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.
I stumbled into the field of construction cost estimating, because I wasn’t watching where I was going, and it has been good to me. There’s only an education/certification requirement for the companies that do the largest commercial projects (at least in my region). However, there’s a pretty large job market because there are a ton of smaller commercial & residential builders.
I’ll never be wealthy, but I make a decent living, and my work/life balance is good. I primarily work in the office, but get out in the field enough to keep it from getting boring. There is also a good ability to move up into project management, which can pay better, but also has a higher stress level in general.
This is an absolutely boring one, but did you know part of your seatbelt, right now, could just be colored in?
How about your seat cover? Your steering wheel? Some poor bastard had to go get that out of stock, bring it into repair, go over the entire lot, and take a special pencil to color in those little scratches, or mark it as unrepairable.
I was that bastard for awhile. It sucked. 10 hours going over whatever needed checking that day. An “exciting” day meant a defect hit the line and we needed to hunt it down, hopefully without stopping production.
“Repair” can cover a lot of things, and that was the worst repair work I’ve ever done.
Some poor bastard had to go get that out of stock, bring it into repair, go over the entire lot, and take a special pencil to color in those little scratches, or mark it as unrepairable.
…This is so simple it’s making me ask to be sure…This specific repair gig was…Coloring in scratches?
For the most part, all for customer-visible auto parts.
Other team got anything mechanical. We were purely visual.
Huh, that does seem like it could get pretty mindnumbing. Thanks for the reply, hope you’re at something better these days!
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 Conference and Events dept of my local college. We’re essentially the official school party planners.
