[FireGilbert]

My best job was one of my first jobs in Australia. I was working for an engineering consultant and one of our clients had an issue: they were building a water pipeline and the idiot constructors kept running their excavators into power lines. I was tasked to manage these safety risks by increasing awareness and introducing controls, including isolations where possible.

So far this seems pretty standard, if not a bit stressful, however the best part was the location. This water pipeline was on the Sunshine Coast and I got to stay in an apartment 2 block from the beach. Also I had to be on call during construction hours from 0700 to 1700 but really only had like a half days work to do in between. My typical day started by waking up at 7 to make a phone call then I'd go back to bed for an hour. I'd then spend the day split between the site office and construction sites before ending up at the beach by 4. Sometimes I would even make my final phone calls of the day while lying on the beach!

There was some boring office spreadsheet and reporting work to do however most of the site work was great, going to a variety of locations up and down the coast. These visits mainly involved talking with the managers and walking through the gorgeous countryside taking pictures and powerline height measurements. One of the highlights was a walk through a pineapple patch. I always thought pineapples grew underground with the tops poking out so was completely blown away. I did once however take a wrong turn and end up held hostage by an angry property owner. This didn't outweigh all the awesome stuff though and at least I have a cool story to tell.

Finally, this job was only supposed to last 6 months, however in a quirk of Australian climate, the drought prevention water pipeline was severely delayed by flooding and it ended up taking 1.5 years. It was just the best job. Oh and I got a car too, a little Hyundai i30. Good times!