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It was 35 years ago this month that I got my first job as an engineer. (I had a degree for some time before this, but didn’t want to build nukes and there weren’t that many other jobs around in this are during the mid-80’s.)

So, my first job was updating the design of ice cream makers first designed in the 1860’s.

I did mostly work on the commercial line that was used in ice cream shops.

It was before I got my milk allergy, so there was a lot of product testing…
In fact it was almost exactly 1 year after the owner fired me that I got the milk allergy. I’ve always suspected a voodoo doll was involved on his part.
The owner was the worst person I’ve ever worked for. And, even though I have not worked there since 1988, it remains the worst job I’ve ever had. It was also the shortest at not quite 2 years.

I then got a job at a music synthesizer company making the blue boxes they used look nicer and hold 3x as much electronics.

That was a very cool product with big famous customers and such. The factory was on the banks of a river in New Hampshire. I lived close enough to walk to work each day, and I’m still friends with some of the folks I met working there 30 years later. But, the whole place went out of business due to a stupid mistake the president of the company made.

As the 90’s began I went to work for a telecom company that made portable testers for phone repair folks.

But, I spent most of my time working on the stuff that goes in the main offices to talk to other offices.

This was my second worst job, but I was there for almost 5 years.

After bailing on that company after my boss told me that in the 4 1/2 years I’d worked for him he never thought I had done a good job once, I moved on to be the chief engineer of a company that made awnings for RVs.

I liked that job a lot, even if it was almost 100km each direction to work and awful traffic.
The head of the division really was like a father to me and after previous bad jobs was a very nice change.
But, after two years our biggest customer defaulted on their contracted purchase from us and the division was sold off.
The new owners told me they’d make me factory manager and I could name my own salary.
I quit.
"I told him as much money as he could ask for," the new owner told my boss.
"He wants to design things and you were taking that away," my boss told him.

At the tail end of the 90’s I first went to work for the person who is still my boss now. At the time we were making laser markers.
I developed a reputation for designing things that worked very well, but looked ugly.

When my boss when to work for a start up company that was only the half the distance to home, I followed him.
The company was making inspection equipment for bluetooth chips. Sadly, in 2000, no one knew what bluetooth was and sales were not great.

The most polite but totally ruthless person I’ve ever known took over the start up and we were all out of work shortly later.
I had seen it coming and switched to another awful job before I was laid off.

In the early 2000’s there weren’t a lot of jobs for my skills out there, so I took a job designing furniture.

A lot of folks don’t think this fits with lasers, robot freezers and such, but it does.
We were shipping 70,000 units a week.
If we could save one gram of material on a shelf or desk, that added up very quickly.
I did more detailed analysis at that company than any of these others.
All the others it is a case of "if it needs to hold 100kg, make it hold 200 and we’ll be safe."
This place was "if you can make it hold 100.01 instead of 100.02 you’ll be a hero!"

But it was an awful place. Privately owned by people who cared more about loyalty than quality of work, I did not thrive there.
In 2008 when the economy crashed so did the need for new furniture.
The company’s income dropped to 1/4 of what it had been and I went with it.

After a long search for jobs and doing a bunch of small time consulting, I got a call from my old laser boss. He was working in robot freezers (-80C) and hired me to design a new very large one.
"If it is the size of a room, then your it 'works, but is ugly' will be OK," he told me.
And, it was.

And, when he swapped over to the competition 7 years ago, I was the first of about a dozen folks he brought with him.
So, now different robot freezers now at -190C, but similar problems.