But sampling soil from who-knows-where is shit. Imagine two weeks of rain at 4 °C and everyday you have to drive out. You are muddy, you are wet, you are freezing.
with the right gear even freezing rain is tolerable, the big thing is that you need to prevent any water from getting between the boots and the rain/snow pants (or use the single piece pant boot things for wading).
I'm in cybersecurity and being a heat pump technician is starting to sound very appealing. Can't seem to convince my younger brother tho. Guess we all gotta make our mistakes before we can learn.
I firmly believe you cant really fully articulate what a certain career feels like. You need to experience it for yourself because it subjective. Some may like it and some may not. If he were to listen to your advice, he may be left wondering; what if.
Funny enough i switched from being an electrician to doing IT a few years ago.
I'm making a ton more money and I'm inside all day. Which is nice today because it's 25°F and windy as shit here today. Its less nice when it's 70°F and sunny though.
I have a family friend who grew up near a creek. He loved bass fishing, so when he heard that invasive carp were eating bass eggs he took that personally.
He'd go out night after night bow hunting carp. He'd kill them and throw them on the bank for animals to eat. Dozens of these huge fish every night for years.
Eventually he cleaned out several miles of the creek by his house, and it's some of the best bass fishing in the area.
Same story. Went to college uncertain what he wanted. Did liberal arts, realized he was always curious about how the brain works, and just kept pushing through.
He's not really sure how he was going to make a living, but he's good at what he does and it's the only thing that keeps him going.
A few drinking sessions prior, we celebrated over him submitting a paper that took five years to write.
Forrest Gump: "I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floatin' around accidental-like on a breeze. But I, I think maybe it's both."
Tried this with geology. Then quit and went to get a PhD. Now as a postdoc finding out that even the $50 million grant to "sustainably extract critical elements" is mostly bullshit. The system can't self-correct.
I basically fell into my life choices and they've worked out remarkably well for me. I intended, upon leaving high school, to get a music education degree and become a high school band teacher. Then due to budget reasons (and an unwillingness to take out $50-80k in loans) and having to work full time to support myself, I ended up taking a break from school (after taking 5 years to get my Associates Degree). I moved to the opposite side of the country on a whim, and after a year and a half at a truly miserable call center job, my friend suggested the Coast Guard. So I talked to a recruiter and got a report date.
Around the same time, I met a woman in my area (back before online dating was the tragic mess it currently is) while just looking for people to do things with, since I moved across the country knowing nobody. We got along, but nothing kicked off until I told her I was joining the military (leaving), we both expressed how interested we were in each other, and became a couple.
I'll spare you the longer story, but ended up proposing during "off-base liberty" in boot camp (generally speaking DO NOT RECOMMEND) because I was moving halfway across the country, and, per my proposal, "neither of us have anything, you just lost your job, and the way we both are, even if it's bad we'll stick it out for a year. And if you ever want to go back, we'll buy you a plane ticket, split what we have, and you're no worse off than you are now." We ended up getting along amazingly.
And I was worried about joining the military (which I was doing for the GI Bill so I could finish school then become a band teacher), but the job I've been doing is WAY better than being a band teacher, and I'm currently buying a house (for the second time) and getting set to retire somewhere amazing. At 46.
My life is considerably better than anything I might have planned, because I went along with the opportunities that came up. I think OP failed task successfully.
My thought as well... There is a small chance that it was for a private firm, but I imagine most jobs like this are government.
Even if it was private sector, eliminating this regulatory enforcement avenue lowers the demand for this kind of work, so it could affect people's jobs there as well.
No need for a contractor to sub-contract you to take soil samples if there's no regulations surrounding soil composition!