Slashdot Mirror
Where to Go After a Lifetime in IT?
Pikoro asks: "I have been working in the IT field for the past 20 years or so, and after getting hired by the largest financial company in the world, I thought I might have finally found a place to retire from. However, after working here for almost a year, I find myself, not exactly burnt out, but longing for a complete career field change. It's not that doing IT related tasks aren't fun anymore, but they have become more 'work' than 'play' over the last few years. Since all of my experience has been IT related, I'm not sure where I could go from here. What would you consider doing for a living, after being in a single field for so long?"
To Hell, of course !
Votez ecolo : Chiez dans l'urne !
I'll take "Laughing all the way to the bank" for $100k/yr, Alex.
If you expect anything like the same money, about your only options would be producing porn videos, politics, or some other life of crime.
Otherwise, get a job flipping burgers at your local McDonalds, and work your way up.
I'd become a fireman.
/* No Comment */
This seems akin to asking Slashdot what you should be when you grow up. There's no way total strangers could answer this for you. Take a look at your hobbies, interests and what you do well at. Look at the classifieds and see what kind of jobs center around those things. See what kind of experience and education they require. Go from there.
If you can get past the mess, I've found a lot of geeks are also good at fixing cars. Similarly complex systems that all work together, required trouble shooting of various systems, etc.
The nice part is it's a useful skill in every day life, and if nothing else you might know when someone is going to rip you off at the local auto shop.
If you have a great deal of project management experience - there is an ocean of opportunity out there that does not involve "IT". Construction / manufacturing / etc. all require project managers to keep new ideas on track and on budget.
If you have a great deal of experience with risk managemnt - there may be an opportunity for you in the stock market.
It's all about which areas you have experience in, and how comfortably you are at adapting your skills to a new environment.
While technically not out of the IT field, at least it would allow you to continue to use your skills. Not only that, but you'd (potentially, hopefully) get a broader base of tasks.
Might combat the boredom.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
I recommend going back under the rock where you came from. I plan on doing so...
Sometimes it's simply a matter of finding the right company for you. There are so many different companies offering so many different career experiences in general. Finding one that isn't right for you may make you think you want to do something completely different when in reality you may just need a better boss, more flexible hours or more (or less) human interaction time. I'd look around at what else is close by before you make a leap in (potentially) the wrong direction.
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
If you have a nest-egg, like ownership of your house, you can consider moving to some 3rd world country. Like Costa Rica. The typical $400K American home can be replaced with an equal if not nicer $100K home in a lot of these countries. Then get a job teaching CS at the local university. I'm sure they will love to have a native english speaker with real-world industry experience. The pay won't be much, but combined with the rest of your nest egg you should be able to live comfortably with a low-stress, high-reward job in a really nice climate.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I read this story on kuro5hin about someone on IT who went on to become a bike messenger. I'm not sure it would fit you, but it is a physical job and it is clearly not stressful. I am not sure how much someone like you earns, but I guess you probably have a lot of savings, so you could try anything you like. Other lame possibilities include "writing" a book, becoming a critic for some obscure thing that you always loved (say, a cheese specialist). For what it's worth, I like cooking, but I've heard it's stressful.
If you're looking for a complete change, try a physical job (not necessarily manual labor as in "construction worker"), one that requires you to use your body.
P.Truck driving is becoming quite lucrative these days. Go find an outfit and have them train you. Many will pay for your CDL training if you sign on for X years.
You get to see the country and sit on your ass all day. I couldn't think of a much better job.
I'm going back to school and geting my JD. Perhaps the USPO could use a lawyer that knows what he is doing.
You change to become IT management. At the same place.
let me spell it out:
1. Change to management
2. Get paid more
3. Profit!!!!
I've no idea what your financial position is. You could most likely get a job teaching whatever subject you fancy, though that may be impractical without a good chunk of cash set aside.
Or perhaps try a different area of IT? Move into or out of project management, business analysis, development, pre-sales, testing (well, you never know), technical authoring. Or perhaps change the environment: if you're used to working in huge companies try a small start-up or niche software house.
Why not become a teacher? A lot of kids could benefit from a teacher with life experience, not someone fresh out of college with a teaching degree.
Insane?
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I agree with Reason58. You need to examine your interests and hobbies. If you're particularly drawn to something for which you've never made time before, maybe you should do it as a hobby first, and then see what can be made of it. Sometimes having good pastimes help you get through your day at work. (Like posting at Slashdot during breaks.)
u-bend
This is exactly why you're not supposed to choose a hobby as a career. Careers are meant to be something you're good at, and can stand doing, but not something you want to do for fun. What happens when you do something you enjoy over and over again? You stop enjoying it. You need to learn to separate your hobbies from your skills. Well, I guess it's a bit too late for that.
Blerg.
Teach Elementary School math, or science. Or High School. Or Community College. I know I enjoy teaching part time, and I can see enjoying teaching full time. My kids comes home with unclear math problems, and I re-teach them... and mostly having a good time doing it. You'd not be doing it for money, but usually the benefits are acceptable.
The logical next step after working a lifetime in any field is the grave.
Wow...if you went 20 years of all fun on the job, I am quite impressed! Work is work. Even the best job in the world can get tiresome such that it is "work" rather than "fun".
Actuary - you'll need superb math / statistical skills. You'll have to take a series of difficult exams to move up the ladder. It can pay VERY well.
...
School teacher - need to get teaching certification. Low pay, long hours. You'll have to put up with abuse from students, administrators, and quite possibly parents. I know a number of IT people who did this. Some loved it. Many hated it and have moved on to something else (like back to IT).
Carpentry - met a guy who 'went from mainframes to framing buildings'.
Retail
[Insert pithy quote here]
A mental home would be my choice of residence after dealing with general users for that long!
No, seriously.
--
For me since I'm already fluent in two languages it was an easy choice to go into interpreting. Especially since my wife already is one and I really love languages. Most likely you're not native level in two languages, but really what I'm saying is find something you enjoy.
Hey if it wasn't this I'd probably be buying houses and fixing them up, at least with the hands on work you get a greater feeling of "Today I DID something" that IT often doesn't provide.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Go track down someone from Teach for America. Try it out for a while. The money's nothing next to IT, but the Impact is there.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
What do you like to do?
Doctor ? Fireman ? Scientist ? Cook ? Fisherman ?
How should we know ?
It's often the direct interaction with end-users / customers / punters that's most stressful. If you can keep away from that you may well avoid the mistake of changing to an equally tough environment for less money.
-- Foolproof systems do not take into account the ingenuity of fools.
OK most people actually quite hate their job, IT people are very lucky in the fact they generally do enjoy their job and it's also well paid. Your job is more work than play, well your still one up on most people, think _very_ carefully.
seems like you found yourself a bad job, not a bad career. Look around for something new, but stick to your field. >
>
Hello, world.
...I wanted to be... a LUMBERJACK!
Find a startup ISP or tech companyy with big dreams and a small budget. Your experience will do more to help them than 10 college kids ever could.
bomb the us up set someone
Outside.
Its not "fun" anymore? That's why it's called work you boob.
I guess my point is, there's no reason to trade one run-of-the-mill 9-5 for another one. If you're really serious about a change of scenery, go sit on a hilltop for a day or two and decide what you'd do if the sky was the limit. And then spend the rest of your life getting there. Idealistic? Sure. But the journey's half the fun.
Deja Moo: The distinct feeling that you've heard this bull before.
After a lifetime in IT, you go to Silicon Heaven
(if you've been good)
Recycle PCs and build a wireless community network www.hillsborough.org.nz
Teach. Thats what I would do. I greatly respected the instructors at the Technical College I attended because they had worked (or in many cases still worked) in the field they were teaching. Not every person can teach someone what they do to full effect, but those that have had hands-on experience have a lot to bring to the table.
I fully plan to "retire" to teaching at a Technical college once I tire of the IT industry. I'm not sure if thats what you have in mind. It is related to what you are doing, but it isn't IT.
"It's amazing what velocity can do when human beings are in season" -Matthew Good
I'd say it has to someone connect with your prior knowledge, experience and personality. Those are deliberetely broad statement because I don't know you at all.
If you were a programmer, musician perhaps? Or artist in general? If you were involved in WWW perhaps you find journalism interesting? If you were into security perhaps something related to health?
Wait a minute.... You were already there???
Where do we expect you to go, Detroit??
-Steve
Cash out my pension, find a nice plot of land on a major highway people use to go on vacation, and get myself a nice mental case of dementia concretia; charging people $6 a carload to look at "art" that teaches a lesson about recycling junk and making alternative energy. If I make enough alternative energy, I'll also want an electric train to the nearest population centers. But your mileage may vary....
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Your only limitations on what you can do is what kind of effort and time you are willing to invest. Someone already mentioned hobbies. That is a great place to start. It's probably what got you into IT in the first place anyway. 20 years ago, IT was an unheard of term and computers were still a new fangled thingamabob that nobody really had a good clue on what to do with them. Well, from a business application standpoint. Most of the people that were getting in to them were either college graduates or hobbyists. Most college kids got into computers because they were fun.
So what I would do is look for something you enjoy doing that is completely NOT like IT work. Someone mentioned fixing cars. That can be a good application of troubleshooting skills. If you are good at repairing computers then you would likely be good at some sort of detail work also. My father plans to build furniture when he retires in a couple of years. He's a woodworker as a hobbyist and enjoys it. So rather than fill his house with furniture, he's going to build pieces and sell them either online or at local craft fairs/flea markets.
Personally, I have quite a few hobbys that would work out for me. I already work part time doing diesel mechanics and fleet maintenance. It's good money and where the IT level of money is in automotive/mechanical repair. However, what I would enjoy doing more is working for a friend of mine fabricating body panels for race cars and custom work. It's very enjoyable and people are less sensitive and not easily offended by guys being guys. I wouldn't mind doing something with audio/video equipment installation either in cars or homes/professional offices. I have skills that I can apply to all these areas.
Another option is to do something outside. Landscaping, unless you are doing the design, is fairly simple work, just tedious and back-breaking. However, a person with professional experience and/or a degree will usually be a manager or supervisor who has peons to do the work for him. If you are up for it, the Parks Service in many states and even at the federal level is always looking for people. There are plenty of other outside jobs to do.
But me, I like my IT work. I enjoy the challenges that it brings and I actually enjoy troubleshooting. It pays well enough and some days I can't believe I get paid to do the work I do. I hope you find that place for you again. A wise man once said to me "If you can't have fun at what you are doing, go the hell home, we don't want you here." He was a mere furniture mover for a moving company. He loved his job and he did it the best he could every day. I asked him if had a choice, would he do it again and his response was "Without a doubt, yes!" Basically, it's not what you do for a living that makes the difference, it's how you do it. I've always told everyone I know, "The measure of a man is not in his paycheck. A job is a job, it doesn't matter what you do, as long as it pays the bills, it's all good. Some jobs just pay more bills than others." Just be glad you have luxury of a job to consider leaving. I have had many friends and colleagues who were forced out of thier employment and into a different field of work due to down-sizing and layoffs.
Alpacas.
My fiancee and I really really really want to get an alpaca farm going some place in the country where we don't be bothered by anyone or anything electronic.
Check out my sysadmin blog!
I dunno... personally after a lifetime of anything, retirement sounds nice...
Or maybe a nice peaceful death.
I am Homer of Borg. Resistance is Fut.. Mmmmmmmm, Donuts!
My brother-in-law and I both finished with C.S. degrees in saskatchewan and he works for a construction company doing CAD and I'm a computer tech. I would take his job any day and not just cause he gets better pay and more hours but the work involves some creativity instead of "computer guy, can you look at this?".
I'd consider doing something IT related to leverage your skills & experience but fairly different. Like maybe computer forensics for a police department or the FBI. Or IT security for the federal government (TSA, State Department, CIA). You might even get the chance to live abroad. Teaching would also be a great activity. Lord only knows we need more people with good comptuer skills teaching the next generation. The fun thing is that you could probably pursue many of these activities on a part-time basis for a while to see if you liked them. You might have to be a volunteer at first but it's all about testing the waters. Meager pay (or lack thereof) shouldn't stop you from trying these things out. Think of it as an investment in your future job satisfaction.
Many individuals who'd achieved a relative degree of success in their field of expertise but had experienced a lack of luster with their careers became college instructors. By doing this you can capitalize on your knowledge and experience and use it to transition into another field.
