How would you change? (NA)

[Ken Ibold]

I have heard lots of talk among friends and acquaintenances of, say, a certain age range that the career they picked 25 or 30 years ago has lost its luster and they're looking about for new opportunities.

So, I am wondering who has made a major career shift and how it worked out, both personally and financially. Those who have adopted a more "evolutionary" approach to career change are also welcome to chime in.

And this has NOTHING to do with finding some options for a character in a book I'm working on!!!! Promise!!

 

[RotaryWingBob]

I somehow managed to start off life as a geologist, migrate to applied economics, then (slowly) to software engineering. (All of this over the course of 15 years). It turned out that software development was what I was really good at and what I enjoyed doing.

The last major career change was to retirement at age 55, which I have never regretted! Now my career is mostly hiking and flying -- life doesn't get any better!

 

[mgkdrgn]

Well, I went from Warehouse/Distribution mgmt (15 years) to computer support
(12 years or so now) and am hoping to change again shortly and become a "database czar" for a non-profit.

If I had stuck with the first, I would be making more $ ... but all my superiors were working on their 3/4 wives/heart attacks. I figured they were not getting paid more, just faster.

I somehow managed to start off life as a geologist, migrate to applied economics, then (slowly) to software engineering. (All of this over the course of 15 years). It turned out that software development was what I was really good at and what I enjoyed doing.

The last major career change was to retirement at age 55, which I have never regretted! Now my career is mostly hiking and flying -- life doesn't get any better!

 

[GaryO]

I started off in construction. Evenually got my own construction company. At age 40 I went back to school for computer training and at age 42 got a job as a computer programmer. I am now a Senior Systems Administrator. Had to swallow a major drop in income for about a decade.

As your life changes what you want in a job will also change. When I was young there was no way I could stand to be cooped up in an office all day. Now, I really don't want to be out in the hot sun all day. Hopefully my next career change will involve flying <img>.

 

[gkainz]

- Lineman and equipment operator - family business; 6 years
- electronics tech and air intercept controller - Navy; 8 years
- database designer/administrator - big corp employee; 10 years
- currently independent database consultant; 10+ years

Latest career dream - a heavy equipment dude ranch for frustrated IT techs and executives. Pay to spend a weekend running bulldozers, drilling holes in rock, packing with dynamite and blowing stuff up, digging big holes, filling in big holes, etc... eat stale sandwiches from a lunch bucket, occasional showers of hot hydraulic fluid sprayed from hose breaks, welding broken metal, etc... how much do you think I could charge?

 

[ausrere]

Does migrating from one to another, then back to the first count?

Started off as a cop, got burned out at the 7 year mark and managed to get hired in tech support for an online newspaper. Ended up the Manager/Network Administrator after a year and did that for 3 years. Got burned out with that and migrated back to law enforcement where I've been ever since. I never really totally left the cop stuff though, I reserved for the whole time I worked for the paper and found myself looking more forward to my weekend warrior time at the PD than I did my full time work. Never regretted going back to the LE stuff full time except the pay could always be better.

 

[JRitt]

I started out as a Biomedical Equipment Technician 26yrs ago and now I still do the same thing but the technology sure has changed. I remember early attempts at "networking" our monitors to a computer that used essentually a rotory switch allowing each component so much time every 100ms to talk to the computer.

 

[fgcason]

Farm work (family business)
Television repair stuff (family business also)
Computers (hardware and software)
Never managed to get the physics stuff off the ground
More computers

The last several years was a major break from the nonsense doing assorted financial records debugging.

At this point there has been entirely too much computers, electronics, abuse, sitting at a flippin' desk and no fun in general. I'm completely done with all that nonsense and everything that goes along with it. Cooped up in a windowless prison cell all day long is no longer tolerable at all.

I'm on vacation right now.

Next stop is A&P school.

I don't care if wrenching makes me rich or not. I would rather be poor and happy than rich laying in ICU with stress induced MI and assorted serious psychological issues.

Have backpack and box of wrenches, will travel...happily.

