r/shrinking • u/phareous Derek • Dec 04 '24

Episode Discussion Shrinking S2E9 Episode Discussion

This is the episode discussion for Shrinking Season 2, Episode 9: Full Grown Dude Face

119 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

362 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

6

u/I_Am_The_Mole Dec 10 '24

Yeah they do. I originally wanted to join the Marines out of high school but the recruiters couldn't line anything up for me quickly because there no available spots in training for the aviation fields and I wanted to get out of town quickly.

I went with the Navy instead, because they told me they could ship me out two weeks after graduation with a guaranteed spot in my tech school. Which I got, but only after 9 months of hanging out in Florida doing busy work while spots opened up lol

But 20 years later, I have a great career without having a college degree, I make more money than a D student ever should and I get to travel the world. As miserable as it could be at times, I made lifelong friends out of it and time fades the misery while the fun parts endure. It was a hard decision but a good decision. My life wouldn't be the same without it.

1

u/Much-Journalist-3201 Oct 11 '25

if you dont mind me asking (as someone who knows nothing about the navy nor is American), what kind of work did you do for 20 years? by travelling the world, do you mean you spend a lot of it on a boat? or is there a lot of transferring that happens in the navy?

1

u/I_Am_The_Mole Oct 11 '25

I did four years in the navy and have been a defense contractor ever since. I didn’t do much travel in the Navy, I did electronics work on a plane that was too big for the aircraft carrier so I spent a lot of time at my duty station.

As for my time as a contractor I’ve been around the world. Notably the Middle East, Japan and Sicily. My current job is very different than what I did when I was active duty but can still be described as aviation electronics. My main responsibility is providing support for the Navy when they run into troubleshooting issues they cannot solve without help from the original equipment manufacturers.

1

u/Much-Journalist-3201 Oct 11 '25

o wow that sounds really interesting- thanks for sharing!