"09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0"
I dropped out of the IT industry almost two years ago now. I did everything from tech support to Java development. I had been taken advantage of, despised the industry and everyone in it and could barely keep my head on straight, let alone my servers. I was burned out before the age of 31, and it showed in my work. It's VERY BAD when you stop caring about your employer's servers.
;)
Now I work for an advertising agency now doing audio/visual. It's an easy jump but, believe me, the pay cut has been difficult (especially with my wife not working). Unfortunately, it has become very clear to me that once you're out, nobody wants you back in. The nice thing is, if I'm not out of the office at 5:00, it's probably because I am flying back from a multi-million dollar pitch, drinking a rum and coke.
I've taken up a couple of hobbies (actually went a little nuts on those and have had to cut back), have more time to read (Chekov, not Slashdot), and am generally having a fun time at it. Do I miss IT? Sometimes I do, but nobody likes an employee with a bad attitude.
Good luck,
Anonymous coward
dodging rush hour traffic on a vehicle offering you not protection whatsoever and trying not to turn your face into chiseled spam on the asphalt or get totaled by a truck - sure, that's how I relax!
I too have become bored of the IT world. from the constant need for a "Pro/Con" spreadsheet for EVERY change and concept to no one being able to agree, ever. I'm just tired of sitting in a chair, arguing with the boss about 8 year old servers, then going home and staring at a screen till I fall asleep. It's a life that lacks, well anything.
Recently I bought myself a nice "used" car with a decently powerful V8 engine and started down the path to racing. (yes there is HUGE politics in the pro leagues). I feel that it's a huge shift in career, but it's similar. Car's need all sorts of knowledge to run, tune, adjust, and time. You also need split second reflexes that have undoubtedly been aquired in the years of gaming.
I also thought of getting into psychology, but I realize i've already dealt with enough crazy people in the IT field (me included in that number).
Essentailly, that "after IT" career change, it's all about what YOU personally want. I'm just sharing with you what i want to do with my life post IT escape.
When people tell you to "follow your dreams" what they mean is "follow your dreams--as long as your dreams are reasonable and you have the qualifications and skills needed to pursue them."
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I'm in a similar boat but less experience than you have. It is a very consuming and confusing process. But until I figure it out, I'll continue to scour hotjobs for "pasty fitting technician"
Congrats! You've done better than most of us in that you've figured out how to get past step #2
1) do something
2) ?
3) profit!
Now that you're in the promised land of profit, you're looking to move on to step #4
4) enjoy life
While I wish you the best, I'm stuck at step #1.
- doug
I've had two of my colleagues radically change careers.
One guy became a florist (one of our former NT system administrators) and another guy started painting (former project manager).
Why, yes! I AM new here.
Sell it all, buy cheap land in the backcountry, build a small cabin and live the wild life.
Trust me, you won't be bored.
i quit IT and went into the restaurant business. No IRC'ing from work, no being lazy as hell, no annoying men in suits except customers and you can spit in their food.
... even in a bad neighborhood...
... just like IT work takes the fun out of computers FOREVER ...
No more buying expensive gadgets and rent becomes tough
but i've now worked the grill, fast food assembly and traditional line cook. Likely i'll do chef's school this year.
It takes ALL the fun out of food
But its hard work and at the end of the day its satisfying.
--- ask me about nihilism, I will have nothing to tell you.
I was in the same situation and an opportunity came along for me to become an "IT Buyer" within my company. My skills and experience within IT give me a significant edge over IT salespeople. This in turn leads to contracts and IT engagements that are much more beneficial to my organization than if someone without IT experience were in my position. I am still a geek at heart and can continue to be close to the technology and "IT toys" but from a completely different angle. My largest learning curves have been in understanding some of the legal information within contracts and learning how to negotiate. Although I was initially very uncomfortable, negotiation has become my favorite thing to do. There is a certain rush when you have been able to use technical and business skills to talk down a vendor from unreasonable prices and save the company tons of money.
I left a great job working for a big-6 consulting firm to become a man-whore. After all, working for "Big-6," made me a business whore. So, I had several years of on-the-job whore-training and decided to venture out on my own.
Sure, it is risky business being a man-whore, but there are plenty of perks. Often, I have some nice MILF call me up to schedule an appointment. Using my IT skills, I put together a multimedia mini-kiosk using Windows Mobile 5.0 and a Dell Axim PDA. My clients can choose what services they want and my software calculates the fee.
I call my system Whoreware v69 and it saves me time and money. I still get to dabble in IT AND I get to whore around on my own terms.
Being a man-whore may not be for everyone, but it sure is better than being a business-whore working for a big-6 consulting firm. BTW: To all of you former PwC/IBM Global Consultants...you may want to considering going to the gym before the axe falls. Fat man-whores are not that easy to market.
After I retire, I am kicking it old skool on a beach staying drunk and picking up chicks on vacation, and make them scream my name all night long.........
When the going gets tough, the tough get drunk
If you are a skilled professional in a certain area, and you need to earn a living with wages comparable to those you're receiving in the area of your profession, you're usually pretty stuck. You're being compensated for your professional skills. The primary option there is to switch into a management-related career track (initially managing the same thing you were doing hands-on before).
If you've acquired sufficient savings so that your career needs to only partially support you (or you're willing to live more modestly), and you're trying to optimize satisfaction/happiness, then you have to ask what you find satisfying. For example, if you find intellectual inquiry satisfying, switching to some sort of scientific field makes sense--and there are plenty of ways to take advantage of one's existing IT experience in many scientific areas (e.g. high performance computing is relevant to biophysics and bioinformatics and astrophysics and climate modeling; image processing is relevant to microscopy (optical and EM) and manufacturing (for defect detection, for instance) and biology (quantification of behavior, for instance)). If you have any hobbies that can be monetized, those are another class of options (cooking -> chef, travel -> tour guide, computer gaming -> computer games journalist, etc.).
If you've acquired enough savings so that your career doesn't need to support you at all, then the range of options is even wider. Start a company making a kind of widget that you always wished existed? Help the campaign of your favorite politician? Pick a social issue--genocide in Darfur? oppression in Zimbabwe? 128-bit numbers as an illegal circumvention device? sex slave trade?--and get involved with others who feel strongly about the issue and are trying to make a positive impact. These types of things tend to be quite satisfying, if you pick carefully, but they do not pay well at all (so you had better not need a robust income).
. . . Disneyland!
-CR
"So is the BSD licence even more 'free' (than GPLv2)? Yes. Unquestionably." --Linus Torvalds (TinyURL.com/2vugzl)
My friend left IT to become an MBA. He's graduating this quarter, and will be doubling his old salary. In his own words, he wanted to make the transition from the person writing the reports to the person requesting the reports. Of course, whether or not he'll achieve that as a consultant is debatable, but hey, he still doubled his salary and gets a change of pace. The two years he spent in the mba program served as a nice break from reality as well. Or as he would say, "Grad school is the snooze bar on the alarm clock of life."
Where else?
Tank u, tank u bery much
Clown College...
Management consulting is a great career path for someone like you. They will teach you everything you need on top of your IT skills and given your long experience you should be able to get into some interesting work right away. Take a gander at some of the companies in this list, look for jobs for "experienced professionals": http://www.vault.com/nr/consulting_rankings/consul ting_rankings.jsp?consulting2007=2&ch_id=252
nt
I can't believe no one has mentioned the most obvious answer.
... Its just like the the Internet with different pipes and the same amount of crap flowing through.
One got a grad degree to become a counselor. The other two are massage therapists with greater and lesser degrees of new-agedness.
I guess the link is that they are tired of machines and figure dealing with people will be easier.
And they want to charge by the hour.
Duh.
You could be a Wal-Mart greeter.
There once was a guy, "dad", who lived at the national telephony company until his late 50th birthday. He left (because the company had some internal trouble and was offered a high pension). Ok, it wasn't exactly IT, but it was very close. He now works as a construction worker at a friend's building contractor company and enjoys it. That is, as mentioned above, a bare hands job in which you are still constructing. He still has some light IT jobs using his own llc, but he is not really busy in that area anymore. So... indeed, constructing is a very good idea, so it seems. I'm not at that stage yet, but I'd stay into the creative branch. It would mean that you are still developing, still putting things and basic materials into something more complex. It's like coding with wood, the compiler is your saw :)
I'm considering raising organic beef, lamb and eggs.....
ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS strive for variety in life - your career being no exception. Many people feel burdoned to stay in the same field their entire lives out of _______ (fill in the blank). You should always have some other interests in your life besides IT (or whatever career field you have) which you could always leap to in case you get burned out, layed off, etc. We are preprogrammed (no pun intended) through life to do things in a certain order: go to school, get good grades, learn a field, get a job/career, work at this job/career our whole lives, retire, enjoy (if we are able) the last years of our lives. Why always follow this trend?
I brew beer and honey-wines as a hobby. I keep the idea of opening a microbrewery and pub as my "plan B".
Lord knows there's enough of 'em on /. and other boards where PR conscious corporations and political entities want to try and influence opinion in their favor. So there must be some money in it. Which is too bad for me, because as a FOSS, Creative Commons, anti-DRM, anti-software patents, anti-generally restrictive laws advocate, I have to, by principle, give my opinions away FREELY. Of course, I guess I would take money NOT to give my opinion. Any takers?
When I am done my career in IT, I'm dreaming of moving far away from here, at least a 9 day drive somewhere... settling down and having a break/family/life. Move to Canada :D It's cheap :D
thats why its called work, because you have to work. if it was supposed to be fun it'd be called play. since you obviously want to "play" its no wonder you were fired.
At age 35 I went back and got my M. Arch. and at 40 am plugging away at the hours I need for registration.
I'm enjoying the complexity of the field and the fact that solutions, once enacted, won't be superseded every two years. There's a permanence to it that's a complete about face from IT.
Even a small building involves thousands of decisions that all effect each other. It's not for everybody, I suppose, but I think it's the ultimate career for a dyed-in-the-wool problem solver.
Sorry....low-hanging fruit :)
A goal is a dream with a deadline
When I was in Kindergarden, I wanted to be a boxer. From what I've seen, it doesn't seem to be all that hard.
All you need to do is:
- Jump rope
- Do 1-handed pushups
- Run up a large flight of steps
and you'll be a heavyweight champion in no time!
"Now I'm seriously serious!" - Serious Sam
I can only offer advice based on what I've been doing. Try to find an optimal niche that combines the following three things:
1. Work that will hold your interest
2. Work that has long-term potential and probably stability
3. A role that would allow you to "trade up" on your IT background/expertise
Myself? I've got ~18 years in IT, in private sector, public sector, perm and contract. Basically a jack-of-all-trades (except for coding). In recent years, I've been grappling with the same issue you describe. At the same time, I've been focusing on Privacy issues, taking courses, taking on related tasks at work. Now I'm ready to take on a full-time Privacy role. The IT background counts for a lot in this regard, even though my day-to-day work won't involve any hands-on IT work. Basically, the plan was to become "bilingual" in something else, and then make the leap as a "translator".
Best of luck,
P
I'm training to be a librarian after a few years in IT. Librarianship is a usually a 2nd - 4th career :) And IT can be really useful in the field. Degree takes 2 years and the pay sucks, but it can be pleasant and rewarding. Librarians are the best people to hang out with at parties.
Also, electricians are paid well. There's a lot of apprenticeship required, but as it's a hands-on kind of job it likely has much higher satisfaction than IT. It also pays well. You could pick up some other handyman skills and work at home improvement, or even get on Monster House at the Discovery Channel. Who knows!
But seriously, those are two I like. It doesn't mean you will. If what you're asking is if your years in IT pre-dispose you to a different field, I'd say it depends on what part of IT you were in and what you were doing.
After 20 years of desk dwelling, perhaps something more physical would be a good change. Perhaps drop down to part-time at work, and start part-time in something completely different to try it out. Seven random ideas:
1. Mountain bikes - maybe a courier, park guide, selling and servicing bikes
2. Food - open a niche food business, or a more general offering
3. Gourmet coffee - people can't get enough of the good coffee, not just the rocket fuel from the bigger chains, but decent single estate coffee roasted that same week, ground just before brewing
4. Garden & plants - landscape gardening, or, if the outdoors is too cold and wet, specialise in indoor plants and arrangements.