 

[wsuffa]

Evolutionary and opportunistic all the way. Except right now, it's left me out of work and searching. My focus is always 5 years out, what do I want to be doing then, and what can I do now to achieve that goal.

Somebody hire me as CEO... or let me come turnaround your less-than-successful business....

 

[Dave Siciliano]

Ken:

While on active duty, I became interested in the stock market/securities business (traded my own small account, etc) and when I left active duty, took a position at Merrill Lynch as a retail broker.

Over the years, I began focusing more on real estate securities; left Mother Merrill for a position at another firm where I did the quality control investigations of partnerships, then originated partnerships.

When the business turned down in the securities area, I went out and independently consulted with real estate developers. Found an investment group and began finding rehabs for them. When the market changed, I began originating single family lot development deals with a partner.

Now, I'm doing that in my own company.

All the moves were to related things. Lost everything in the late 80s and had a choice of staying in real estate hoping it would recover or moving into computer software installations and consulting (which I did on the side). Stayed in real estate and it's working out very nicely now.

Dave

 

[fgcason]

Latest career dream - a heavy equipment dude ranch for frustrated IT techs and executives. Pay to spend a weekend running bulldozers, drilling holes in rock, packing with dynamite and blowing stuff up, digging big holes, filling in big holes, etc... eat stale sandwiches from a lunch bucket, occasional showers of hot hydraulic fluid sprayed from hose breaks, welding broken metal, etc... how much do you think I could charge?

Here's my wallet. Where is it? How do I get there? Can I work for you? Can I start right now? I'll bring my own house, better yet, I'll built it when I get there.

I was this ---> || <--- close to applying to these guys out of spite one day just because they drive TONKA and use dynamite:

 

[Sam D]

Wow, interesting responses. You hear a lot about the transformation to the information age and "knowledge workers". And here it is in a few posts. Don't know if it's the luck of the draw in the responses but it's really interesting to see.

 

[Richard]

- Lineman and equipment operator - family business; 6 years
- electronics tech and air intercept controller - Navy; 8 years
- database designer/administrator - big corp employee; 10 years
- currently independent database consultant; 10+ years

Latest career dream - a heavy equipment dude ranch for frustrated IT techs and executives. Pay to spend a weekend running bulldozers, drilling holes in rock, packing with dynamite and blowing stuff up, digging big holes, filling in big holes, etc... eat stale sandwiches from a lunch bucket, occasional showers of hot hydraulic fluid sprayed from hose breaks, welding broken metal, etc... how much do you think I could charge?

I think you're on to something. Really! Charge whatever you want. The hyd fluid shower is extra.

 

[Richard]

Here's my wallet. Where is it? How do I get there? Can I work for you? Can I start right now? I'll bring my own house, better yet, I'll built it when I get there.

I was this ---> || <--- close to applying to these guys out of spite one day just because they drive TONKA and use dynamite:

Well, after a few weeks of 12 hour days bouncing in a Cat seat you'll be dreaming of that desk job. Maybe....

I've run into so many guys who say, "I wish I could/knew how to do that." Successful guys too, just want to change their lives. A dude ranch moving mounds of dirt, excellent idea.

 

[alaskaflyer]

Beentheredonethat, from big city, runnin' and gunnin', housing project-stationed (and then detective) cop to park ranger. Yahoo! Now they even let me be the boss 'round here Kind of a step backwards though, too much desk time.

 

[fgcason]

I've run into so many guys who say, "I wish I could/knew how to do that." Successful guys too, just want to change their lives. A dude ranch moving mounds of dirt, excellent idea.

True. A day or two just once would satisfy 99.999999% of the people out there for life. However some people are not hard wired from day one for nit picking desk jobs. Couch potato computer geeks don't belong on working farms. Working farmers don't belong in windowless computer geek centers.

<--- Farm kid.

 

[gkainz]

I started out as a Biomedical Equipment Technician 26yrs ago and now I still do the same thing but the technology sure has changed. I remember early attempts at "networking" our monitors to a computer that used essentually a rotory switch allowing each component so much time every 100ms to talk to the computer.

