On the job training for survival?

How many of you have a job that in some small way helps you train and or prepare in some small way to survive.
I work in a steel tube bending shop. We make frames for high end office equipment. Chairs, cubicle dividers and stuff like that, as well as steel parts for hospital beds. My job is running a mazak space gear cutting laser. I program as well as trouble shoot cutting programs on this thing. Tell me thats not awesome. How my job helps me is by giving me a way to fabricate things that will help me survive. My laser not only cuts steel but I can cut almost anything. I routinely cut out templates with paper to label crates and shelving units. Ive cut plastic, aluminum, steel, and tons of other stuff. I'm working on a dead fall warning system that will be cut entirely from my laser with scrap steel. Ill put up a picture when I'm done. My employer also got me one heck of a deal on steel tube and square stock for my custom built BOV.

Good for Survival preparation, but when the power goes out, that laser won't do you a lick of good.

Still, knowing how to fabricate with Metal is a good skill. Our company has a full Metal shop, and while we don't use lasers we do have a variety of CNC equipment such as water jet cutters, and can fabricate most anything. We also have a full Carpentry shop, a Motion control department, Electric department, and work with all kinds of material including metal, wood, glass, fabrics and plastics. We can do molding and vaccu-forming as well. If you can draw it, we can build it.

Knowing a variety of Trade skills helps in the ability to build things you need with materials at hand, even if there is no power. The office worker who pushes paper 9 to 5 will be less able to build a quality shelter than a tradesman. Having said that, there is still no substitute for proper preparation and a solid knowledge base. Some office personnel make very good sportsman and do indeed have valuable survival skills.

wow I thought I had it made with my laser. Sounds like you've got it much better. I bow to you. All in all tho IMO any kind of fabricating knowledge will be helpful. I can weld and I'm learning how to TIG weld to. Yes I know there isn't any welders in the wild but I will be able to make anything I need at work before the fact. and the fabricating skill is a mind set. a person with that mindset is better off for taking the time to learn. Remember measure twice cut once and redraw redraw redraw.

A worker is a builder - give a practical person a few tools, and they will soon start to learn how to use them with confidence, and have a back ground that will enable him to project ideas into real working usable goods.

Give a paper shuffling office namby a set of tools, well, you might as well give a roaring log fire a chocolate fire guard.

As for me - well when i was at school I had a week end job in a butchers. Mine was the plucking / gutting / filleting (yes he did fish as well) and all the basic stuff - but it taught me that taking care over that task can keep one heck of a lot more flesh on an animal than if you attack it with no forethought.

Then I joined the army, and learnt all types of mad stuff thats held me in good stead ever since, and then, I left and decided to work in detention work. That taught me naff all, so my wife told me to go learn a medical skill - so i did.

All in all, when shtf, I say i got it pretty well wrapped in terms of what i need to know.

angryamerican and Terapin
i'll have to trump your manufacturing systems, we got a half a dozen experimental Lasers and one of the most advanced FMS manufacturing cells around here

But i'm currently getting a Masters degree on Mechanical Engineering, speciality on manufacturing, i doubt that my education won't be too usefull in the situation X, but i've worked on a construction and a scrapyard so i've gained some useful skills.

Probably most useful survival "educations" have been the 12 month FRDF Recon training and the 15 years of competition orienteering. I might be able to also employ my IPSC shooting skills (hopefully i won't need them)

People. that's always been my job. training people, teaching people, selling to people and helping people.

I'm the glue that keeps a group together and goal orientated. The motivator, the salesperson and the calm one when things get bizarre. Pretty shock proof am I. I've never been locked into any particular social group or "class" either...I can manage with the "elite" right down to the castaways. It's been a blessing really, being able to talk comfortably with people from all walks of life.

I have a lot of other work related skills, but the main focus has always been people and what they need and want as well as what the THINK they need and want

Any medical training should never be underestimated. Among other things, I am a fully trained EMT and have had to put my training to use on a few occasions.

Everyone should have basic first aid training at a minimum. You can contact your local chapter of the Red Cross, and they can help you get started. Better still, to get more advanced first aid training. Hopefully situation X will never happen, but you will always be able to use first aid skills in every day life. The world is full of sharp edges.