5. Trades - plumbers, electricians - will always be in demand, learn a new technical skill, troubleshooting when things go wrong
6. Art - either creating it, or buying it and arranging it on behalf of others (banks usually have curators for their art collections)
7. Spend some time overseas with someone like VSO http://www.vso.org.uk/ - friends have done this, and found it to be very worthwhile.
I have only spent 7 years in IT, and also work for "the largest financial company in the world". I already have one foot out of the door probing new careers for myself. Good luck with the change!
I can't match 20 years in IT, but I do have 18 years programming for a living (i considered saying "programming professionally" but that would be a very bold claim regarding my career). I think if I had no commitments (family to feed, mortgage, car payment etc) I would still like to program but I'd just like to work on better code. No matter which job I'm in, which company, which continent, I have somehow ended up dealing with a lot of legacy junk, often written by people in an awful hurry many years ago, some of whom i never even met. I understand that that's where the money is for many people, since "legacy junk" can also be the same thing as "established product with healthy userbase, making boatloads of cash", however I would just really like to get away from that at some point. I think the "plan" such as it is, would be to win millions on the lottery and then retire, and entertain myself on some open source project that I could be happy with.
Chris
-helpful and constructive as always
Personally, what I mean is go out and do it. If that means you need to obtain skills to do it, then do that first. I say follow your dreams, not get ahead of yourself.
I also believe that there is nothing that you can imagine yourself doing (within certain realities of physics, of course) that you cannot conceivably do. Have you seen Ong Bak or The Protector? This guy Tony Jaa grew up watching pissed-off Kung Fu movies and no one ever told him that people needed wires to do these badass stunts where they run up the side of things and so on, and as a consequence he learned to do those things without wires. I don't mean the anime/kung-fu leap that sends you thirty feet up into the sky or anything here - again, reminders about physics apply.
But the point is, how many things could we have done if no one told us we couldn't? If we weren't constantly discouraged from our "fool dreams" by parents, teachers, society...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
to get laid!
If your neighbours roof is flying past your window, you know it's cyclone season.
A race car is a tool for turning money into smoke and noise. A LOT of money. Know how to make a small fortune in racing? Start with a big one.
And as you progress past a certain level, it takes cubic dollars to advance - and the people with access to that sort of money suffer from a reality distortion field strength that has to be experienced to be believed.
I had a lot of fun racing, and I met a lot of cool people and got to do a lot of cool stuff, but I also spent a metric assload of money with little to show for it save a website, a bunch of trophies, a Speed TV clip, and a bruised credit card.
I'd've done better to stay in the Army.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
You've got lots of experience, pass it on to the next generation. Teach - community college, etc. Not the worlds best pay, but the hours are good and you get lots of time off...
(Full time prof. here at the comm. college I work for is off from now until last week of August -with pay. Fall and spring semesters, they are here for 20-25 hours per week, nothing more "required" by policy. Oh, and the state retirement kicks butt)
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
I do both, and being a Stagehand is about as far away as you can get from IT. Like lifting heavy things? Are you good at following precise directions? Like working out? Able to stand around and "look busy" while the artsy folks figure out what they want you to do? Stagehanding might be the life for you. And yes, it can pay fairly well. Check out your local IATSE and let them know you'd like to be placed on their over hire list if you think you might be interested. It takes a while before you join the union, but you make union wage and schedule when you're working a union gig, even if you are just an over hire. I find it's a nice compliment to a 9-5.
..you may have seen her on PBS. She really has a good approach to finding fulfilling work. For example: http://www.amazon.com/Live-Life-You-Love-Step/dp/0 440507561
Maybe the reason that IT does not seem fun anymore is that "the largest financial company in the world" isn't a place to have fun.
If it was good enough for this guy, it should be good enough for you.
...those who can't, teach. I have had plenty of amazing professors that came out of industry.
Dude,
go to South Korea or Taiwan, make tons of dough teaching English, enjoying the beautiful weather and hawt girlz.
If you have spare funds, consider investing in a farmland. It can be as small
as 10 to 15 acres. This is what I have planned for my exit from IT. Guess another
3-4 years to pull in IT.
Cheers
BT
Teach For America's mission is to enlist our nation's most promising future leaders in the movement to eliminate educational inequality. We accomplish this by building a diverse, highly selective national corps of outstanding recent college graduates--of all academic majors and career interests--who commit two years to teach in urban and rural public schools in our nation's lowest-income communities and become lifelong leaders for expanding educational opportunity.
I'm pretty sure that's what they do. But then again, they're probably looking for people who can comprehend a mission statement, to make teaching english more effectual.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
not exactly IT, where compile errors eat your sanity ;). I do get a fair amount of enjoyment out of doing my own remodelling and car repair.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
I agree with a couple other posts that suggest it may just be your work environment that needs a change, not so much the work you do. Think about it this way, you've already spent most of your career in IT, learning tricks of the trade, people skills for IT interactions, and generally improving your skillset. Understandably work is work and not play, but there are very few jobs indeed where that isn't true most of the time.
;)
However, I don't think changing careers entirely late in the game is going to make things any more fun, or any easier. You'll have to start over learning new job skills, the pecking order within not only that office, but that career. Basically you'll be starting over in a lot of ways, which means playing catch-up and probably even less fun. Of course, I am assuming you'd still choose a new career in something you're at least familiar with, or related to IT, but there will be differences to relearn nonetheless.
Try a change of scene first, maybe a small startup is what you need, a close-knit group working to a focused goal, generally less corporate atmosphere, maybe interesting office culture. Never been in a startup myself, but if the anecdotes we hear from silicon valley from time to time are true then that sounds like the kind of environment where work could be intense but fun for the last few years of your career. Although the retirement benefits could go either way, you could retire from a google, or from a dotcom bust special. Good luck.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
I don't know if there's a proper term for what I do, but anyone can do it. Buy things, and sell them. Buy low, sell high. Auctions, flea markets, classified ads, and plenty of other venues are available for both ends of the process. Corporate and government surplus and liquidation are also great sources. Lately there has been a rash of 'work from home' scams describing just buying and selling on ebay, but that is minimally lucrative. The best results are had moving from global/national markets like ebay to local markets like classifieds and flea markets, and vice versa. You can make as much as you're willing to invest the time to deal with, with some caveats regarding initial capital. I have had to pass up on some great deals recently because I didn't have $10000+ available on short enough notice. In my experience, you are best off to stick to things you're already familiar with. Don't buy jewelry if you aren't intimately familiar with different types and their market values. I do most of my best work in tech items like computers and cameras and their accessories and parts, the sorts of things I can just look at and instantly know the auction and direct sale values for.
I don't mind "sharing my secret" like this because even though anyone CAN do it, most people don't have the organizational skills or the patience. Also, you have to be prepared for dry spells. I have turned over $2000 in profit for a few hours work before. Normal weeks I end up spending 10-15 hours shopping, selling, and shipping and can make maybe $1000. And some bad weeks I can't move anything at all.
Working for a giant financial company can make anything lose its fun. Why not try doing IT for a different company, working in an area that you care about? Maybe you love playing guitar, so you go do IT for a guitar manufacturer. Maybe you want to feel like you're helping people, so you join the IT staff at a non-profit you support.
I'm set to graduate with a degree in CS next year, and sometime in the past 3 years I realized I hate working in the computer industry. I was too far along in my degree to change without a massive investment (2+ more years of classes) so I just threw a language on top. In my case I went with Arabic as it's in huge demand right now, and not likely to go away anytime soon. At the very least when I graduate I'll be able to actually point to a real skill I learned in college, as opposed to the more ephemeral CS topics I learned.
Initially I'll try for translation jobs with software companies, but eventually I wouldn't mind transitioning to pure translation and ditching the computer industry altogether.
You seem to be pretty articulate. If you don't need much money (at ALL) and enjoy writing, why not try doing a column or some articles for the local paper? For example, you could write about new stuff in business technology. Or if you like the arts, write about local music, theater, art museums, etc. I have done a lot of this, and my experience is that newspapers always need more content, these organizations always want more coverage, and there usually isn't enough news staff to handle it. (Because newspapers are poor.) You don't have to be an expert. I don't know jack about art, but our local art museum has loved my coverage of them because I just went, looked at everything, called the artists who did things I liked, and asked them about what they did - why, how, etc. (I didn't do reviews per se, more like previews of opening exhibits, concerts, etc.) It's just fun conversation. Write it all up in an article and there you go. Like I said, this pays pennies, but if you've done well in IT and don't need the money, it might be a fun way to discover things in your community.
When I retire I plan to have a house here (getting there paying it off) and also having a house already paid off in Japan where my wife is from. I plan to live in a small village and I dream of being a Curry chef in whatever restraunt there. Its massively different than IT of course. All depends on geography and relevent interests. What would you wanna do w/ your spare time? Mentor children? Go on a boatload of cruises? Play Bingo. Please /discuss/
There's no Freedom like UFP-dom
I went to sawmills. hard to beat computers and 1000 hp saws. there is a certain satisfaction to seeing your stuff run in realtime. making machines move around and do real stuff, as opposed to just storing numbers in a db.
great fun
It's almost the same, but totally different. Your skills are useful, you do good every day, and you wake up each morning with a fresh zest for life.
After this, when I get my Ph.D. in Econ, I'll become a prof in Canada doing that. Go back to writing books and papers. That is fun too.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Become a cage fighter.
You're an IT worker at the largest financial company in the world?
Take them down from the inside and then jet off to the Cayman Islands.
Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!
I dropped IT after many years and became a nurse, it is much more rewarding, and you still get to troubleshoot a lot.... just people instead of computers.
I would suggest you read What Should I Do With My Life? by Po Bronson. He also wrote The Nudist on the Late Shift about life in the dot-com era.
Right now I'm on medical leave from my job because I had a nervous breakdown. Right now I avoid going outside because I might have to talk with my neighbours (who are nice, friendly people) and I can't deal with that stress.
After wasting yet another a month of my life dealing with my employer because of HR screw-ups, and knowing that I will not be working for them when I recover, I find myself asking if I should leave the IT profession entirely. While I still love technology and computing, I have never had an IT job that I've been reasonable happy with. Or am I doing something wrong in my job search for the right employer, that I can correct this time around.
I will be looking forward to reading the comments with interest.
Slacker!!!
If you're moderately financially secure and don't expect a huge increase in financial demands in the short term (ie, you're not about to put a kid or two through college, and you have no immediate plans to buy a new house, retire, etc), have you considered education? Many states and local areas have programs for getting career-changing adults certified as classroom teachers (the NYC Teaching Fellowship is one such popular program) and schools can ALWAYS use more competent logically-oriented (math, science, tech -- anything not language) teachers. The downside is the bureaucracy of education -- that's what's kept me out of classrooms and working for private organizations. But if you really want to do Something More, that'd be it.
Cash in your investments and buy "40 acres and a mule" in the Ozarks. The downside is that you'll never have a vacation for the rest of your life. The upside is that you'll be safe and sound when peak oil hits and the food riots start.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
I actually got 3 diploma's in college (in Canada they dont give out degree's in college, only uni, so they are comparable to Associate or Bachelors degree's) because I wasnt sure what I wanted to do, took longer than most people would like to spend at college, but now I can rotate between careers easily every few years when I get bored of that specific thing, all of them are in the tech based because I love technology, but after a while I get bored of that field and I have the ability to easily move into one of the other's, and as long as I keep up to date, its no problem. It may have cost more in the beginning (although College is cheap up here) I think it was one of my best choices, or... lack of choices. I guess what I'm getting at is maybe you can get an associates in another field, through correspondance or something, and as far as I know (at least up here) you can use real world experience to get credits.
I had the same thing happen to me a while back. I ended up becoming a day trader for about a year. It wasn't a terrible time, at the end pretty much came up scratch. Had time to pursue a lot of IT related things and it made computers fun again. Once i got over that, I couldn't wait to get back into the field. I got back into it about 3 months ago and couldn't be happier.
Thats what I'm doing. I've been playing with computers since I was 8 and I've been doing IT professionally for over a decade. These days most of my free time is spent practicing tai chi, kung fu and embracing Daoist philosophy. I eventually hope to move to Colorado where I will open a temple where I can help others who want to walk the same path.
It may be sort of new but enough to keep you interested for a few years, too. Peace Corps is having more and more IT-related needs, and it may be neat to do that kinda work in more resource-constrained or creative environments, plus learning a new language and new place for a couple of years. They also have other areas of work, but unless you try to hide your background, they may really want to put you in the IT box...
