After discovering Gockie is a database developer like me I wondered what others do for their day jobs.
I used to be a professional unicyclist by day… but my lucky break came and I had the chance to work in my real passion of Pick applications development. Part of an industry so old that only dinosaurs like myself still exist.
I noticed! Setonix and Ruari are in IT too. I’m a software developer, retired now apart from the occasional contract. I used to do trading systems in London, and even worked in Berkeley California many years ago.
I’d hesitate to declare a trend from 4 datapoints, but it also wouldn’t surprise me to find a connection between uni and IT.
QA/Testing mainly on Linux (and also in charge of desktop releases) for Vivaldi Browser and previously Opera Software (where I did much the same role).
I also frequently write on our blog, occasionally even mentioning unicycles.
I’m a teacher biology… secondary school…
Now that is getting weird. Another unicyclist who knows Universe.
By your description, you must surely work for our software supplier.
I’ve been the facilities manager for a multi-site church for the past 10 years. Before that I drove a redi-mix concrete truck and did concrete construction work.
Did you use databases in your work;),
I guess IT people like being on the Internet and are on forums in their spare time when they aren’t unicycling?
Forum participation helps with writing skills, IT people tend to have logical thinking… IT people also tend not to be particularly poor either, so we can buy unicycles without missing mortgage repayments or rent and still have money for food! Side note, I also play volleyball, and Volleyballers here tend to have well paying jobs too… I think a lot of people develop their volleyball skills at school and uni, and to stick to the sport requires dedication. Ditto unicycling!
My neighbours, they are church going. I went to the dad’s 50th birthday, he was into push bikes when younger and one of his burning desires was to learn to ride a unicycle. And for his 50th to surprise his family and friends, he rode down his driveway (which was not smooth at all I might add), showing off his wobbly unicycling skills, and it had been pouring with rain the whole evening!
Kudos to him.
Anyway, my neighbour and his 12 year old son can both ride after I gave them unicycles. The boy picked up super quickly.
I doubt they are active on any forums or on Facebook talking about unicycling, because I would have seen them.
So, I think maybe there’s a skew, IT people enjoy being on forums?
Something I found fascinating too, talking to the friends at the 50th party, it seemed like all the women had jobs involved with caring. So I started to think it’s related to being so tightly involved with the church? The men had what I consider, normal jobs.
All in house development and support. IT field services company, currently owned by a Victorian hospital (after we went broke) so now also into medical equipment sales. PM your supplier details, it’s a small industry maybe some common connections, however I’m been with this company so long I’ve lost contact with the outside world.
One of the Masters riders I spent much of my time with in Canberra worked on database systems his whole career. He is now 70 and an incredibly fit rider but not into forums.
Unicycle volleyball? It actually exists, apparently,
Fiction!
I did see a video of people playing table tennis while mounted on unicycles… (I think it might have been on unicycle chat on Facebook)… the table tennis on display was average though.
However, of the regular attendees of my unicycling club, about half are Volleyballers… one young lady (she doesn’t come any more though) was a state junior volleyball representative in Venezuela, other kids in the club were selected for NSW junior teams in volleyball (their dad is/was a good volleyball player too) and there’s at least one lady who plays in my comp who grew up in Japan, and she can ride because she used to ride at primary school. She was happy to try riding the unicycle once again when I brought a unicycle to a state cup competition! Hidden talents everywhere.
sorry … no IT guy …
Engineer, mechanical design in the machine tool industry. I develope customer-specific solutions for milling machining centers.
In a previous life I worked as a technician in a molecular biology lab, but only for a couple of years, and now I am no longer a tech person at all- I teach various subjects in the humanities. I have been a Linux user for the past 15 years or so, and learned everything I know about that through online forums (as well as trial and error, of course!). I had already been riding a unicycle for a couple of months before I found this forum, but at that time I was already accustomed to online forums due to my Linux use.
In the age of Facebook, this forum appears to have become mostly the domain of middle-aged men, many of whom do indeed work in IT, mathematics or engineering, and some of whom don’t use Facebook because they are either too old or too frightened of the security forces with which it partners. In Japan, from what various people have told me, unicycling is almost exclusively the domain of schoolgirls, and never indulged in by women, men or even boys.
Here in the Western World and/or the Five Eyes countries, I have also met and heard about a surprising number of unicyclists who are long-haul truck drivers. I guess when you are used to 18 wheels, you can become fascinated by the idea of just one.
Ha! Nothing like what you all use.
I am a bit of a musician though and enjoy woodworking and making things with my hands as well. Not sure if any of that makes senses or ties into my interest in unicycles…
Retired!
I have been: maths teacher, building architect, mad IT languages developer (I hate SQL: I wrote an interpreter 20 years ago and it’s a pain in the ***) , Java trainer and ended up working for the camera of the LSST telescope.
Now no job (just playing my flĂĽgelhorn, riding my Muni and writing science-fiction).
Next ?
I’ve never made that observation before but I certainly fall in this category. I’m not on social media at all, unless you consider forums like this as such. Then this would be my only exception
Maybe it does. Those are activities that I enjoy too. There are lots of tutorials on this forum about how to build stuff with your hands (such as wheels), and there are lots of people posting on here who play music, and even some who play music while unicycling! I would do that more often, but demand has been rather limited.