Personally, I’ve always loved the process of taking things apart, understanding how they work and putting them back together. I turned that into a degree in mechanical engineering and eventually a career in power plant operations. Couldn’t be happier with my work than I currently am. Its WORK but I don’t hate it and I feel like I’m doing something important.
Analytical chemist.
Educated in Marine biology, started work on the dock that developed my ability to handle bizarre hours and self motivation, used the bizarre hours to get a harvest gig in wine making cellar work where I learned to grind, used my grind and bizarre hours to do some commercial electrical installation, then did some electric meter reading where I learned the importance of attention to detail, used all of the above skills to become a winery lab technician where I got experience working with high functioning lab equipment, wanted to get away from wine so now I’m a chemist.
Life is good. I’ve been more underpaid at every step of the way, but I feel that’s allowed me to function with less stress at every step of the path.