No serious. I'm in the same boat, I'm a tech head, have been for 20+ years and I'm fairly burnt on it, at least doing it for the corporate overlords. After reading Groklaw I got interested in the law and took some online classes for paralegal. I actually enjoy the research part of it, figuring out the logic bombs of technicalities that the really bad criminals always seem to get away with.
Reading the law uses the same skills as reading a computer program. If you're able to read and understand a program written in Java, or C++ or heck, even BASIC, you have the same skills for reading a law book. It's s series of logical statements written in a similar style, just hidden. I'm not a "leet programmer" but I can look at a section of code and at least understand what it's doing. I can also read a paragraph in a law book and see the same logical processes.
The drawbacks is you're back to square 1. You're going to have to get an entry level position or worse, have to spend some time volunteering at a legal clinic until you can get hired anywhere. I'm currently doing volunteer work at ABLE (Advocates of Basic Legal Equity) and keeping the corporate tech job because it pays enough that I can entertain my whims.
Who knows, maybe I'll go back to school and try for the bar.
And tell us how it all turns out!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Bizarre solution: enroll into grad school. Picture this: you like IT. Tons of things have happened since you took your last class, and you're an expert in some of those things, and are out to lunch on many more. Grad school lets you "top off" in challenging and mind blowing ways. And you get to experience a younger, very gifted crowd. Result: You get to choose a new direction, experiment with new things, and do something completely different without giving up what you love. Is that the sweetest deal on the planet, or what?? (I'm doing this right now.)
Save up enough that you can comfortably go on a leave of absence of a year or two, or retire completely. If you can't do that, you don't really have the luxury of a new career.
As for where to go, I can only say what I'd do: writing. I do enjoy it, I'm told I'm good at it, and the world really does need at least one or two books, movies, and stories that get it right.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Well, for many of us the work is VERY hard to confuse with playing. Welcome to the club. You've been spoiled for too long. Try job of other people who for various reasons have crappy jobs for one fifth of your salary...
Or just quit whining
Marius
I worked for 30 years in IT and dropped out of full-time work after 2 horrible years in Citigroup. I'm grateful to them now, they created a crisis that made things change.
I'm lucky in that I still enjoy IT and feel that these coming years are getting more and more interesting.
I teach IT part-time at a charity for older people (I'm one, almost) in London, code on my own open source projects, travel, paint and play the guitar badly. In other words I have a portfolio of things that I do.
I also downsized my house and paid the mortgage and traded consumer goods for more freedom.
As another poster said 'what do you WANT to do?' in my case it's a list not a scalar.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
I would teach, personally. I would still be able to do the things I enjoyed and would be providing something back to society at the same time. It's summers off and the best of both worlds. IT without the stress and responsibility of someone's entire company riding on your abilities. Plus I'm the kind of person that really enjoys teaching people new things, whether children or adults it doesn't really matter.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
Natural sunlight.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
I have only been in IT for about 8 years and have some of the same feelings. I decided to take a look at what else the world had to offer besides IT and didn't know what to look for. What can and can't I do with my skills? What can I learn?
/did not proofread //should probably start proofreading if I go back to school... hmmm
I ended up accepting a hybrid type job that is IT in nature but also gives me a foot into an entirely different industry. An industry that I could effectively work at full time in a few years, if I so chose.
In addition, this job happens to be at a university that will pay my tuition for a masters degree... furthering my options to broaden my mind.
This decision was not without sacrifice... most notable is reduction in pay scale.
The question was what would I do..... and this is it...
Best of luck!!
-B
Full-time Professional Freelance Hobbyist (That's my personal ambition anyhow.)
Five years ago I left technology for good to become a professional nature photographer. There are catches--the pay is terrible (but I made a lot of money in tech.) When I'm out in the field, particularly the far north in summer, the hours can truly suck (but I love every single minute of it, even if I don't... can't get enough sleep.) Some of the people in the art business are difficult to work with. (True anywhere, likely.)
On the other hand, I love my boss (myself), even when he's a hard taskmaster. My overall level of happiness and sanity has gone up--way up. Despite oft-long hours, a lot of flexibility in when that work gets done allows me an incredibly varied and rich social life, as well as to serve on the board of directors of a non-profit. People who don't pay me who appreciate my work often write me in appreciation of what I do.
There is an obsessiveness to the tech culture, a "60 hours a week or you suck", a cluelessness apparent in the constant dicksizing about how much one suffers at work. For many, this gets in the way of having a happy and grounded life. Don't get me wrong, I love technology and gadgets, I miss writing code (and still do now and then), but not for a moment in the last five years have I missed being pulled into the obsessiveness of the Silicon Valley tech work culture.
I'm not suggesting that you go become a nature photographer, that was my dream, not yours. And, as many other folks here suggest, don't rush into something. Make sure you take care of your future, don't leave yourself worried about how you're going to eat. Don't leave yourself to be asking "You want fries with that, sonny?" when you're 88.
BUT....
Do go out and find something you love. Something that lets you have whatever kind of life you'd like to have, while working. Life is too short to waste.
I'm a nature photographer.
... to build on what I liked,and some of what I knew. Also, one of the good things about IT skills is that they can still be an asset in many other situations.
I was fortunate enough to have a bit of a nest egg when I searched for something else, so I started looking for businesses I could start. I looked around at a wide variety of things that I liked, made a few false starts (be sure to keep costs low at the outset), and then found something that combined some of my other interests and skills, and actually has some market potential. Right now I'm working (ok, slacking off) on a CAD drawing of a part we'll be making in a few days. The nice part is that while I have the opportunity to learn a huge amount about a new field that has always interested me (advanced materials and mech engineering), big parts of the biz, such as technology selection and IT infrastructure, are just second-nature.
Whatever you do, do something you like, get involved in everything, and be open to chance comments. I wound up in this biz because a friend commented that he was having a hard time finding vendors that weren't overbooked, overpriced, or both. I was interested, had another friend who could help me get started, did a some research, and... I might not have thought of it myself, but I'm happy to be here. Now, I must get back to work.
GOOD LUCK!!
It's the waste. If you're squeamish about getting poo on you, you probably don't want to go into plumbing. Same rationale applies to a fear of spiders, insects, or drowned rodents...
I'm thinking the same way. IT for 20+ years is getting boring. When this current gig ends I'll probably do something entirely different.
I may flip homes. I'm pretty handy with my hands and general home construction stuff. Also I like the feeling of being personally involved with my investments. Its also cool to create something that makes people happy.
If not that I'll dust off my commercial pilot's license and get a job doing freight runs in small aircraft. The solitude of that work would be fun.
"Written on the pages is the answer to the never ending story..."
Hmm... well I know someone who went from a career in IT to a forklift operator at a machine shop... he loves every minute of it (sort of a Peter Gibbons example right there).
... or maybe I'd just do two chicks at the same time.
I work in IT despite the fact that I have a degree in Mechanical Engineering. Personally I'd love to work in Journalism, conducting interviews, writing reviews and and informational articles. Unfortunately this isn't exactly a field that earns much in comparison to my current career. I've compromised by staying where I am and writing articles for my own benefit once a week (see the sig) to at least get better at that sort of thing and build up a portfolio.
As for opening a shop... I could do that too, I wouldn't mind a video game store or a home theater boutique. I wouldn't be adverse to opening a chain store like an EB or Gamestop... but then we get back to your point of not having any business experience, nevermind startup capital. I wouldn't mind opening my own arcade either (I do actually have experience in that field from running the maintenance end of a summer boardwalk arcade for 3 years) but that gets back to your point about the market drying up about 10 years ago. Again that requires some startup capital, though I suppose these are dreams I could fulfill if I had a million dollars.
Collector's Edition
Pass on the lessons you learned, related to your specific job or otherwise...
Insane?
No, the voices told me I'm fine.
Start your own business.
After 8 years of product development and IT consulting I had a desire to do something more fulfilling with my life. I went back to school and got a BS in pure math while I completed the prereqs for med school. Now I'm a 3rd year med student on the path to being a surgeon. And if you think you're too old we have someone over 50 in my class and a number of others with adult children.
Play WoW.
I agree with parent. Don't get a Vista wife (eyecandy and heartache) etc.
Find some other way to work through your flat patch. This might be industry related (eg. learning a new programming language etc) or it might be completely different (tapdancing, fly fishing, photographing butterflies...). If you're unfit, do something about it. Some degree of fitness really helps too.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I find myself feeling the same dredge of IT myself. Couple that with a long career with the Federal Government, I started wondering if if it was too late to do what I wanted to do when I grew up? I chose to take the hard road and retrain while continuing in IT, but with a family and a full time job, it can be tough. I am looking at electronic engineering with hopes that there is some way to transition when the time is right. The tough part for guys like us is having to make that transition without sacrificing the income level we have become accustomed to. It really is a blind leap with no real security that new career prospects will be available when I am done, but to do nothing will lead to further regret later on in life.
I got CISA & CISSP certifications and became a technology auditor.
Some of these comments really make me laugh (idiots without little perspective).
I've been in a similar rut. I would agree you probably won't make the same good money elsewhere (unless you're really lucky). I'm in a job now where I'm comfortable, but it's not the same anymore.
IT can really be information overload and burnout. Period. How many of us find it difficult to "unplug" and if you do, when? Pagers? Email?
I miss the good old days of the stock boom, where we had great funding and lots of neat things to do. I suppose if I were making more money where I'm at now, I might not care as much.
There is a trade off to this and to being in a "job", period, with benefits and income. Versus taking a huge risk of falling flat on your face trying a career change.
My advice would be to talk to a licensed financial adviser, look at your "larger picture" and then make a decision based partially on that. The picture also changes if you are married and have children, where it may be irresponsible to take such a risk.
This book will give you all the answers you need for choosing a career that is a vocation.
Just google "Fort McMoney"
I got tired of IT and decided to just take off traveling for a bit and discovered what I enjoy. So I come back here to the States for six months (April - September), make my ridiculous money for those six months, save about 1K a month and then take off to a third world country for October - March. I own my land here outright, I live within my means and in the winter months I enjoy my time exploring spending 4.00 a day for my hotel room in Marrakech or traveling around Thailand (monthly rent 160.00). As long as you're not trying to live in Europe or Japan, you can go pretty far on 1K a month.
Life is short and no one on their death bed ever says "Oh boy I sure wish I could have worked more!!!!"
i was working for a large software company in the seattle area. got really burned out and decided to go be a cop. i always wanted to be in law enforcement so it was going to be a nice change. i ended up finding another job at a different company, and now i am happy here. i still think i would make a great cop, but my wife was very happy when i didn't pick that career. so if you are single, reasonable fit, look into law enforcement.
Seriously, robotics is going and is big, growing at insane rate. Getting your feet wet with it now can pay off big, although a few years back when the advent of MEMS sensors and cheap easy to use DSP computing power began, would have been better. Lots of software skills to make use of, some electronics, systems engineering and hacking is a plus.
.. see how many IT industry moguls went with the NewSpace boom ? John Carmack, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Paul Allen .. there are other less noticed guys involved. Rocketry nowadays doesnt involve much science, science has been done and put down in the books. It requires good system engineering and integration skills, plenty of persistence and analytical thinking. If you are good at chewing through math, thats a strong plus.
Space tech and Rocketry
Lots of NewSpace startups are hiring.
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org Errors found while checking this document as HTML5!
I have been very lucky to be working in a field that would otherwise be my hobby. I've been doing this for 20 years also. Sure some days are not as fun as others.... But every now and then I get to do something where I lose all track of time. I absolutely live for those moments. I have always imagined that when I "retire", I'll be the old fogey who starts up the computers every morning at the elementary school nearby. Now that's what I call retirement!
When I had my crisis (due to a divorce and burnout) I went and took night school classes to become a Massage Therapist!
sure - I never ended up using the degree, but I did get to put my hands on a lot of good looking women; and get a message every night for 7 months!
There, fixed that for you. Tony Jaa is impressive, but Chan is the master. (Yeah okay, Shanghai Knights he used wires for some, but he's pretty frickin old now!)
As someone who has partially done that, I take a personal interest in your question and hope I can help at least a little.
Like you, I have been in IT for 20+ years and like you, was finding it to be more work than play. I have also considered, and to some extent done, things to get out of IT.
My short list of things I'd like to do: buy or open a Vietnamese restaurant, be a Starbucks manager, be an In-N-Out Burger manager (really), own a franchised small business, own a fishing tackle shop, be a real estate agent.
