I work in EMS. I’m also constantly checking out people’s veins (veins are beautiful!)

Any house I go into I’m mentally determining if a stretcher would get into the home, how easy it would be to get it around, and how I could get someone out if the stretcher didn’t fit. Basically everywhere I go I’m like “how easy would it be to get you out if you dropped unconscious?” I’m also judging how well the home is set up for maneuverability if the person living there has a sudden loss of mobility - even young people can break a bone and end up on crutches or temporarily in a wheelchair and you want more room to move than you may think. My apartment is up several flights of steps with no elevator, but if I could scoot myself up the stairs and get inside my apartment I’d be ok. I have everything set up in such a way that if I was injured I could get around very well inside for a few months, it would just be the coming in and out that would be a problem.

I also always back my car into parking spots, because we always back the ambulance in. When we aren’t on calls the ambulance is always backed in so that if we get a call we can leave quickly, and if we are on a call the ambulance is backed in so we can leave quickly if the scene becomes unsafe.

Excluding the IT aspect of my job, I am unable to walk past a ship without thoroughly examining its mast to see which antennae it has and determine the capabilities.

Some tidbits I’ve noticed:

• A HF radio is popular, despite the ship otherwise not being rated for areas where HF radios are required.
• Older EPIRBs are indestructible provided that the battery and the hydrostatic release units are changed on schedule. I still see models around that are decades old.
• Starlink is seeing more and more offshore use, but nobody is getting rid of their VSAT.
• Iridium is starting to make a dent in the amount of Inmarsat-C installations after Iridium became approved for GMDDS.
• Fleet77 is gone. Haven’t seen it in ages.

Mechanical engineering. Whenever I see a big piece of tech — say car, plane or any industrial machinery/piping — I think of all the time and effort that went into creating each part of it, from drawing blueprints, modeling, checking national/international standards, choosing materials, running software for calculations, running through different people for approval, assembly, maintenance, etc.

It’s so much work and even more paperwork. I feel we take what we have for granted.

Being trained in behavioral psychology and watching my girlfriend’s sister with her dogs is torture to me.

She’s got a good boi who barks for attention. She gives him attention every fucking time. He’ll be barking away in the corner while we try to talk, and instead of taking him outside or something, she calls him over to her and pets him.

I see this over and over again and think, “It’s no wonder he barks so much, when she reinforces him for it constantly.”

It drives me nuts and honestly makes me not want to go over to her house. I really want to say something, but I don’t want to be that person coming in and giving unsolicited advice to others about how to train their pets. So I just watch it happen over and again and suffer in (bark-filled) silence.

Edit to add: Also, my brother and his kids. This one hurts more for a number of reasons. He complains about how our mom raised us, but then does the same shit with his kids, never connecting the dots. Meanwhile I learned what not to do by watching my mom. Then through education and working in the field, not only have I been vindicated for the way I interact with kids, but I learned lots of new skills that could help the kids learn appropriate behavior while maintaining their self-esteem. But when my brother’s around, he’s all, “I’m their parent and I’ll raise them my way.” Even his own parents-in-law told him, “You listen to Whats_your_reasoning, she knows what she’s talking about.” But no, I’ve got to not do the things I do every day that could help his kids and his life in the long run because he doesn’t want to hear it.

As a software developer I tend to open the development console in my browser to see if I can remove paywalls or if i can identify errors if a site isn’t working

I’m a production artist so now I can’t really watch a movie or play a video game or see a billboard or something without wondering how they did a certain thing or if I see a small continuity error or something wasn’t masked out properly. It doesn’t detract from the experience, in fact it adds to it. When I see something that amazes me, I think of how I can recreate that by developing new techniques or using a piece of software I’ve never used before. And, I take a mental note of how a story affected me and what part really affected me and I use that as a reference for my own things to reproduce that genuine feeling I have of wonder, excitement, sadness, or fear.

And, as an artist working in the industry, when I see stuff that other budding artists have done sure I can spot things that could be improved. But, I understand where they’re coming from. I’ve heard a quote that I took to heart “Never criticize, always encourage.” And, so that’s what I try to do.

Oftentimes it’s, “This food sucks. I should have just cooked.”

I’m a data analyst/software engineer in rocket engine testing.

I get super excited when I see rocket launches in the news or on the Internet.

“Woah that’s so cool!”

“Holy shit! Hardware I touched is on that!”

“Yooooo. Those engines I tested are on the Moon!”

Great question!

I’m a parole officer tasked with interviewing defendants awaiting sentencing hearings and typing up pre-sentencing reports in which I give my recommendations to the courts regarding non-incarcerating sentences. As in, would a time-served and/or probationary sentence be appropriate in a particular case and why?

I meet people that seem genuinely sorry for their crimes and people that give zero fucks. I meet people that are awaiting trial for having stolen an apple from a supermarket and people that have raped their own children.

As I stroll about my town on my free time, I cannot stop myself - or my mind - from getting involved when I see people that seem to be having a hard time. I sometimes walk up to them asking how they are doing. Or asking them whether they could do without that last can of beer, or without shooting up that last injection. Or asking them who their social worker is and offering to walk them to the social services office.

Since I started doing this job, I have lost the ability to ignore that which to a lot of people is mere nuisance. Social injustice, addiction, violence of any kind. I have become too sensitive to them, perhaps to my own detriment, since I sometimes receive death threats when I intervene. Hopefully, it’s just the substance or an untrained attitude talking. 😄

Among other things I’m an audio editor and producer, and badly-done audio really grates on my brain. When clips have been poorly chopped together, when a character running away from a monster screams the exact same scream twice, when statements are clearly frankenclips made of fuck knows how many different recordings, my brain raises the alarm.

This is especially rough when reality TV competition shows are on. I like Drag Race, for example, but RuPaul is employing some idiots hacking at spools of worn-out tape with rusty knives or something.

“I’m _having trouble with ^this challenge!”

I always end up figuring out jingles and background music on tv even when I don’t really want to.

“Get a room, you two.”