I can keep track of endless amounts of food while cooking from being a line cook. I can tell yarn sizes just by looking at a finished product from working as a sewing machine maintenance man. I still remember lots of random aircraft building requirements and specs from being an aircraft technician. I know what all the tiny electrical print means on your electronics.
I used to wait tables and tend bar, therefor even to this day I am able to relax and not act like an over-entitled prick when the service in a restaurant isn't 100% perfect.
Along those lines, I've learned not to ask the back waiters for something that I should ask my server—because I know that asking the back waiter will accomplish virtually nothing. Also thanks to working in the food industry, I can balance a tray of food on the palm of my hand pretty damn well. I had a plate of food on a tray once and slipped on a puddle of water in that cartoonish "stepping on banana peel" way. I fell backward and landed on my ass, but managed not to spill anything off the plate.
I can make Mountain Dew Code Red. Yeah, that's right. Hookah, argileh, shishah or whatever the hell you decide to call it, I make the best heads which if smoked and kept alight properly will last you for hours. Maybe it's all the practice, maybe it's from naturally being beige, I don't know.
I can make a decent still from a fairly scant amount of parts anywhere in the world, make a fermentable slurry, and distill ethanol from it. This has made many a stint in a shitty location more enjoyable. I tend to keep a dozen or so packets of turbo yeast handy for this reason.
In 5th grade, we put on a school production that required us to string up several thousand oragami cranes from the gymnasium rafters. We were taught how to fold them, and then each of us in my class was responsible for making 100 cranes. I don't recall what I did, but I got in trouble for something and had to stay inside from recess for a week straight making additional cranes. I definitely did over 500 of them. Anyway, as you can imagine, by the end of this whole fiasco, I was a pretty good crane maker and could do it ridiculously quickly. It kind of stuck with me through the years. I've definitely folded a number of bar napkins for ladies in my single days. It's pretty cheesy, but apparently there's something special about a guy who can turn a paper napkin into a bird in under 20 seconds. Hey - that guy is pretty interesting. Or a maybe a serial killer.
Rubik's Cube: In the early 80's a few friends of mine and I figured out the Rubik's cube. Well, kind of. A crazy smart Russian kid we knew figured it out, and he showed us. Still, for months we'd go around and have contests to see who could do the cube the fastest while at school. The fad died out after about a year, but it sure got us laid. Oh, wait... Flash forward to last November, when I'm back at my parent's house cleaning out my childhood bedroom, and I run across the 3 cubes I had. For shits and giggles I started playing with one to see if I could still figure it out. When doing the cube, it has 2 basic steps... first one is getting it into one of many "setup" layouts, and it takes some thinking and figuring out. Once it's there, though, there are a number of memorized movements that finish it off. Some of these involve flipping the cube over and around multiple times, and are 30-50 moves or actions. I tried 3 times, and was successful every time. I couldn't remember those movements if my life depended on it, but the muscle memory from the 80's was still there, and it just happened without me thinking about it. And RJ45 ends on ethernet cables. I've made thousands of cables, I'm sure. And of all the specialized tools I've had to strip and cut wire ends, the small scissors on a swiss army knife still work best for me. I still know the colour codes and can arrange and trim the wires with ease. It's almost become a lost art, actually. And I won't even start in on tapping ThickNet cables.
A couple people asked how to make the paper plane I talked about earlier. The grip in the last picture is hugely important.
From years of working on my family's tobacco farm: - Chop and lean broad leaf tobacco plants so the leaves don't tear or crease - Run a tractor and load rows of said tobacco onto the wagon butts out without tipping stacks - Tie a barn full of tobacco from peak down (photo) - Grade and strip tobacco The last two are really the only ones that are more than just base farm labor. Unfortunately I think I'd make about $3.50 an hour in the Dominican tying. At least the weather would be nice.
Put me in a Burger King, and I can produce you a picture perfect whopper in about 14 seconds. I can dismount, change, balance, and remount all four tires on a car in under 10 minutes. While I will never be a professional chef, I can throw down on "bar food!" You want wings, a burger, and some nachos? Give me ten minutes, and you will swear you just walked into your favorite pub. Also many years spent as a bouncer have taught me how to difuse drunken dumbasses, and to choke them out quickly and efficiently when words don't work.
Jesus. Being an aimless slacker through my twenties has really paid off in hindsight. - Working various kitchens in New York City has left me with the ability to turn out flawlessly plated, deliciously mind blowing food akin to the haute restaurants in Manhattan that I toiled in. This has a caveat, however, due to the fact that at any family gathering, I am banished to the kitchen of some aunt that has the shittiest knives, bullshit electric burners, and one pan. Bonus downside: no Mexican dishwasher at home. Those guys are machines. - Bartended at a corner bar on the Northwest side of Chicago for years. Aside from learning how to crack open a Hamm's and sling shots for people six deep at each stool, I also learned how to properly take down a drunk Ukrainian who treats any place that serves alcohol like some shit kickin' road house in Kiev. How? A Louisville slugger, four swings, and some friendly cops that don't ask questions when dragging him out. - Jamba Juice. Okay, never learned a thing there. Just that the orange juice is indeed delicious and curbs mild hangovers. - A few summers in construction bestowed upon me a knack for hanging drywall and framing, as well as a perpetual itch from insulation along with the ability to stomach a cold cup of Foldgers with powdered creamer. - Data entry for various temping agencies while in school has made me a Ninja with Excel, SAP, and the like. Not very sexy, but it does pad out a resume nicely. - Working in law: see above (e.g. Jamba Juice). Current career, which I'm probably stuck in for decades now due to the Golden Handcuffs. One slight bonus is the ability to hook up with money hungry sluts when they find out what you do. I'm enjoying that one at the moment.