What do you do for a living?

I climb and inspect cellular phone towers.

How would you describe what you do?

We climb up a tower, say anywhere from 200 to 500 feet and do maintenance mainly on cellular phone towers changing changing out transmission lines or antennas. Sometimes we just change out light bulbs on the tower, that sort of thing.

What does your work entail?

It varies. A lot of times it’s just maintenance maintenance, changing out antennas and feed lines and, you know, fixing lighting systems, changing bulbs.

…we’ve had people come to work here saying how they’re mountain climbers, they’re not scared of heights or anything and they don’t last a day…

Some weeks you actually get into the building of the towers and that kind of stuff.

How did you get started?

I had friends that worked for a company in Cedar Rapids at the time, they asked me if I wanted to try it and I said, "Sure", you know, see what it was going to be like. If it didn’t work out I still had another job I could go back to, but I did it for two days and loved it, so here I am. Continue Reading …

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What do you do for a living?

I make beer.

How would you describe what you do?

Well, brewing is about 80% cleaning, so some say we’re glorified maids. I don’t like that term, but you have to be exceptionally clean in the brewing industry, so you’re always cleaning something. Whether it be circulating chemicals in a tank to clean it and then circulate chemicals to sterilize it and then, or maintaining your draft lines need to be clean because bacteria can build up in them. So you’re always cleaning something. Even during a brew day anywhere the beer or wort—before it’s beer it’s wort—comes in contact, you have to make sure that chemical passes through those pipes or hoses or valves and fittings.

…it’s still work but it’s work that you love. It’s not like you wake up in the morning like, “Oh, crap! I got to go make beer today!”

Besides that, there’s small amount of paperwork involved. You have to do your paperwork for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Twice a month, they get paperwork sent to them, and they get $7 a barrel that we produce. The state gets a percentage of beer that we sell and so there’s a small amount of paperwork. I’m not a desk-type of person, and a nightmare job for me would be sitting in front of a computer, in an office. So this is neat because you’re always on your feet. It’s very physical work, but you’re doing something different. Creating recipes is a fun part of it. When I was searching for jobs and I ended up here, I liked the pub environment and a smaller system where I can use my creative freedom. I can create new batches of beer, keep the customers on their toes as what’s coming out next; different styles, that kind of thing.  Continue Reading …

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What do you do for a living?

I’m the operations manager for a tower company, a company that builds broadcasts and communications towers, but I got my start climbing up and down them.

How would you describe what you do?

We do everything that’s involved with building and maintaining a tower.

What does your work entail as a tower climber?

We build the towers, we take them down, we put the lights on them, we change the lights, we paint them, we scrape them, we run the antennas and lines.

When you go up a tower and you’re climbing 400 feet, you’re not coming down to get a cup of coffee, you’re not coming down to warm your hands, you’re not coming down for a lunch break. When you go up the tower you’re going to be there all day, it’s kind of like being like a mountain climber.

One of the more interesting things for most tower climbers is when they do a really high re-lamp, because most of them they’re are at night, and the broadcast towers could be 1,000 or 1,500-foot tall. They take the station off the air at one or two a.m. and you’re climbing in the wee hours of the morning changing the bulbs. Continue Reading …

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What do you do for a living?

I’m a meat cutter.   I own a meat shop.

How would you describe what you do?

Basically, I bring boxed beef in, put it on the block, break it down, cut and trim it,  then retail it.

What does your work entail?

Setting the counter, unloading trucks, and waiting on customers. I cut beef, pork, chicken. Customers call in and they tell me how many steaks they want and how thick they want them, or what weight of roast they want.  We do wild game processing.  I work about nine hour days, pretty well staying at six days a week. I would say cutting meat is probably about a four hours of the day, and the rest of the time is paperwork, cleaning up, and waiting on customers. 

People are not wanting prefab meat. They’re not wanting stuff that’s been injected with solutions and shot with carbon dioxide to keep it from changing colors. They want something fresh cut.

Most shops stay anywhere from 35 to 42 degrees working temperature. You’ll spend four hours a day in there and if you work in a grocery store you’ll spend eight hours a day.  You don’t notice the temperature.  You become very accustomed to it.  I wear shorts and short sleeves year round. I’ve been in it since I was 16. Most people will be chilled where I work, I’m not chilled. My freezer is set at minus 10, and its cold in there. High speed fans, about 35 miles per hour fans, you step in there it is cold. You can freeze a coke in about 10 minutes.

How did you get started?

Continue Reading …

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