And then along came Applied Bio's SQL*LIMS and nobody's rested since!

 

[gkainz]

True. A day or two just once would satisfy 99.999999% of the people out there for life. However some people are not hard wired from day one for nit picking desk jobs. Couch potato computer geeks don't belong on working farms. Working farmers don't belong in windowless computer geek centers.

<--- Farm kid.

Yep! I agree... my cube is dubbed "The mushroom farm" (kept in the dark and fed a steady diet of, uh, fertilizer)

 

[Steve]

I started out as a child... (with a nod to Bill Cosby).

My mother gave me the "How and Why Wonderbook of Physics" when I was 9 and it had a picture of a submarine on the endsheets with streamlines around it. For some reason I knew then I wanted to work on nuclear submarines when I grew up. So that thought ran in the back of my mind all through high school and college, where I got a degree in nuclear engineering. First job after college (where I took temporary jobs as motel desk clerk, band director, and radio announcer) was, guess what, working on nuclear submarines. Did that for 5 years, then they starting making submarines that didn't need to be refueled so often (like every 20 yrs), so I took a job where they refueled reactors every 18 mos at a nuclear power plant. Did that for 15 years. Assignments digressed from engineering to quality assurance to industrial safety analysis (different from nuclear safety analysis) and equipment/personnel reliability. Then the power company decided it didn't need an expensive resource like me to catch their mistakes so I was offered early retirement which I gladly took. I was 42 at the time. Consulted a few years after that for companies wanting to improve their mistake catching, fixing, and preventing (corrective action programs) and eventually got to the point where we could live off of one income and in a lower tax bracket. Wife's a workaholic and I'm now the entertainment committee, Mr. Mom, yard boy, chief cook and bottle washer, handsome and handy. I'm building her a house and she's bought me a plane. We're both a lot happier without me "working" full time as our stress levels are way down compared to 10 yrs ago. I consider myself fortunate to have married well and am not currently actively seeking full time employment, although I do answer the phone if some one calls looking for short term assistance getting themselves out of a hole. So I guess you could say I've opted out of a "conventional" career.

 

[Everskyward]

However some people are not hard wired from day one for nit picking desk jobs.

That would be me.

 

[alaskaflyer]

Does migrating from one to another, then back to the first count?

Started off as a cop, got burned out at the 7 year mark and managed to get hired in tech support for an online newspaper. Ended up the Manager/Network Administrator after a year and did that for 3 years. Got burned out with that and migrated back to law enforcement where I've been ever since. I never really totally left the cop stuff though, I reserved for the whole time I worked for the paper and found myself looking more forward to my weekend warrior time at the PD than I did my full time work. Never regretted going back to the LE stuff full time except the pay could always be better.

Is there maybe something about the seven year mark? That's when I started looking to get out though it took 18 months after that to actually succeed in finding something else I wanted.

 

[ausrere]

Is there maybe something about the seven year mark? That's when I started looking to get out though it took 18 months after that to actually succeed in finding something else I wanted.

There must be. I've known lots of people who got out about that time frame. Some came back, some haven't. I think it's about that time you start wondering "is there anything new to see and do in this job?" It probably helps if you are working for very large department where you can change divisions when you start getting bored. Go from patrol to CID or SWAT or something else for awhile. I don't know what it was for me. I just got to where I had to force myself to go to work each day, and I didn't like that feeling. I also got married and moved (very temporarily) to upstate NY about that time, but I had been thinking about changing careers for a while before that happened.

 

[Ghery]

Is there maybe something about the seven year mark? That's when I started looking to get out though it took 18 months after that to actually succeed in finding something else I wanted.

Maybe that's why my employer offers an 8 week sabbatical after 7 years. Go off, do what you want and depressurize. Only 3 years to go until my second one.

 

[fgcason]

Is there maybe something about the seven year mark?

I've seen several people hit their limit around 7 years give or take a bit. Usually they stabilize again after a while then make another who knows how long. I tend to bail long before their second wind gives out.

