How have your hobbies helped in your occupation?

[Savonarola]

A few weeks ago CB and I attended a lecture by Dr. Sir Harold Kroto (Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry for his discovery of Buckminsterfullerene) at the Orlando Science Center.  It was kind of a rambly pep-talk, life story and description of his work.  I'm not entirely sure if it was supposed to encourage people to study science or demonstrate that studying science will drive you mad, mad I tell you, stark raving mad!

One of the things that struck me  in his lecture was his descriptions of his various hobbies and how they had impacted his life work.  Most notably he was a collector of architectural photography and studying the geodesic dome helped him understand the structure of C₆₀.  Specifically that the carbon atoms, though mostly spaced hexagonaly, would have to occasionally form into a pentagon the same as the geodesic dome (or a soccer ball.)

That made me think about one of my first assignments at GE.  We have a product which allows trains in the yard to be moved about remotely, like a remote control car.  Usually we have a dedicated radio system for this, but in one yard we couldn't get this; so we were looking at going over the cellular network.  The issue with this is that there must be little latency (the time between the command given at the remote and received at the train.)  I was given the task of determining what the latency would be.

Coming from a cellular background I knew that the carrier's latency figures were suspect.  Having hung out on gamer(-ish) forums like Languish, though, I knew that gamers are heavily impacted by latency.  So I went to a couple World of Warcraft forums and got each carriers actual latency down to the hundredths of a millisecond.

So Languish helped my career. 

I was curious if any of the other professionals on the board had experiences like this; where a seemingly unrelated hobby helped with a work assignment.

[CountDeMoney]

My hobbies have always been used as escapes from my occupations.

[The Larch]

Well, I guess that playing pen and pencil RPGs made getting into theatre easier for me, and that in turn made talking in public easier as well. Given how so many people seem to be paralyzed if they have to talk to an audience, I'd say that being able to do so with little effort is a plus. 

[derspiess]

Messing around with computer/network stuff as a hobby has helped me in my job.  My role is not strictly a technical role but I do some technical troubleshooting sometimes when nobody else seems willing or able.  Plus it helps me sound almost like I know what I'm talking about when I have to get tech support, datacomm, or programming people involved.

[Syt]

My hobbies have always been used as escapes from my occupations.

This.

[Iormlund]

What first attracted me to my current occupation was that it combined one of my hobbies (computers) and my engineering training.

I guess you could say I get paid to dedicate time to my hobby.

[Savonarola]

Well, I guess that playing pen and pencil RPGs made getting into theatre easier for me, and that in turn made talking in public easier as well. Given how so many people seem to be paralyzed if they have to talk to an audience, I'd say that being able to do so with little effort is a plus. 

Doctor Sir Kroto told us when he was in high school (or whatever it's called in the UK) he was in a school production of Henry V.  The lead in the play was none other than Ian McKellan.  I don't think theater actually helped Doctor Sir in his profession; he just wanted to tell us that he knew Gandalf personally.

[MadImmortalMan]

Messing around with computer/network stuff as a hobby has helped me in my job.  My role is not strictly a technical role but I do some technical troubleshooting sometimes when nobody else seems willing or able.  Plus it helps me sound almost like I know what I'm talking about when I have to get tech support, datacomm, or programming people involved.

Yeah hacking my PC to run MOM and MOO properly made me learn my professional skills. At least the seeds of them.

[Darth Wagtaros]

The stress relief has kept me from going berserk.

[11B4V]

yes

[Maladict]

My hobbies have always been used as escapes from my occupations.

This.

Yes, that.

[mongers]

My occupations have always been hobbies.   
....
...
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[MadImmortalMan]

My beer drinking hobby has helped my career more than any other. No lie.

[Malthus]

My hobbies have always been used as escapes from my occupations.

... and the sole occupation of the subject of your hobbies is to escape.   

[Admiral Yi]

War gaming and computer gaming have taught me a lot about resource optimization and time prioritization that's useful in virtually any job and in life in general.

Singing karaoke has, I imagine, helped with communicating with groups.

Model building has taught me to follow printed instructions, and to notice when they're shit.