Of those, being a real estate agent is something I have done, and I find that I really enjoy it. Last year, I got my license and joined a real estate office on a part-time basis.
About six months later, as I was leaving my previous employer at the end of a long transition package (I was working for a startup that was acquired by a much larger company and I declined to be transferred to headquarters, so I transitioned out over a year and a half while working from a home office) I received an offer from another startup in the greater Silicon Valley area. That was a much shorter transfer than the other company wanted me to make, and the salary kick was huge, so I took it. That mean putting my real estate career on hold for a while, but I plan to restart it later this year or early next year when I have some more time. In the six months I was active part-time in real estate I did sell a house and I loved the experience. It was really great. It's hard work, but so is anything worthwhile. In the meantime, I love my new job and it has put the fun and challenge and play aspect back into IT for me. This is a great company and I'm doing cool, challenging, satisfying stuff.
I liked it so much that if I didn't have a family to support, I would have just walked away from IT when my previous job ended and thrown myself into real estate full time. However, since almost no new agents and even quite a few experienced agents don't make what I make in IT (and you have to consider that since that's a 100% commission gig, you need to make at least 50% more, and probably closer to double, to account for covering your own insurance, 401K, etc.). Few agents, even among experienced ones, are making double what I make in my new job.
That may or may not be for you, but what you can take from that is making a radical career change can be very satisfying if you make the right choice, it might be possible to ease in part-time, and that if you have a family to support, it might be the only way.
Finally, one more piece of perspective: the most satisfying thing I do is support my wife and kids, and even if I'm in a job that's not all that great, my family's well-being is more important than loving my job. That said, my wife is really happy that I love my new gig and having a job you love does make your family life better, too.
Good luck to you in whatever choice you make.
Well here's what I am thinking about, but I'm staying in IT, this would be a hobby. A friend of mine at work has 12 chickens. /month. No rooster needed, just chickens. No antibiotics are fed, only treated if sick, and if they are ... It is nice to forget about a job when you go home but I haven't been able to do that for
they pretty much roam free in a large outdoor cage to protect them form foxes, turkey vultures, dogs and othe rpredators.
He gets about 70 eggs
sick he does not eat the eggs. they are really healthy.. no need to do this yeat, only when they were small.
Organic eggs yolks are darker, you can tell the difference. I think there's a market for these. So, I'm breaking the wife and kids
into the idea. we'll start with twelve, then when we got it, double it, and get more. Maybe start an organic poultry/egg store.
or maybe just eggs/milk/cheese (milk and cheese sold from other organic farmers.).. but this is a secondary job goal. I kind of relax when I do physical labor because my fulltime job has me behind a desk or in a data center most of the time.
You can possibly swap this idea, run an egg farm full time and moonlight as mr. IT guy on the side to supplement the income.
I know where you are comming from, I'm 44 now, and I prefer time with my wife and kids over a night at the data center.
And the on-call times.. well
13 years.
Good luck with your search. maybe just getting out of the financial IT market would be adequate for you.
I haven't been in IT for 20 years, but more like 7. I just started back to school to get a masters in accountancy. I've been in IT security now for almost 2 years, by the time I finish school I'll have a good 5 years under my belt and hopefully my CISSP by then.
At that point, information assurance/auditing seem like they may be a good fits with that background plus the accounting education. In general, my attitude was to do something that enhanced my current experience, combined with something I have an interest in anyway (I've frequently thought of being an accountant, including majoring for a time back in college before I got the CS degree). That way, instead of changing what I'm doing, I just look at it like I'm taking my current career to a logical next step.
A modern day witchhunt.
I've searched others' comments and it seems they missed some obvious lateral moves (ones I've considered anyway --when I'm too old to keep up with the latest paradigm shift). Have you considered becoming a technical recruiter? Or doing IT-related sales? Or, if you're really not a people person, perhaps you could move into management? IT really needs more managers that have a fundamental clue about technology.
But... you say that "it's not that doing IT related tasks aren't fun anymore..." which leaves me wondering if you don't just need a change of venue or an IT project that fires your imagination. Maybe you could delve into something that dovetails with another interest? Even if it doesn't pay as well.
Ask me about my sig!
Check out http://vocationvacations.com/. Take a week off and test drive a new carrer.
"The second half of a man's life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half." - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Here today, gone tomorrow.
I would go back to what I wanted to be since I was a kid, a bear.
I am in a similar state right now, but I have only been in the industry for slightly over a decade. I just got tired of what I do and the lifeless products I support. I recently moved to a smaller town, smaller house payment with reasonably similar pay and currently spend all of my free time taking night classes working towards a bio/med degree.
The pay and stability are great with my IT job, but I just don't feel like I am ever going to do anything life changing for myself or anyone else. The basic IT skillset (and college coursework for a Comp Sci/IS degree) translates fairly well to any number of scientific/medical fields and I have an interest in biology and medicine, so it isn't a huge stretch for me.
Sure, I'm nervous - this is a huge change and a big commitment, but if I stay focused I should be making similar money in a few years and join several of my friends who are really excited about what they do.
I say look into parallel-ish paths and tread lightly.
Sadly, my friend passed away from a heart attack late in October, 2006, of a heart attack, having spent the last 15+ years of his life better known to the Renaissance Festival world as Dan the Master Joyner.
OCO is Loco
I'm in somewhat the same position...
I think it's a symptom of getting old, if something is new then it's fun to me. After 20+ as a dev there's not much new stuff coming across my desk. I got into the job because I liked it and for 99% of the time I've had fun. But now I'm looking at what is around and it's either Web 2.0, bleegh, or package implementation, double bleegh. Where's the fun projects? Someone wants to do high volume desktop hosting or fault tolerant hardware drop me a line.
I've always had a life outside of work so it's not like I have to leave for my sanity but I am making plans. At present I'm building some CNC machines, mill, lathe, small and large routers, I'll probably turn these into a side business catering to joe public.
The current crop of emachine shops are far, far to expensive for the average joe to experiment with. For instance to cut some plywood panels I was quoted about $100 per sheet! Small PCBs cost like $40! Simple water cutting of aluminium is $100! A simple acrylic cube 12" on a side was coming out at $400. The reason for the expense is the machines they are using. High volume, high quality, tight tolerance engineering used to make single parts that could be made by hand, anyone seem the mis-match.
I think can make a profit at $10 a throw so I'll charge $20 and see what happens. I need all the machines for my own projects anyway.
I see a huge market for CNC machining that is accurate to the hundredth and is priced around the $20 mark.
Following on from that I plan to build a boat to circumnavigate. A 5 year break would make the ideal change for me. But I have no dependents this might not work for a committed family person. I'm also take a serious look at old style bi-planes. If you can get away from the latest tech there's still a lot of money to be made with wood, steel and fabric.
I'm also toying with a design for a 6dof simulator seat for under $2000, but I'll probably just make one for my self. I've mucked around with light gun games that work on any screen, that was fun. But I fancy a reasonably sized and priced VR platform would have buyers.
My advice is to set up a side business that you enjoy and see where it goes, in most states they make a nice tax shelter/haven/break for an employed person.
Grow Marijuana. :-)
Disneyworld.
No, seriously, Orlando has so much less of a hurricane risk than southern Florida, it's a booming area and you really can't beat the weather. It's still affordable, and as craigslist will tell you, there's a good amount of industry there. Plus everything is pretty cheap because all the tourists pick up the tab.
Do you see the sig? Do you have it in your sights? Why yes, Miss Moneypenny...
I've considered quitting my current job and working for myself only because I know that if I apply my techie skills in the right way, I can earn the same salary for working less hours - I don't "need" more money but would just like more recreational time due to having a second home in Spain.
Here in the UK, I believe there is a demand for IT support to peoples' homes, particularly when it comes to setting up and securing ADSL and home wireless networks - its more a question of how much people are prepared to pay for a home callout.
I'm also looking at offering VoIP deployments in Spain. With the amount of new building going on in Spain at the moment, mainly holiday homes, people don't necessarily want to pay monthly rentals for phone and ADSL lines, just to have a service when they're out here. I'm looking at using Asterisk PBX and wireless to meet those requirements.
People always need electricians, carpenters and plumbers - but with the way technology is at the moment, they also want Internet access and working PCs and do not get the support they need from ISPs and/or PC manufacturers; this is definitely something worth capitalising on; people will pay for good service and at least two on-call techies I know currently are inundated with work purely through word-of-mouth recommmendations.
So don't drop the skills you already have - keep them new and fresh, work for yourself but just work less.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
The "Drinking and Wenching" kind of pirate, as I'm not so much into the pillage and plunder.
Actually, I've been planning my second career for years now... bought a small house in the caribbean, got my SCUBA instructor's cert and am a couple of months away from the captain's license. All while working as a programmer drone.
But there's lots of call for piracy these days. Arrrrgggg.
Starting salaries are staggering: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2007/04 /30/daily96.html?from_rss=1
I went through the same thing as well after 15 years in the field. About 5 years ago, I decided I wanted a career change. It took me 4 years to decide what I wanted to do (and I strongly urge you not to rush into something like this, unless it's just a job change). For me, I finally decided, a little over a year ago, that I wanted to go into medicine. I did a lot of research into what was required (the last doctor in my family was back in the 1800s, so it's not something I knew much about through family members). The main thing holding me back was my pretty pathetic grades (below a 2.5) from when I was an undergraduate before. In retrospect, it was fortunate that I dropped out short of getting my degree (in computer science).
I've returned to school part-time and I'm majoring in chemistry and biochemistry. It's enough credits that it's giving me a chance to bring my overall GPA up (I've been pulled a 4.0 over 23 credits in the past year). I'm also working part-time in one of the professor's labs developing drugs for cancer treatment.
I'm not saying this is what you should do. Like I said, I took 4 years to come to a decision. I thought about a lot of possibilities. And I'm not entirely sure I'm going to go to med school. Organic chemistry and biochemistry have turned out to be far more enjoyable than I expected. Working in the lab doing cancer research was something I didn't expect to be able to do as an undergrad. It's been very fulfilling and I'm starting to think research may be where I can best apply myself. So now I'm trying to decide between doing a PhD or doing an MD and PhD together. Either way, I'm pretty sure that cancer research is what I want to do. It's definitely challenging work and I suspect it will remain challenging for the remainder of my life.
But the best advice I can offer is to take your time and look around. Try to imagine yourself doing different things for the rest of your life. Maybe take some classes in things that interest you and see if there's something that just really grabs you. That might make the decision for you.
Yeah, I'm a far out one. Instead of working in IT - it's only been a few years and I'm already burnt out - I would love to raise bears. There is a small niche market for trained bears; movies and commercials.
I should have studied zoology or something when I was in college. This IT stuff sucks. do: Sure, it pays the bills, but damn am I bored!
Love sees no species.
Do whatever you like, so long as you are prepared to work at it. I left full time IT after 14 years back in 2000. I still do IT stuff, but it short term contracts and consulting.
What I chose was film and video production. My IT experience had some relevance. In fact it has increasing relevance. Still, after 7 years this pays only a fraction of what I made in IT. Part of that is my fault, because I am taking it "easier" than I should be.
I am MUCH happier however.
The point is to put some serious thought into what you like to do, and try and do that professionally. Some people like fixing cars. Other folks like hockey. (I did that too, but never full time despite trying to become full time.) Whatever.
Before you make any changes, study your new area. Gain some expertise. Do it as a hobby for a bit to make sure you like it enough to try it as a profession.
This may sound familiar to you, because its how I, and probably a lot of folk here, got into computers.
Don't post innacurate information
If you do, I swear by my pretty floral bonnet I will end you.
oh yeah and always bash Micr$sft
I'm in an IT job I really like, simiarly over 20 years, but want to pursue a completely different job down the road so going back to school, 1 course at a time for nursing. Maybe in 10 years I'll switch over then & ease into part time.
Not really alternate career advice, but maybe you could try starting a business. Something that's fun and interesting and that you can do on the side while keeping your day job. The Internet is amazing for that sort of thing.
If it fails, hey, at least you learned something. And if it works, you've created a job you like. This would give you an opportunity to feel around for what else is out there while not giving up your security.