I hit the limit at 3 years for any given place - job, home, or whatever even if I force myself to stick around longer. Three years...at that point it's just time to move on.

 

[alaskaflyer]

I've seen several people hit their limit around 7 years give or take a bit. Usually they stabilize again after a while then make another who knows how long. I tend to bail long before their second wind gives out.

I hit the limit at 3 years for any given place - job, home, or whatever even if I force myself to stick around longer. Three years...at that point it's just time to move on.

Well, like Lisa said every three years I moved to another specialty - from patrol to bikes (the mountain variety not the Harley), and then from bikes to investigations. Even so I had pretty much had it with big city LE after seven years - spent more time in the slums than some who actually lived there and started empathizing with the neighborhood criminals, I even knew their birthdays ha ha

 

[Tom-D]

Started out as a high hope bush pilot, lost as-, sold aircraft to pay fuel bill, got drafted ran and joined NAVY spnt 22 years as active duty, left the mil and worked part time as a welder in the refinries, fuel truck driver at the NAS, gardener, anything to put 2 girls through the U. then gain employment as a Civil servent, last 10 years teaching T-56 engine build at NAS Whidbey.

do this pilotr/restorer, thing as a hobby/fun thing.

 

[alaskaflyer]

Started out as a high hope bush pilot, lost as-, sold aircraft to pay fuel bill, got drafted ran and joined NAVY spnt 22 years as active duty, left the mil and worked part time as a welder in the refinries, fuel truck driver at the NAS, gardener, anything to put 2 girls through the U. then gain employment as a Civil servent, last 10 years teaching T-56 engine build at NAS Whidbey.

do this pilotr/restorer, thing as a hobby/fun thing.

You forgot mentoring newbie airplane owners and doing their pre-buys

 

[alaskaflyer]

Latest career dream - a heavy equipment dude ranch for frustrated IT techs and executives. Pay to spend a weekend running bulldozers, drilling holes in rock, packing with dynamite and blowing stuff up, digging big holes, filling in big holes, etc... eat stale sandwiches from a lunch bucket, occasional showers of hot hydraulic fluid sprayed from hose breaks, welding broken metal, etc... how much do you think I could charge?

Heck I love my job and I'd still pony up a few Ben Franklins for that! Our maintenance folks don't let me touch anything painted Caterpillar Yellow

 

[ScottM]

I have been in electricla engineering my whole career. But in that area there is so much to do. I have worked on space communications systems, instrumentation systems, signals analysis, circuit design, system design, and now I am in advanced technology research. If I could afford it though I would chuck it all and be an airport bum.

What I do to keep my sanity is make sure that I have an active life outside of work. I teach scuba diving and have a small business on the side, flying, library board, Coast Guard Aux, and now I am learning to play the banjo.

 

[judypilot]

I'm in kind of the same boat as Scott. I did have one revolution, when I switched from biology to geology in the middle of graduate school, and had not had a single geology class, so I had to get the equivalent of a BS in geology while working on my PhD in geology.

After that, it's been more evolutionary, but I've done different things as a geologist. I started off as a postdoc (100% research), worked for the feds for awhile (95% research), then went to academia (1/2 research, 1/2 teaching), and now I'm administrator (2% research, 0% teaching, 98% BS). Actually, it's not 98% BS, only about 5%. It's been very interesting, although I'm finding I'm longing to get back into research (which in my case involves a lot of field work).

I do have a big career change coming up in about 10 years (or sooner, if I can pull it off). I'm going to retire and my retirement job will be fight instructor.

Judy

 

[RotaryWingBob]

I do have a big career change coming up in about 10 years (or sooner, if I can pull it off). I'm going to retire and my retirement job will be fight instructor.

