Part of an 0311's job is kicking in doors and detaining bad guys. When there are bad guys sniping at them on the roof, they have a bad day. The UAV above them tells them "sniper on the SSW (south south west) quandrant of building 3, hit them" and then does instant BDA (battle damage assessment) to let them know the threat is neutralized or not. Those infantryman came back to the FOB that night and thanked us profusely. We helped them all come back alive.
The most boring part of the job is probably road searches. On the way out to every mission and the way back (as you're flying to the mission coordinates handed down to you by the mission commander) you just look at the main roads. For every 10 hours of looking at roads, you'll see 1 guy digging a hole and emplacing an IED or burying wire under the road. Those "side quest" missions save a lot of soldiers. Additionally, we tend to fly ahead of most convoys if the timing lines up and give them a heads up of upcoming situations. From ~7500ft above sea level, we could roughly read a license plate a mile away. We gave them situational awareness on neighborhoods to go out of their way and just avoid. Things like that.
For every 100 hours of relatively mundane stuff, you get a few really special missions. One of those special missions was when a Kiowa scout helicopter took an RPG to the tail rotor and crashed in Tal'Afar. Most missions I was the AVO (Aerial Vehicle Operator aka pilot), but this was one of the few where I was the MPO (Mission Payload Operator aka camera dude). We saw this as a literal clone of the most infamous Operation Gothic Serpent (Blackhawk down) and all said, "Not on our watch!". And in the end, they made our video a lot less clear and put some parts of it in a Military Channel Special: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0845577/
TL;DNR: UAV Operator is nothing at all like an 0311, but they love us because we do a dang good job of saving their lives. In return, they watch our backs.