Also, how did you get into it, and what sort of education or certifications (if any) did you need?
And if you were to get into the same niche today, would you? (And in some cases–COULD you, or has the door closed?)
I dont know if its really “Lesser Known”, but pest control is a very interesting field to work in and isnt often talked about in many circles.
Its essentially future proof, as we’re always going to have pests. Its one of those jobs where its the same enough every day that you get a little better, but different enough from call to call to keep you challenged and stay interested.
I wished that I had even considered it an open back in High School and gone to college/university to actually study pests in an academic setting, and be able to participate in some of the groundbreaking work taking place currently.
Has it ever happened that you accidentally took some pests (like bed bugs or cockroaches) home in your clothes or bag and infected your own home with it?
Nah. I mean, it can happen, and really only with bedbugs, but only if you’re not careful.
Roaches have no interest in being on your person, so.its not like they’re going to hitch a ride home with you. If I were to, say, take home a cardboard box from a heavily infested unit, then maybe (they loooove corrugated boxes), but that fall under “not careful”.
Bed bugs are pretty much the same. I mean, if you give a bear hug to a mattress that is heavily infested, then there is a chance that one could make it onto you and you bring it home, but theyre actually not that great at holding on (they are not like ticks where they latch on).
My only precaution is an ocular patdown of myself when I leave a unit, and as soon as I get home, my uniform goes into the dryer on High for 40 minutes to kill anything in the off chance I brought a bed bug or an egg home with me.
For one glorious summer I was a small boat sailing instructor at a summer camp. My life was sitting on the beach and teaching kids to sail. I had a wonderful tan, and sun bleached hair. My life was stress free and wonderful. I got into it by learning how to sail at that very camp, and applying for the job. It paid minimum wage, but it also came with free room and board, and I was a kid, so I didn’t really need any money anyways.
Not in this field anymore, but used to be a landscaper for a handful of years.
A lot of people think that landscaping is just grass cutting, but it’s called that because you are literally scaping the land, and sometimes beyond that.
Hell, roof work, foundation laying, pressure washing, among other things, have been a part of my duties during my time in that field.
I work in the surgical pathology department in a hospital.
Anything you get removed from surgery comes to me to be examined. Then I describe what I have and what sort of pathology I can see with the naked eye. I select and cut out pieces of tissue that are important to the case. The tissue undergoes further processing and eventually reaches the desk of a pathologist (a type of physician) who examines the tissue microscopically, forms a diagnosis, and ultimately signs out the case.
My job can assist with several things depending on the case…
- To help the clinician confirm or determine what type of lesion or disease process the patient has
- To document and confirm that a surgery was necessary
- To stage cancer cases
- To determine whether or not a cancer or lesion has been completely removed from the patient and there is none left inside their body
- To make sure the patient does not have an unsuspected cancer
I see everything from tiny boring specks of tissue they biopsy during a colonoscopy to large cancer resection cases.
The other day, I got an almost entirely necrotic above the knee amputation with maggots. A few days before that I got a 9 lb spleen. It’s fun in the lab.
In the US, my job generally requires a very specialized 2 year master’s degree (on top of a bachelor’s degree in any subject). In other countries, the role of my job can be fulfilled by different types of people depending on the country and education will be different.
I found out about the job on Google lol. I was looking for something hands on in healthcare or anatomy related, but I didn’t like patient contact. I would probably select this career again if I had a second go around. It pays pretty well and is interesting. But grad school in the US is very expensive.
From 2005 to 2008 in South Florida I created and ran a permit expediting company. It came from my mom managing a construction company, them having too many contracts, and not enough contractors to run their own permits. I saw a need and got together with a couple of friends to incorporate.
We pitched it to the owner of the company my mom managed and got a contract from them. We eventually picked up other companies as well.
So the job went like this: one of us be assigned to a specific geographic area or company for the day, we would stop by the office, pick up the paperwork for whatever permits had to be filed, retrieved, delivered.
We would visit the city building department and depending on the city (each ran things in drastically different ways with no consistency) we would be there for 15 minutes or all day. Some permits would be a quick, single day turnaround or could be in bureaucratic hell for a month or two. We’d charge based on the complexity and time involved in getting permits approved. Then we would either deliver the permits to the contractor or the job site. On occasion we would deliver liens to customers who didn’t pay their bills which could sometimes get dangerous.
The only people I’ve ever met that did this exact type of work were people I met within city building departments. It’s a relatively boring, but uncommon profession.
The job came with all kinds of weird knowledge that I’ve never had to use again, like how many palm trees on the property equal a shade tree for the purpose of landscaping requirements. Than answer back then was 3.
The company was born out of a construction boom after Hurricane Katrina and died during the housing market crash of 2008.
Edited for spelling and sentence structure.
Also edit: sometimes getting permits approved would involve meeting with city engineers, making corrections on engineering documents, and just having a good rapport with the city.
Also, currently I am a change control analyst for a telecom company. My job description literally says “protect the network”. Essentially network engineers submit projects to me, I check the projects for accuracy, impact risk, importance, etc. A lot of the time, I reject work because of errors, cutting corners, not enough preparation, etc.
My job is to balance the projects being done VS how many customers I want to piss off because their services get taken down. My engineers either absolutely love me, or would like to have the opportunity to stab me in a dark alley, there really is no in between. Generally the ones I reject often for crap work are the ones that also want to stab me.
