What did your father do for a living???

They all definitely instilled the work ethic just by letting us watch them do it not preaching about it.

Damn...mine didn't preach or lead by example, actually his only real desire was that I didn't grow up to be like him.  He's been installing carpet, vinyl, vct tile and laminate flooring for the past 30 years and did everything he could so that I wouldn't follow in his footsteps.  Every summer between 5 and 15 he drug me to work and I was there busting my @ss alongside him, doing all the dirty grunt work and heavy lifting. To really drive the point home I had to work on saturdays during the school year with him also, totally killed the saturday morning cartoon experience for me.  lol, I remember when I started getting older and really doing alot of work I made the mistake of actually asking to be paid.  He gave me some cash then dropped a bill on me for everything I'd eaten, utilities I used and rent for my room....I wound up owing him money.   As soon as I was old enough to get a work permit I found a job.
 
Needless to say I grew to really hate flooring and all other forms of manual labor so I paid attention in school and went to college so I guess it worked.  Funny thing is, other day my 11 y.o. nephew was whining about his homework and taking out the trash.....grandpa tells him not to make any plans next summer 
   

They all definitely instilled the work ethic just by letting us watch them do it not preaching about it.

  Funny thing is, other day my 11 y.o. nephew was whining about his homework and taking out the trash.....grandpa tells him not to make any plans next summer 
 

Now that's funny

lol, I remember when I started getting older and really doing alot of work I made the mistake of actually asking to be paid.  He gave me some cash then dropped a bill on me for everything I'd eaten, utilities I used and rent for my room....I wound up owing him money.

Hilarious, and effective.  He did you right.

My father left the Indian reservation in Arkansas to join the Navy. He served on the Aircraft Carrier Enterprise. He was a radar tech and engineered some of the long range improvements we all use today! He served in the longest peaceful lull and didn't see action. Left the navy and finished schooling as an Engineer. Put himself threw school while raising us (7 kids) Loved to sell stuff Got tired of the Engineer thing and sold roofing for many years till an engineering firm drug (literally) him back into the field. At 65 he became one of the few ISO 9000 inspectors. (puts what you do as a company start to finish on paper so you could duplicate your business)  Now all his work can be seen in India/china He joked that he single handly sent all our jobs there. All the while still selling roofing Pop died @ 72 two years ago the day after Thanksgiving.... BLACK FRIDAY... Bet he is still laughing about that

Baptist preacher. 
He came to the US for the American dream, and found a calling to be a minister instead. 

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Baptist preachers get paid pretty good. At least mine does.  Good for him

My Dad grew up in the Depression, along the cliffs overlooking Capitola.  Said his parents used to go without food so he could eat. He used to swim out beyond the Capitola wharf and fish for Steelhead in Capitola Creek. I have never been able to out-fish him!

His Dad was a construction foreman working on the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges and later was a Phillips 66 gas station owner in Capitola. He worked in construction with his dad and then caught the tail end of the Korean war and then went to Berkeley to become a Civil Engineer,. Worked for the Monterey County Bridge Department for 10 years and designed a lot of the bridges over the Salinas, Pajaro and Carmel rivers as well as the Marina pedestrian overpass and bridges on Hwy 1. Then, he opened his own firm in Salinas. Became a Licensed Land Surveyor and a Structural Engineer. Was chosen to do the Structural engineering for UCMB.

Worked seven days a week for a year following the Loma Prieta earthquake. Seemed like everybody needed him. He was also city engineer for Watsonville, since they didn’t have their own, and was the one to determine whether schools, hospitals, businesses and homes were safe to be occupied or had to be torn down
I got out of the Navy on the day of the earthquake. Worked for him as his chauffer for a couple months until I got a job. He was just too exhausted to do his own driving. We crawled through all sorts of  crumbling buildings What a mess!
Last year at 80 he went fishing with me in Ketchikan, AK. Last month at 81 he took a surfing lesson at Waikiki. He wanted to go sky diving and fly in an ultralite in Kauai , but mom said, NO!

So many super cool interesting dads.  My dad was really messed up by the Viet Nam war.  His whole life he's been a herb farmer becaus and recluse.  Was a really absent dad growing up and the few times I saw him he was an a hole.  I feel very lucky that recently he has became a nice guy and even helped  me buy a house recently and alway checks on me to see if I need money or anything.  Guess it's never to late and I'm happy he's ben there there these  last two years. I always needed a father.  So its never to late I guess.  Andy

My dad was in the Air Force when he was younger, he then went to computer programming - he owned his own company as well as working for other companies, he then helped my mother start her own Home Health agency where he was CFO and handled all the paper pushing .. I mean billing. He now works for the Salt Lake County Health Department in Utah .. I don't know what his title is there .. something to do with Billing I think.....

 Andy,   War leaves a lot of  skeletons in it's wake.   It effects people differently.  Each soldier has their own experiences.  Back then PTSD was not diagnosed.   On Discharge from the service, it was just a..." here's your last paycheck, goodbye"  and then it's back to  civilian reality.   Not making excuses for anyone, but until you've walked in another mans shoes... well,  u know.

My dad was also a Vietnam vet, 68-69, USMC. Came back with demons.
He busted his ass and provided for us all, 3 sisters and a brother, and kept mom smiling all these years. Retired with mom 5 years ago at 59.Now they are really smiling. They are half time here, half time anywhere their truck And trailer takes em. I hope someday to end up as happy as them and retired...
Retired with the Teamsters.

Dad helped me with my PTSD. He did two tours in Nam, then to Paris Island as a Gunnery Sgt for 8 more years. We have never talked about what we had to do, just what we need to do now. I am sure I speak for him too, but he and I will listen to any vet, that wants to just talk. We dont have all the answers, but I think the biggest thing is acceptance, and reckoning. My old man is alright in my book, just wished we had this type of relationship all along. Sounds like we all have some pretty good blood behind us guys!

at times I know we all like to bitch about the shitty economy, or the f up banking system, the raiders  , screwed up politicians etc.  When you think of our fathers growing up with the Great Depression, WW2, Korea, Vietnam it really makes me realize that each generation has their load of crap to deal with.  I hope when our kids write about us we do as well.

The one other thing I take from this thread is that for the most part, we have it easier than our fathers, and our kids are a bunch of spoliled little snots 

My dad is a chemist. He got his PhD in electro-chemistry, and was picked to work on the Manhattan Project, helping to refine the uranium used in both of the bombs used in Japan in 1945. For most of his career, he worked in research positions for large firms, helping to design various industrial products. He's now 91 & very weak.

He has been a great father, even though he's made some not so great financial decisions. Ah well.

But I think his greatest achievement was teaching me to fish! I have a photo of me at 6 yrs old - which he took - holding a bluegill I caught on a worm. We got skunked plenty of times, but we kept going out. Later he focused on a his tennis game - he was a very basketball player too - but I stuck with fishing.
Bill

Talk about dads being judgmental ... My pops is a judge, California superior court.  Thinks me and my brother and sister waste our leisure time when we could be out saving the world.  Consequently, we end up getting committed to a lot of charities and events not of our own choosing lol. 

My father served in the military and was in the reserves. He was a Monterey police officer in the early 1950's when he met my mom. They moved to Fresno where he was employed as a county sheriff.  Now you all know as much as I do about my father. He died of a heart attack when he was 34 years old, two months before I was born.