Judy

I didn't know you were into marshal arts, Judy

(My emphasis)

 

[Keith Lane]

Got out of High School 1973
Georgia Power 1974-1977 (laid off)
Drove a dump truck till 1979 and moved to Atlanta to chase a (soon to be) failed marriage, with no hope of a job. Found myself alone, with no job, no place to live, $6.oo in cash, a car with less than 7 gallons of gas and my clothes.
Bought a Sunday paper, found an ad looking for a mechanic at an independent Porsche shop and got the job at $3.00/hour doing line work then engine assemblies on 911's.
1980 started with an engineering testing company as an instrumentation fixit guy and migrated to doing surface and downhole geophysical data acquisition. Travel burned me out (25 days a month)
1984 went to work at Digital Equipment Corp. as a field engineer located at Lockheed Gerogia Corp during the C5-B program.
1988 was lured back into geophysics with tales of management and $$$, (lies, of course). Got laid off 5 times in the next 10 years.
1998 till now. Working at a railroad consulting company in Atlanta. We provide expert testimony, computer simulations, derailment investigations, training, instrumentation, car and locomotive studies (my department) safety and operational audits.
I'm the resident mechanic and fabricator as well as scrounger.
I've worked in fields all my life where degrees were highly prized, and stupidly never bothered to get one. No one in my family had ever gone to college till my sisters kids came along. You can bet my kids will.
I have managed to earn far more than I would have ever expected, but the nagging fear that I'm overpaid, and therefore expendable is ALWAYS in my mind. I know I shouldn't worry too much about it but it sure would be nice to have the peace of mind that comes from real job security.

 

[Ken Ibold]

Bought a Sunday paper, found an ad looking for a mechanic at an independent Porsche shop and got the job at $3.00/hour doing line work then engine assemblies on 911's.

Was this in Marietta by any chance?

 

[Keith Lane]

Was this in Marietta by any chance?

No, it was at Import Doctor/Porsche Atlanta in Doraville.
I do know some people in Marietta who work on Porsches.
The best mechanic I've ever known has his own shop there (Checkpoint Automotive) his name is Beal Hardy, got his start restoring 356's, and still specializes in Porsches.
I only made my living as a mechanic for a year, but the shop owned two SCCA race cars, an E-production Speedster, and a D Production 911 which I was crew chief on till 1986. We won back to back national championships in the Speedster. When we went pro racing in 1985 (showroom stock 944 turbo racing in an enduro series) it got to where it was too much of a full time gig for a hobby so I dropped out at the end of the 1986 season. I did get to chief a car for a celebrity car as part of a sponsorship obligation though, the drivers were Stirling Moss and Innes Ireland. Two very nice and very funny Brits who have really "been there and done that" in the racing world.

 

[Arnold]

I have heard lots of talk among friends and acquaintenances of, say, a certain age range that the career they picked 25 or 30 years ago has lost its luster and they're looking about for new opportunities.

So, I am wondering who has made a major career shift and how it worked out, both personally and financially. Those who have adopted a more "evolutionary" approach to career change are also welcome to chime in.

And this has NOTHING to do with finding some options for a character in a book I'm working on!!!! Promise!!

At age 36, while still a part 121 Captain I attended law school and now practice law full time and fly for fun. I love to fly but didn't like the pilot lifestyle, pay, schedule uncertainty, career uncertainty, etc. The vast majority of colleagues thought (and still think) I was nuts. No regrets on my side, occassional longings for the flight levels. Financially it has had its ups and downs, but on the average it has been better than before - with some dips during times of change (like starting my own practice).

One day when I was not so happy with my current career I mentioned going back into flying to my grown (now 21) daughter. She has three sibs less than four years old now (2 at the time) and told me I was forbidden from doing that to my new children. She hated my pilot lifestyle.

 

[jkaduk]

I have been in electricla engineering my whole career. But in that area there is so much to do. I have worked on space communications systems, instrumentation systems, signals analysis, circuit design, system design, and now I am in advanced technology research. If I could afford it though I would chuck it all and be an airport bum.

What I do to keep my sanity is make sure that I have an active life outside of work. I teach scuba diving and have a small business on the side, flying, library board, Coast Guard Aux, and now I am learning to play the banjo.