I'm currently going through a period of similar introspection and want to share my thoughts. My introspection has been brought on not by dissatisfaction with my job; quite the opposite. I am an IT consultant for a large firm. I get paid very well and the work is challenging. My coworkers are excellent--competent, friendly--and even my management is essentially made up of good people. I'm 26 and have achieved what many try to achieve in the IT field for their entire careers.
I've become too satisfied with my job. It took me a while to realize it, but while reading Kafka recently I came across the concept that struggle is what gives meaning to our lives (obviously nothing new but poignant for me at the time). I realized that I could look back on the past 2 years of my life and remember almost nothing but meaningless crap. In the end, it's not your job satisfaction that makes your life meaningful, it's the struggle to achieve something that you care about.
Most people delude themselves that their career-related struggle is to reach a certain point in their career where they can be happy. But I'm telling you, I'm at that level, and once you get there "coasting" is no fun. It's meaningless, and it leads to boredom and depression.
So what am I doing about it? I'm rediscovering what I care about. I set out on a mission about 6 months ago to figure out what I believed in and what I could do to help. I've been reading non-stop, I've been networking with useful people and I've been trying to figure out how I could fashion a career that would allow me to be passionate about the end results, rather than "job satisfaction". Most likely I'm going to go into project management with a green developer, building environmentally conscious homes for middle-income families. After a while there, I may develop software for local artisans and farmers to help them bring products to market.
A critical point--you don't need as much money as you think you do. Two reasonable incomes go a long way in many locations and devoting your time to something you love will reap much larger rewards than the monetary ones you left behind.
You literally have the skills to pay the bills. IT is the most boring side of computers. Combine computers with architecture. Or animation. Or design. Or science sequencing. Or assembly line optimizations. Or whatever... the better question is what do you do when you're NOT doing IT - I would take a good hard look at that. Your passion in that will bring you directly to the money.
When I started in IT, my mentor confessed to me that all he wanted to do was quit and open an ice cream shop. At the time, I didn't understand. Now I do.
After 15 years in IT, I quit (actually, not by choice. The dot-com meltdown of 2000 left me unemployed.) So, I started a toy company. You can see some of it at http://www.rlt.com/
Now that the waves of destruction from the internet big boom have subsided, would I go back to IT? No way! I'm a toymaker now and loving it. So do my kids...
As I've said before, programmers and sysadmins have some incredible advantages over most MBAs. You have LOGIC. You are CREATIVE. You have a propensity for
PROBLEM SOLVING. You can think through and visualize a plan of action from beginning to end. You can change course and re-program the system
when requirements change. You know that very few, if any, projects are ever really finished. You're a hacker who knows how to shoot from the
hip to get a job done on deadline, even if it isn't "elegant". You know that "Done" usually only means "it works at the moment and when
it breaks, we'll fix it". Guess what, these qualities plus a willingness to try and fail then try again (kind of like compiling) are what make entrepreneurs
successful. Another advantage you have is that you won't have to hire some expensive tech guy to do your programming/sysadmin/DBA stuff for
you.
You can do it. Just remember- there are a million reasons why you'll fail, and everyone will be happy to remind you of them constantly. But there's only one reason why you will succede- because you make it happen. So, ignore the naysayers and the critics, trust your instincts and go start a business.
Have fun!
I'm only 24, but I got a plan. Do IT till I can get my own computer cafe / gaming center funded. Imagine... All the coffee, Bawls, Monster, kickass computers and good music (for the late nighters) I could want. I was thinking of making weekends like allnighters where we could play some kickass techno/dance/whatever music while I and the customers frag each other up all night.
I'm in the process of doing something like this right now, in fact.
/. to actually working to have an impact.
I haven't even been in IT for all that long - less than a decade - and I can't even say that I'm burned out on it. I'm the DBA for a 2000-strong accounting firm. If I wanted to stay with my company, there's a rich career development path available to me, ending in becoming a partner. My point is that my situation doesn't map directly to yours, insofar as I don't have a fundamental dissatisfaction with what I'm doing or where it's leading me.
But I do think I could be more satisfied with a career change, so I'm just now starting the process of going to school to get a degree in IP law (insert lawyer joke here). I'm hoping it will be the difference between doing something I like and am capable of and doing something I really care about and am notably good at.
For me, it's a matter of taking something that interests me and is, IMHO, in need of people with a strong tech background and moving from the sidelines into the game. I'd like to move from posting IP rants on
I guess the moral of the story is, if you've got the ability/opportunity to make a fundamental change like that, find something that matters to you and run with it. That may, in your case, be woodworking, CNC operating, writing, photography, making travel documentaries or what-have-you. But if you're looking to move, take advantage of the fact that you aren't in a position where you've got to find a job, and pick something that you care about.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
Dude, I know how you feel. But you need to face reality. Any career you shift to will require you to: a) Start from the bottom of the ladder b) Take a huge paycut (or spend $$$ going back to school) c) Require you to significantly alter your lifestyle. I know several buddies who have left the IT world. One opened his own industrial cleaning service, another Joined the FBI, both couldn't be happier. As for the guy who suggested studying bioinformatics - I looked into that personally, and as it turns out, the market is mature enough that they really want biologists with some computer skills, and not IT folks with a little bit of Bio. My best advice - work in IT for a different industry or company.
Well, what you could do is use your IT skills to choose another field and gradually change your field.
- you could use you IT skills for a non profit organization (I know someone who is now helping such an NGO to setup telephony in Africa)
- you could pickup a smaller company in a non IT field, preferrably with a local business, help them with their IT problems and then gradually try to learn other fields.
- some bigger organization may have HR programs for such migration. In that situation, I beileive that the first step to go out of IT is to evolve toward position with more direct involvment with customers.
Anyway, try to cultivate your secondary skills and use IT as an entry key.
Oftentimes we get comfortable in our routines, our hobbies, etc. We find those few things we like and stick with them. After years of doing this, we may get bored and find our field of things to do is limited because we've stopped really looking for things which are different. I don't know what your hobbies are or whether you've really looked around, but consider trying out things you might not normally try. Take pilot lessons, go drive your car at a local track day, do an ocean fishing trip or take a week to backpack in the wilderness. The point isn't that any of these things will necessarily lead you to think of a career change in and of themselves. But they might be sufficiently different from your normal routine to give your brain a chance to be creative while simultaneously reminding you that there are a whole lot of potential career paths out there you probably haven't even thought of in the past decade, if ever. It may be just the kick you need to either revitalize your current career, or to spark your sense of opportunity.
Become a U.S. Patent Agent. Decent Pay. Great Benefits. But most importantly, with your experience you would be an excellent person to have reviewing IT related patents (and this includes reviwing software patents that should not be issued). The USPTO is constantly hiring, especially in the IT fields because of the backlog of cases. Further, once you become and agent, especially an agent with USPTO experience, you can basically write your own check to work anywhere in the U.S. prosecuting applications. All of this, while getting to see (by definition) cutting edge technology. Just my $.02 worth.
Eloquent words can mask much mischief. Judge Mayer
I left an IT Engineering position where I was charged with developing an IT Compliance managed solution. I was learning the software, building the servers (with no prior sysadmin experience), developing the sales materials, formulating the pricing models (with no prior service offering ecperience), and generally being the only person who knew what was going on. All this without a raise in 18 months. The service was expect to net 6 Million bucks once fully operational. I bailed and left them holding the bag.
Where I landed was in the Compliance/Risk division of a great company. We oversee IT Regulatory configurations and get to point out holes in configuration. However, we're not under IT. I don't maintain the servers. I may configure the software, when needed. And I'm learning so much about "the real world" outside of my keybaord and screen.
Your IT background will be invaluable in translating Techspeak to Auditors or non-technical management and directors.
Let's see, $3,000 in initial training, $4,000 in gear, 2 years of skydiving experience, plus the cost of 400 skydives @ 16 a pop (let's call it $8,000; some of those skydives cost more than 16 and you'll probably end up with more than 400); another $1,000 in training and $2,000 in camera gear (ok, that's a WAG). $17,000 and you'll start making money at $25 to $50 per skydive. Las Vegas and Hawaii, in particular, always need skydiving instructors for some reason.
That's funny -- I'm in the middle of the pack in progammer salaries, and my brother, an auto mechanic (Ford Senior Master Mechanic -- basically certified to work on anything but the hybrids) and a college dropout but has consistently made more than I have for the last decade. (hell, he was making 2x what I was, 'till I switched companies a few months ago).
... oh -- and when a component of an electrical system fails -- someone has to pull it out. And those little diagnostic computers aren't nearly as useful as you think they are. (One dealership had me keep one for a few weeks, while they tried to diagnose a random stalling problem ... I'd have taken it to my brother, but I lived 600 miles away at the time)
The thing is, for some mechanics, they don't get paid by the hour. Well, they do, but not the number of hours they work -- the number of hours the estimator gave. So, it's not uncommon for my brother to get paid for 80hrs in a week. He's good at diagnosing, and getting cars fixed and back out the door. He typically works 2 stalls at once, so as he's waiting for parts for one or for fluids to drain, he can work on the other. Yes, he has to work on Saturdays once a month -- but he's never gotten paged at 2am for a downed mail server, and there's no chance of him getting outsourced as they need people near where the cars break, not 1/2 way across the globe.
The problem is, he's come to realize that there aren't too many old mechanics -- their backs go out after a while. I'm guessing that someone who's been in IT for 20 years might not be in the best shape for bending over an engine block all day.
Personally, if I were to look at the automotive side of things, I'd look at getting certified on Hybrids -- I don't know what it'd take, but it's my understanding that there aren't that many folks who are rated to work on 'em, so it might be a useful opening.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
That's my plan anyway. I've always liked cooking. So one day when I get tired of working on computers, I figure I'll go to culinary school and then open a restaurant. It's totally different, but after doing one thing for so long, different would be a good thing.
I suggest becoming a lumberjack. Or something exciting, a lion tamer.
I've been reading comments by other /.ers and I have to say some comments are good and others are just silly. Judging by the number of posts it is obvious that to some degree this topic has come up on the minds of many fellow tech's. I propose a challenge. If you have lived as a tech and are still not tired of this wonderful profession but are looking for something else consider becoming a teacher. WTF you might all be saying about now but the fact is that if you can teach this stuff to kids and inspire them to think / and not \ your years of service will carry on into the future. What i ask is not easy with such things as human interaction, annoying grimy youths, substandard pay and the worst, stupid administrators but I feel that it is better than leaving cultured minds out to pasture.
Is not a good idea, and its for some good reason they are receive that name. Moving to a more sane place/job should be better, and off course, a little hard to find. But trying to get better going to a backward country doesnt sound good, no matter how you slice it. (BTW, I'm from a third world country)
[JL] IH8U
Programming to lion taming in one go...
You don't think it might be better if you worked your way towards lion taming, say via software engineering?
Well at this stage in your life, I guess it depends on what you already have saved up and what you want to accomplish. I personally would take a couple year sabatical from any real work and go either to see the world or try to make a difference some how. Become a teacher, do some charity, or anything else that would make you feel good about your self, and the feeling of satisifaction of giving back. This my sound a little sappy... But seriously you are hear for 70 or so years on the Earth. 20 are gone in youth, the next 20 are gone in service. Spend the next few in giving back.
After a while, it's not about what you do, it's who you want to be.
I was in a similar position to you a few years back. Well-paid, secure job and bored out of my mind. I'd moved from being an IT guy to an IT project manager to an IT boss, and I was - well, as you say - burnt out. I knew that I still had lots to offer, but I no longer knew what, or to whom. I ended up in consulting, first of all with the big boys, (to learn the ropes), now on my own.
It's not for everyone, but believe me, I'm NEVER bored!
Why not become a teacher?
Because he doesn't want to start out at the bottom of the pay scale?
Teaching pay scales are not based on merit, but on time served. He would be making the same as the aforementioned dipshit but with much larger bills to pay, regardless of much the kids might benefit.
Private school is not that much more competitive, either.
Then he can take the middle road. He wouldn't be able to teach at most grade schools & high schools because he likely doesn't have a teaching degree or any sort of government-required certification, and, even if it's not absolutely required at a private school, it's still going to play against him. What the guy ought to do, if he has an interest in teaching, is teach on a collegiate level as an adjunct while still suffering through regular IT work in the daytime, possibly as a part-time consultant if he's really burned out. Teaching as an adjunct would give the guy a chance to put teach two or three classes a semester, get a new perspective on life through the questions of his students and reexamining the way he does things for their benefit while planning lessons but wouldn't put so much of a strain on him that it would require his full-time attention. Call your local community college and see what they have available, or offer to just do some free courses for the community at large to get your feet wet and to build up some contacts in the local adult-education world.
