description might be, my dh spends all day attempting to manage a bunch of hormonal, immature people, while at the same time being expected to somehow enlighten them and increase their interest in a world they don't care about because all they want to do while they are there is to socialize. :001_smile:

 

 

 

:lol:

 

But, seriously, hats off to your husband! I know it has to be hard.