This sounds very similar to me. I've worked on portable microwave links, satellite receivers, DNA testing machines, ROV's, ventilators and now oxygen concentrators. And I too would chuck it all and be an airport bum/CFI if I could afford it. I keep my sanity by enjoying all that sunny SoCal has to offer.

 

[gkainz]

I'm seriously toying with retraining for computer forensics after reading an article regarding criminal investigation and computer forensics.

I do occasionally ponder what "might have been"... as I was wrapping up my master's in software engineering in the late 80's, the law school made a troll thru the computer department looking for candidates for a then new Intellectual Rights specialist within the law program... I declined, as my GI bill benefits were nearing their end and I had all the school I could stand at the time.

 

[Frank Browne]

We gotta get out of this place
if it's the last thing we ever do.....


Eric Burdon

 

[TMetzinger]

I started out studying aerospace engineering while moonlighting as a paramedic, switched to music production and engineering, got out of college, found that (at the time) the music industry didn't value recording engineers with college educations, and paid everyone to start as a "gopher". So I joined the coast guard, who sent me to various schools to become a flight medic and a computer systems manager, then used the computer skills to get a job with the DEA, then went into IT consulting where I am now - 18 years after leaving music school (without a degree). I make a very nice salary as a systems architect, but I've been looking at how my 401K is growing and my house is appreciating, and I expect that in five years or so we ought to be able to sell the house, pay off all our debt, have enough money to move to a cheaper area in the northeast (I've got land in NH) or the midwest and buy/build a house with the profit from our sale, and then I can take a job in the $40-60K per year range and it won't make much of a difference to the final retirement income. Smartest thing I ever did was always put 10% of my salary into the 401K - the earlier you save the bigger the nest egg at the end.

I'll be 45 in 5 years, and can look at maybe doing something with aviation, whether it's instructing or limited commercial flying.

Now if I can only survive the next 5 years - I'm really getting burnt out on the current job.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

So, I am wondering who has made a major career shift and how it worked out, both personally and financially. Those who have adopted a more "evolutionary" approach to career change are also welcome to chime in.

Hmmm... Started out selling computer stuff for someone else. Got to the point where I was the unofficial SIC of the store at age 20. Also started working as an administrator for a startup private-AOL-wannabe. (Those 17-hour days were fun, lemme tell ya...) Went to school, and in 11 months went from a measly computer lab attendant to the top student job in the Information and Media Technologies division.

I stayed there until I started my business in 1998, still doing geek stuff, but for myself. I learned a lot about running a business, made about the same amount of money but did a little less work and the schedule was more flexible. Sold out to my partner in late 2002 after he wanted to change direction and I didn't.

Then, worked as a lineman at an airport. I still couldn't afford to fly, but it got me near airplanes. Unfortunately, it didn't give me enough $$ to be able to live on and still afford tuition, as our governor at the time cut funding to the UW system whenever he could get away with it. (tuition more than doubled while I was there. ) It was fun while it lasted, and I really liked being around airplanes all day and chatting with pilots, but I couldn't afford to stay.

So, I started driving trucks for a living, something I'd already been doing as a volunteer for a drum and bugle corps (I was actually transportation manager there). That dramatically improved my financial situation and allowed me to start flying. I wasn't happy at my first company, though, despite their having a good reputation. I quit and went back to the drum corps for one last summer tour, then started at a new company where I'm a driver trainer and I'm much happier.

Next step will be back to school. If I can, I'll delay until spring semester because my goal is to have my CP-ASMEL-ASES-IA and CFI/II/MEI so that I can work as a CFI when I go back. (Depending on class requirements I may have to go back in the fall and I don't have enough time to do the ratings so I'll have to find something else.) If this works out, in a little over a year I'll have an Electrical Engineering degree, a CDL, enough hours for an ATP, and there will be a LOT of doors open for me. At that point I'll either get an engineering job, start a business (I have about five different ones in mind ) maybe go back to trucking for a little while to bring in the $$ while I get a business going, work towards a flying job, or get my MBA.