If it was fun, they'd call it "play" and you'd have to pay them. Build some nice tall solid boundaries around your time and find something fun and interesting to do with the time you aren't earning a paycheck. Learn to play the guitar. Take a cooking class. Coach a little league baseball team. Don't expect so much of your job. It's just a job. If the people are OK and the benefits are good, give them a good day's work for a good day's pay and then go live your life.
I think I'm in a somewhat similar situation. I spent the first five years out of college working in the IT organization of a huge midwestern (USA) manufacturing company. Pay and benefits great (especially considering the low cost of living in a smaller town), the hours were flexible (40--45/hour week typical), and I had my own house.
One of my best friends from college took a job with a startup finance company (he's a veteran of this industry), and invited me to come along. I moved to Chicago with my girlfriend for slightly more pay, but a huge opportunity. At the same time, I wanted to try working for a smaller company and focus more on technical work (rather that playing the bureaucracy games of a huge company).
Fortunately, the new job pays enough that I can keep my house and pay for a condo that my girlfriend and I rent.
However, though the company is doing great, and the opportunity for me to retire or at least semi-retire young is still there, I find myself already thinking about quitting (it's only been about six months). I'm feeling a bit burned out already: 10+ hour days are the norm. My friend, boss and co-worker (there's only four of us in the whole company) regularly work 12 hour days. I don't find the subject matter all that interesting.
Part of me thinks that maybe I should leave IT all together. But on the other hand, I think it's just this job giving it a bad flavor. Granted, I don't have 20 years in, but I think it's worth considering whether or not you're really unhappy with IT, or just the application of IT in your current position. I know deep down inside that I still love technology, programming, tinkering, hacking, and all that... but I don't have time for it now, and when I do have time, don't feel like doing it. But I think that's just the frustration with my current job talking.
If I do quit and go somewhere else, I'm going to be hard-pressed to find a job that pays well enough to not have to sell my house, unless I stay in finance (the finance industry pays programmers extremely well).
I'd suggest that before you jump ship to a whole new career, switch companies/industries, but stay in IT.
If you can hack it.
Or alpacas, if you want to be cutting edge.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
I got burnt out in only 10 years... I did change careers, but only slightly. I now work for a TV station. I am still around high tech equipment but I am not called upon to actually fix anything. Sure if something pops up and the part time IT person isn't around and it's simple and wont get me fired? Sure, I will fix it. But to stay into the business I became a web master, I help others get their homes wired, research components, I got a little workshop where I like to just make things... No, I am not getting rich off of my side shoots, but I get other perks if not money. Deals on books and electronic merchandise from the people who I help that are connected to those fields. I know there are horror stories out there when you family and friends find out you can fix computers of always being nagged, but you can do damage control on that by telling them you just can't fix it. Sure I could, but eh.. I don't have the time or simply don't want to. I have hobbies that can incorporate my IT experience. Being a web master I get to test out my programming skills with scripts or working with programs there. I love gaming so I've made my own control system... that's joystick to you lay people. But my point is before you get burnt out dial it back a little. Find hobbies that could fetch you a few bucks or favors here and there. If you have no talents for profitable hobbies then you can install security systems, help with audio installations in cars and homes... whichever, that's up to you. Keep your mind occupied with new and changing things. 20 years of the same thing and you just don't think any thing is new anymore and poof... all burnt up.
I know others here have already offered this advice, but it bears repeating: stay with your current profession. Believe me, there are far worse predicaments in one's career than mild boredom. Most people work jobs that are positively repellent and stressful, for very little money. If you make a lot of money now and don't mind your job, then you're ahead of 99.5% of the world.
Keep in mind that if you expect to make similar money then you will have to re-train in something like law or medicine, which will take many years. Re-training would be difficult for someone in his mid-40s, since a person of that age would have few working years left after finishing school and paying back student loans.
The sole exception to this advice is if you've saved and invested money, such that you're now free to pursue other options regardless of the economic consequences. If that's you, then congratulations. But I doubt you're in that situation because if you were, you wouldn't be asking "what should I do now," since you'd already know. Presumably you already know what you like doing, regardless of money--nobody can tell you that.
Keep your job unless there's something else you like doing so much that it outweighs the financial loss. I assume that there is nothing else you'd tremendously prefer, since you don't know what else to do. So, you should stay with your current profession.
I'm honestly confused anytime someone says they are in the "IT" field. Does this mean they are "desktop support", network engineering, software development, guy-who-plugs-in-cables, crazy-UNIX-guy, "are you *sure* your printer is plugged in?"
I sort of assume it's some sort of mixture of network and UNIX engineering...
"Has anything you've done made your life better?" - American History X
Maybe, but it's certainly redundant.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Don't let your job take up all of your time and energy and get a hobby. Use your job as a means of supporting your hobbies and interests, whatever they may be.
I asked the same question, and found the answer. Now I have more money, more fun, more time, and way less stress. IT rocks but if you are ready for a change for the better, send me a message and I'll let you know what is working for me.
I would strongly recommend reading What Color is Your Parachute? This is a great book to help you work through what new career you would enjoy. Although it may seem to be a job hunting book, it also focuses a lot on changing your career. Here's a quick summary from Amazon for the lazy:
Richard Nelson Bolles offers hope and presents an inspiring and detailed plan for finding your place in this uncertain job market. WHAT COLOR IS YOUR PARACHUTE? has been the best-selling job-hunting book in the world for more three decades, in good times and bad, and it continues to be a fixture on best-seller lists, from Amazon.com to Business Week. It has well over eight million copies in print and has been translated into 12 languages around the world. With an extended preface that addresses job loss, vacancies, and outsourcing and updated references on how to use the Internet in your job-hunt throughout, the 2006 PARACHUTE addresses the top concerns of today 's job-hunters. In the words of Fortune magazine: "Parachute remains the gold standard of! career guides."
That post is officially called Helpdesk ?
I'd tell you the chances of this story being a dupe, but you wouldn't like it.
Let's face it friends: IT is where the car industry was in the 1920s. Which is where you want to be if you want to have it relatively safe, relatively exiting and grab some nice cash along the way. You don't seem that desperate. Having moved from full-time stage art (Diploma in an expressive stage dance) into IT (and feeling the drag just the same at times ... today for instance :-( ) may I suggest the following:
:-) Yet I'd only do it full time again if I where a millionaire. Be smart. Work in IT, practive the neat stuff in your spare time - you'll save yourself some misery.
You sound to me like a typical case of 'in need for a serious contrast programm'. You should get one. Find a non-work-time thing that you can dive into the next 25 years. Learn to play the violin, the chello, learn Kung-Fu or Aikido. And I don't just mean as half-assed sort-of hobby thing. Do it as the main thing in your life. I'm currently doing a german GED (tough stuff) and working freelance. Since 9 months I haven't had the time for my regular Aikido at the local Dojo anymore, which I picked up due to the lack of dancing. I'm starting to feel depressed just because of that. If all you do is IT you are bound to lose perspective and get depressed, no matter how much fun it initially is.
Don't drop out just yet. Find something you like - maybe together with your SO - and practice that on an expert level without the downsides of practicing it as a professional. You'll feel much better in a few months, as you have something to look forward to whenever your workday sucks to much again. You can allways drop out later if it really becomes a drag. Art is eternal and it's not without reason that true artists can put up with such a material minimum - because they have another lifeblood.
As I said: I strongly recommend some sort of performing art. Good contrast to all the sitting, and good against uprising depression. And your IT kills will come in handy when designing a choreography or grasping musical scales. I do miss my dancing and/or Aikido at days like these btw. And if I don't pick it up again soon or start Aikido again, I'll get more miserable. And fatter.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
There is no escape from IT. Period. Every bit of life is transcended with IT. Everywhere you go, there are blinking lights. So, no matter what one does, the mind falls back to known skills. Amber light - transmission, Green light - connection. Let's take it further. IT is about system. Once the mind is trained to recognize systems and to sort them, there is no escape short of complete brainwash. Much like combat skills taught in army or wherever. If fire, then duck. So, only thing you can hope to do is to find someplace where IT doesn't bother You so much and live with it. I imagine substituting machines for humans could help.
Try politics.
Lone Gunmen crew.
Although the book is overrated as a general job-finding guide, "What Color Is Your Parachute" is a good text to read in the specific case of making a radical career change.
Advice: on VPS providers
for 3 years full-time and 3 more years part-time after that. It was a fall-back after I got laid off and It was a good gig that I enjoyed. It left me with some flex time to do consulting so I made ends meet. Then one of my consulting customers made me an offer I couldn't refuse and here I am, 22 years later still at that job and enjoying it. I'd do the teaching again, if this job folded up and I wasn't ready to retire. Might do it again anyway if I got bored with retirement.
Oh, I'm not in IT, though. I'm an Electrical Engineer, but I do write a lot of embedded software for controllers.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
..Do NOT go into retail!!!
I'm still in therapy..
Many "computer people" that I know are often fascinated with music. If you've had an itch to perform or record, now would be a good time to do it.
One thing I've discovered is that there are any number of things I enjoy doing...until I *have* to do them...then they become work.
I don't think you are the only one that would like to be able to do something completely different than IT for a living, after ~20 years in the field.
Is it because (and I'm not joking here):
* the newbies coming on board develop corporate apps like ignorant kids (no design, by-the-seat-of-their-pants, making it up as they go)?
* some of the younger developpers never, EVER, wrote in trace code to debug a program?
* I'm hearing more & more idiot developpers spouting stuff like "I did it this way because your version of Oracle does not support normalisation" (my nose still hurts from the coffee that came out the wrong way)?
Is it because so many people in the industry nowadays never, EVER, worked on anything else than Wintel ("no one uses mainframes, it's dinosoar technology!")?
I could go on and on (hours, deadlines, stress, etc.), but like I said, I know quite a few senior people (20+ years) that would like to go out of IT, and surprisingly, quite a few would like to switch to trades like electrical and/or plumbing work -- one guy even mentionning construction work, but I'm not so sure that's wise.
It seemed that when IT & high-tech in general collapsed in my area, the "normal people" that suffered the less were those that had a trade training+cert as a backup, just in case. One guy became a chef, the other a plumber on some big maintenance work (for a big housing rental company). I now wish I took the training to be a carpenter (and maybe electrician, too), that could have saved me a lot of agony in 2001-2002. And it would be very useful now that I own a house.
Anyway, my suggestion, as stupid as it sounds, is for you to consider a trade. Not as "high class", but if you're lucky, it could pay almost as much with way saner hours + less stress.
With a lifetime of experience under your belt, Starting your own business would be good idea. Be your own boss.
\
Why not become a teacher?
Because if you become a teacher you have to join the union. Then a bunch of your pay goes to making sure that the teachers remain as fixed pay rather than merit based pay.
If there was no union, and I could negotiate my own salary, I would be teaching for minimum wage and full benefits. I have already put my nest egg away and could live comfoprtably for the next 20 years with just benefits. No, I won't teach your rotten private school brats. I want to teach the public school kids.
The minimum wage would be for spending cash that the wife doesn't know about.
Yeah, it sounds crazy, but marketing is often really badly done for tech firms, and if your market is engineers, then I'd say it takes an engineer to do good marketing for them. Start thinking viral marketing, cool things you can do to attract attention, giving away knowledge and stuff to attract eyeballs. It can be quite fun, and creative too, such as writing Google ads and trying to outsmart your competition.
No, but close.. it's called Helldesk.
I've been toying with the idea of a career change recently myself. I've always enjoyed the physical sciences, especially Meteorology. Does anyone have any real world experience here?
I figure it's a bit like IT, in the regard that no one remembers when you're right, but they sure remember your mistakes.
I'm still in my fairly high-paid tech job in a High-COL area, but I have a plan for transitioning out. As it happens I love to write and I'm good enough at that I have published 6 books (fiction) (By the way, this isn't a road to riches path) I am under contract for 4 more books so it looks like a writing career is not out of the question. I also like teaching, and teaching writing keeps me in touch with and thinking hard about good writing. To teach writing at the college level requires an MA and publications. I have the publications and now the MA is done this semester. This year my writing income (net) is about 25% of my day job salary. I am paying down my debt, and will be looking next at teaching positions (adjunct faculty probably) with an eye toward the day when my writing income and a part-time teaching position will provide enough for me to get by. For a little context: I am the single parent of a 12 year old. It hasn't been easy to go to school, work full time, write and parent, but time management and no TV helps. You've had good advice. What do you love? What does it take to do that? Then discuss it with loved ones and start doing what it takes. Life really is too short to end up not doing what you love. Good luck.
