finally…my job
i’ve already given the background on how i got my job so in this post i’ll tell you a little bit about what i do.
an overview of the business is that we build models, miniature scale and full scale trainers, and conceptualize designs. everything is done in house pretty much. we have a machine shop with every piece of metal cutting machinery known to man. in what we call the “high bay” there is a welding section with more gas cylinders than i have had time to count, a sealed and vented paintbooth, a woodworking section for building our own custom shipping crates, and room to build massive, full scale models and trainers. right now there is an f-22 sitting in there which is being built as a fuel system trainer for the air force. i work in the low bay (a.k.a. model shop) which is where we do all of our miniature modeling. i work in there with 3 other guys: fred, john, and mark. we have access to every shape and size of acrylic made, a laser cutting machine, a 3-d printer (not kidding…it prints in plastic), and an assortment of pre-purchased stairs, fences, mall paneling and the like.
we get jobs by bidding on them. for instance, an oil company may want to propose a new oil rig to be built and they want a detailed scaled model to increase hype or something. we will bid based on man hours that it takes to finish the job including design, build, and finishing. so we may allocate 100 hours to build this project. the less time they give us, the less detail that goes into the model and the less it costs the client.
i went in on monday and basically got shown around the shop again. i met the guys in the model shop that i would be working with and got shown to my desk. it was covered with junk (including two microwaves that don’t work) and dust. anybody who knows me knows that i cannot do any kind of work in a cluttered or dirty setting. so i was in the middle of cleaning it when the vice president of the company walks up to me and starts telling me about the two laser cutting machines that the company owns and how one of them is not working. he continued by saying that he believes it is the tube that is messed up and has found one on ebay that he thinks may work. to confirm this, he wants me to take apart this machine and compare the tube in hand to the one on ebay. this caused me to spend 4 hours taking apart a high powered laser. muchos fun indeed. 
it turns out that they didn’t match and the machine is actually just an outdated piece of junk now. after lunch, i put it back together and then bugged the guys to let me put some stuff together. i did get to glue one item together but the hard work had already been done which is actually building the pieces. i also got a crash course in autocad from fred.
fred is the oldest of the three guys in the model shop. i think he is the quietest and easiest to upset. he pretty much is the only one who runs autocad and the laser machine because he has been doing it the longest and is pretty quick at it.
on tuesday i actually started learning how they do things as far as building is concerned. i kind of latched onto john that morning. he has been doing scale modeling for about 20 years and he is incredible. i’ve seen his portfolio. unreal. he told me that he sees me as his retirement. so he pretty much let me follow him around the entire day and watch how he did his work, what decisions he was faced with, and why he went with whatever course of action he chose.
on wednesday is when i actually started working on things. i was given a small pulley system to build with the help of john. we pretty much spent all day wednesday building these things. i didn’t do a whole lot of the work myself but i did get my hands into it some. i wound up lasercutting some things myself by designing the pieces in autocad and melting plastic a few times (i was told when i started on monday that if i’m not messing things up, then i’m not working. they expect me to make mistakes in other words). but i got the hang of it and turned out some pretty nice pieces.
on thursday, i was given another pulley system and told to build it. so i spent thursday and friday designing and building it. it took me two days when really, john could have finished it in about 4-6 hours. but the exciting thing is that i designed, manufactured, and built the entire thing myself. i did get his input and approval at certain steps but he never touched the thing except to examine it.
and that’s pretty much my job. i actually laughed out loud on tuesday when i was glueing something together because i couldn’t believe i was getting paid to do something i would do for free at home at 3 in the morning when i should be sleeping.
i really believe that this is my career choice. i have retirement plans, insurance, paid holidays, and room to grow in salary. apparently there is way more money to be made in this field than i thought when i was looking into it. john didn’t tell me how much he makes but he made sure i knew he does very well. there is also job security because there aren’t that many young people looking to join this field. but on top of all of that, it is fun for me. i get excited about the idea of designing and building miniatures and then being able to learn anything else at the shop that i want.
this is absolutely a dream come true for me. i couldn’t be happier right now.
