When reflexes acquired in your job are invading your daily life.
-When i was an intern in a retail, i had to fight against the urge to store the shelves during my own shopping sessions.
I got really used to technical conversations at work going “full duplex” where we’d excitedly talk over each other and interrupt constantly, just to get to each conclusion faster. I had a close coworker join my team, and he was much harder than normal to get a word in, so I got better at jumping in to interrupt until we were at the same pace and the technical communication was synced and flowing well.
Around a month after I’d been working with him, my wife started telling me I was being very rude and interrupting her more than usual. I guess the habit came home with me. I’m still working on it, though it’s been over 5 years since I switched out of his team.
I’ve been the electronic security game for about 25 years and I swear I instinctively notice and look directly at every video camera in every building I enter, and I swear if anybody noticed they’d think I’m casing the joint.
Do you look at them to know if they’re well place or for another reason?
They generally just catch my eye, then I may think about their placement. I’ve just been working in the field so long it’s like an unconscious professional interest I guess.
When I get in the car, I hit the blinker lever by instinct because on a forklift it puts you into forward or reverse gear.
Oh man, I’ve done the opposite and slammed the forklift into reverse when going to turn.
Former land surveyor. Was definitely counting my paces when I was not surveying.
Background: you’d often try to capture a grid of points, or cross section of a road, for example, at regular intervals. You’d roughly know your normal stride length conversion to metres, so if I were doing a 10m grid, it’d be: shoot a point, walk 11 paces, shoot a point, repeat for hundreds, sometimes thousands of points. It wasn’t long until you would be counting paces when you weren’t actively surveying.
Professionally, my ethics dictate that I speak up and force a change whenever I see any action that can lead to a catastrophic failure. This didn’t make someone popular.
I have stress dreams sometimes and about old jobs. Like in my dream I’ll wake up and suddenly remember I’ll need to be at a job I haven’t been at in years. But, the time has still passed. Like I’ll be wondering why they scheduled me when I haven’t been there in years, and then get even more stressed cuz I can’t remember how to do anything.
Another one, I work from home. Off hours if I’m watching a movie or playing a game I’ll sometimes look over to check my work laptop :/
Forcing myself not to stare down other people’s misbehaving children with the “teacher look” when out in public.
I’m a pilot. At a drive through, I read back the price as a matter of reflex.
I’m picturing “Affirmative. Dollar 1299 now proceeding to window, over.”
“Twelve ninety-nine, first window.” is what usually happens. I’m not the kind of dork that repeats it as “One Two Decimal Niner Niner.” The ham bands are full of geezers that’ll happily play that game with me if I want.
So, per the Pilot/Controller Glossary, “OVER” means “My transmission ended; I expect a response.” Because the communique at the speaker is finished and I don’t expect a response, “OUT” would be more appropriate, meaning “Conversation is over, I expect no response.” Though on the air you’ll often hear “Good day” which isn’t in the P/CG but I think is nicer.
I rather like the idea of having a word for “the conversation is over, I expect no response.” In daily life lol. Feels boss.
“Goodbye” used to mean that, though we’ve started to take it to mean “our relationship is permanently severed, I expect to never communicate with you again in my life.” Which, kind of amazing we felt the need to have a word for that.
“Smell ya later”
Biggest one would be trying to login to my pc with my work password.
There was a time when I looked at LCD screens I saw all the defects.
entering a home or commercial/retail building and noticing everything that needs to be fixed or maintained, listening for running water around fixtures, etc.
You’re probably an inspector.
sort of. commercial building operator.
When riding trains I look at the concrete cable canal running along the tracks thinking about whether we rent any fibers in that one or not.
I can’t watch anyone cook without steeling myself from mentioning their risky knife grip, mess-inducing lack of flow, slapdash mis, etc. 😵💫 On the positive side, I always call my status (“behind”, “hot”, “knife”, etc.)
I had an ex that asked me to show her how to cook and then proceeded to have a complete mental breakdown while screaming about how judgy I was being.
Turns out she lived off of turkey on flatbread, plain, every.single.night. We didn’t make it more than a month. My (now) wife went from only being able to bake, to a full on Sous Chef. Most nights I don’t have to say a word, we’re just on a mission to get dinner for 5 ready.
That’s romance right there 🥰🤘🏼
Yeah detaching your cheffiness in your personal life is a job in itself, I had OJT all throughout my children’s lives until they moved out, THEN my wife and I opened a BBQ joint and it’s just her and I and HOOOOO BOY the shoe is on the other foot!!! lol…we have fun.
we have fun
NGL, y’all seem to be livin’ the dream! 🥳
oh absolutely, had to leave the US to live the American Dream, and can’t say it was a bad decision!
Oh, please do share the how-to on that! 😅 Before it’s too late? 🥵
Sold our house at the right time (Trump presidency #1), funded a year & a half in the EU with ‘no income’ (you need to show income plus have enough funds to show independence -and family send letters of assurance & their bank statements for support, plus private insurance, etc. & patience.
Found an amazing town in 3.months and have been here for 7 years, restaurant opened 4 months before COVID lockdown, the landlord was amazing throughout the whole ordeal, didn’t charge the 3 months closure, we paid half rent for the 1st year and were able to repay it within a year). Neighbors were amazing (again) very supportive through the whole deal.
This is when we found out we can do it just by ourselves…the kids then some casual employees PT during the high season. This year we had 2 neighbors kids work with us for their first ‘real job’.
Great community, we work very hard but have some awesome quality of life (Mediterranean is 500m away) and more than anything got lucky.
I wish others the same!
500 meters from the Mediterranean?! Luuucky 😱🤩🖖🏼
37 years in the industry, I knew when I was a young cook I wouldn’t make jack shit for pay, so I always looked at places where I could enjoy life: N. Florida, Buenos Aires, Bermuda, Bonaire, Seattle, Los Angeles (ok, that was for straight up pay…never again!) now Spain. Hard work, a good partner, and dumb luck.
Not catching things. I worked at a leather shop with a lot of very sharp things.
I will just watch stuff fall. Even if it’s a friend tossing me my keys or something. Watch it sail thru the air and land right on the ground. Then I normally say “don’t throw shit at me” as their regular reminder that my instinct isn’t to catch things.
Also the phrase “heads up” doesn’t encourage me to catch something either. It encourages me to check the position of me feet for possible stabs.
I’m a software developer. I get very agitated when I have to sit next to someone who operates their computer slowly.
I’m a software tester. I break everything I use whether I’m trying or not.