I'm wondering where the original poster was going with this...
;^)
Not that there's anything wrong with it
Work is just that: work. You shouldn't hate your job, but it doesn't have to be 100% fulfilling. Do something useful in your free time. If you are good at IT and are satisfied with the benefits, then just do it.
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
Tim Ferriss wrote a book I'm right reading now called The 4-Hour Workweek. He also has a blog (http://fourhourworkweek.com/).
9 /the_4_hour_workweek_secrets_of_doing_mor
I'm not ready to quite my software development job and take up kick-boxing, but the book will make you challenge some base assumptions about career, retirement, and wealth.
Here's a quick sample from his SXSW talk:
http://2007.sxsw.com/blogs/podcasts.php/2007/03/1
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
Have noticed that most IT folks are into problem solving and creating solutions. I've found that, along with IT, I'm also did well as a medic and an aircraft mechanic. If you think about it, they all involve problem solving, after having a few symptoms and an idea of how a system should work.
Might want to look into other fields that require similar problem solving. One thing that's struck myself, as wife and I build our new house, is how interesting system wise a house is. Lots of different interlocking functions and constraints. Hell, just putting the kitchen together is kinda' cool. I'm seriously thinking about setting up a customer cabinet/furniture shop over the next ten years, so I'll be ready for my retirement job.
I drank what? -- Socrates
I'd consider myself a mid-level developer getting close to senior level.
Live in a 5 bedroom, 3.5 bath house with wifey and son. (Hoping for another soon, hence the larger house.) House costs $265K. Good schools, safe neighborhoods.
People automatically think that the midwest has no opportunities and nothing to do. There are good jobs and a good standard of living. If you're into sports we've got football and baseball. No beaches or mountains but hills and lakes if you're the outdoorsy type. Tons of great restaurants, a number of micro-breweries, good concerts and clubs too.
Would I live here if I had no family here? Well probably not actually just because the summers are so darned humid and it's a little to red-state for me personally.
But don't fool yourself. There are decent jobs in the midwest and the housing is relatively cheap. We're not all farmers and truck drivers regardless of what the media tells you.
That's right, people should pick something achievable, like becoming a professional poker player.
A friend who worked for IBM in Palo Alto retired to become a bicycle repair man.
Around New England most people who have career crisises (crisi?) seem to either open a baking business (woman, esp cookies), get rid of everything and go on a backpacking trip around the world (men), or open a bed and breakfast (couples).
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Several years ago, I decided I really couldn't see me doing IT for another 10 years. While the pay was and remains great,the work was becoming more boring over time, and I found in my specific field I was dealing with more and more idiots and less and less people I enjoyed working with. I'd tried IT management and found it wasn't for me. Bottom line: I could see things progressively deteriorating to the point where I wouldn't want to get out of bed in the morning.
I decided to leverage the skills I'd picked up into different areas. I think, after you've decided you want to change, the process of taking stock of what you've got to offer is the first tangible step into something else; maybe that's where you should start. In my case, I had a strong statistical/mathematical background, history of being self-employed, and good risk management skills. What I wanted to get to was a job that gave me more time with family, where I minimised my dependencies on others to generate an income, and where I got rewarded commensurate with my skills.
I decided to move into futures and currency trading. Several years later, I now earn approximately the same amount from both IT and trading, and could drop IT altogether without any lifestyle impact. What I'm now finding is that, because I'm no longer dependent on IT for an income, I'm able to speak more freely in my IT work, focus completely on getting tasks done properly rather than continually having one eye on maintaining my own income, and am considerably more employable as an IT consultant than I was before - now that I can afford to lose customers, the ones I have are much keener to keep me around.
The main thing I've learned from this is that, however you can acquire it, it's very empowering to have a (potential or actual) 2nd stream of income. I wouldn't suggest trading to everyone, but I think it's important to look around to see what other avenues you might have for making money while you're still in IT. The fact that I can walk away from IT means that I can now pick and choose the work I do; that alone means I don't get bogged down on death march projects, or work for plonkers who drive me crazy every day. IT is *much* more enjoyable under these circumstances, and I'll probably keep at it for some time longer than I intended.
Insane after 20 years in IT? Nah, insane is about 7 years in. 20 years is so far past insane that you'd have to wait 300 years to see the light from insane.
Poker makes an excellent 2nd career for IT personel:
1. You're your own boss.
2. No physical or athletic requirements.
3. Lots of probability math to wrap your head around.
4. You can work from home if you like, or from a variety of physical locations.
5. No retirement age.
6. If you're either very good or very lucky, you can be on TV.
I bet I get moderated "funny," but I'm perfectly serious.
If I didn't have kids to support, I would travel and surf the world. Just take out all my money, and hop around the planet. Buy a nice camera, a computer, and document everything. I would basicallly be a surfing photo-journalist.
I decided to make yummy desserts instead of wading through code. I also considered (briefly) going back to school and finishing my Biology degree and pursue a career in academia (Ichthyology/Rivers and Streams Ecology), but the lack of certainty in that field was a bit of a put off. Hey, there will always be demand for food and finding a job will never be an issue (a high paying one, however....).
I know other guys who make a *killing* as plumbers. They make anywhere from $15 (starting) to over $40/hour (running a team), if that's important, and typically once they go home, they don't have to worry being on-call, although that option is certainly available to them, for a premium.
I'd love to go to Furniture Building school and learn how to build furniture, or even art school so I can do all those fun things I always wanted to do but was too busy with my nose stuck in books growing up.
Or, if the school commitment wasn't so long, I'd love to give med school a shot. I'm great with people, have a decent head on my shoulders, but I don't want to commit the next 8-10 years just getting a foot in the door. Maybe nursing?
Just remember that you'll be leaving a typically highly-paid sector and joining the rest of America in Middle Class, if not less. If you can make the adjustment, then you'll do just fine. I'm making half what I could be making if I returned to IT, but the benefits are worth it: I'm doing work I enjoy.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
I probably can't pay you nearly as much as your current job (at least, not before bonuses), but I bet you IT in the entertainment sector is a lot more fun than IT in the financial sector. I'm also with a very small start-up, so the opportunities to branch out into other areas of interest is also a lot easier, than it would be in a big corporate bureaucracy. :) The royalty and bonuses can be huge. It has a lot more risk, and more random work hours; but the creative environment, and long term financial rewards from taking the "right" risks, are worth it in the end.
I was a VP of Software for a bunch of years, and a programmer in C and C++ before that. I ended up getting sick of the whole thing (I know everyone's favourite person is Dilbert, but some of us pointy-haired types actually followed the do-no-evil policy when we could :-). So after many years, I said screw it to the computer industry (and yes, I was making well over 100K a year --- sometimes double) and went back to school for my teaching certificate in NY and now I teach math and computer science to high school kids.
The pay isn't as bad a hit as you'd think (70-80K) and although I work just as hard as when I was in IT, I don't have an idiot CEO telling me to get out of bed at 2 in the morning to settle down the latest customer that's pissed off at a product that they broke because of an unknonwn requirement with a schedule that was never realistic but would make the numbers look good for the next quarter. Combined with much better job security, my family sees me a little more and there's a huge reward for seeing messed up kids realizing there are adults in the world who are willing to help them be successful.
The other thing was that the union counted my work experience in IT as relevant to my teaching requirements, so they allowed me 7 years on the pay scale. I don't know if all of the unions allow that. If you teach math and computer science, there is a huge demand in teaching since most teachers don't actually know those topics (they may have teachables in music or phys-ed), so I got hired right away. If you want to teach English or even biology, you will not have as high of a chance of being hired immediately.
There was an adjustment in our spending, and my wife had to earn a little more money than before, but hey... I'd make the same decision again in a heartbeat.
Your mileage may vary.
Cheers.
Retiring IT workers now have a choice of two places they can go. Renew at Logan's Run or find yourself in Soylent Green.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
I'll preface this with the fact that I'm twenty-three and just finishing my first master's degree, but grad school is only an easy ride if you like paying for the privilege of having responsibilities. Granted I don't have a nest egg saved from years of career work to fall back on while taking courses, and I'm aware that a grad degree's utility is based on future earnings rather than what's current, but I'll say this. My intent was to go straight from the MA to the Ph.D. and teach college for a living. Interesting job, different every day, summers off, get to do stuff you like--that's all well and good. But after eighteen years of nonstop education, I'm ready to take some time away from academia and get paid. I'm sure I'll go back after a couple years, but now is not the time.
Learn to fly, build the hours then go commercial. You're probably too old for the airlines but there's charters, bizjets, you name it. Or just fly as a hobby.
Lots of similarities between IT and flying. Both jobs require a "gut feel", sometimes literally. Both jobs involve numerous technical systems which may or may not interact with each other, have their own user interface, quirks and performance limitations. Both are governed by rules and regulations, although in IT you call them "syntax" or "policy". Both require you to set priorities and stick to them. Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance. And both jobs involve interacting with a variety of different people. You're the spider in the web, and if you do your job properly, nobody notices.
This is a great question, and there is no obvious answer, but there are a few things you might want to consider.
You've gained a tremendous amount of know-how in 20 years in the field. This allows you to do things no young whippersnapper could do, simply by virtue of being able to cut through all the noise very rapidly. You are probably in a position where this experience is not valued and you are essentially required to function exactly as that young whippersnapper would. Thus considering a move to a smaller, more dynamic environment seems appropriate.
Another option is to go out on a limb. Figure out what you are REALLY good at, what your ENJOY - yes, in your field - and I'm betting you $100 to your rusted penny that there will be a boatload of people willing to pay you for your understanding of this thing or set of things. I built my consulting business without having any clear idea of where exactly it's headed, but I did make it a point to only "listen" to the "right" opportunities, things that seemed potentially exciting, before I tried chasing them down for a contract or what have you. Sure it was tough. Heck, it took 4 years to get to the point where my pay to myself is better than it was in my last corporate job (admittedly, I made over $250K in my last year in corporate, so it was a steep hill to climb). The first year was truly scary; I made less than $10000 (yes, no zeros missing here) that year. Talk about a reality check. But I was figuring things out, making some serious errors, but figuring them out. And it did pay off in so many ways; I've gotten to spend countless more hours with my young ones than I ever would, I've generally been happier than ever before, and even now when I am crazy overloaded (any security/compliance folks here wanting a bit of work?), it's still fun. And I found something about myself going through this route; I enjoy the sales process more than delivery. I'm good at sales, I LIKE it, and I am able to leverage my 20 years of experience into it in a way I would never have dreamed before. Having figured this out, I am now shaping my role in my business to focus more on sales and less on delivery, which in a way is an unintended career change. All on account of taking the plunge.
And no, taking a job AS a consultant for ANOTHER company is completely and entirely different than doing it yourself. And taking full-time contracts is also not what I'm talking about. Those are all different versions of the same thing. No no. I mean taking part-time task-oriented roles in places where you are acting as an ADVISOR more than anything else, allowing your client to benefit from your EXPERIENCE, as opposed to your skills. You're probably an excellent problem-solver. Now make it a career. I think you'll it refreshing when all you need to do is propose the solution, and have others implement it.
I guess the main point is - you've invested so much time in getting to where you are. You can probably reshape your career in such a fashion as it ends up feeling entirely different, without throwing the baby (your experience) out with the bath water (your sense of boredom).
Move to Canada and become a lumberjack :)
I wanted to be an IT guy well before I left school, but I took a year off between finishing school and starting university to just work and earn some money. In that year I worked as a trainee groundsman at a caravan park (tourist trailer park). I made marginally less than $16000 *AUD* for a year in that job cleaning toilets, mowing lawns, blowing leaves, etc. I hated it, it was one of the best decisions I ever made to see it through to the end. I spent heaps of time with no one to talk to getting myself truly exhausted. It brought me closer to God to simply know what it was to do the jobs everyone hated for crappy money (even for a trainee) and finish each day feeling wasted. I'm now doing CS at university, getting quite good grades and loving it to pieces. I appreciate so much more now the blessing of getting work in a field I enjoy and can honestly say I'm good at. I have a better attitude to life the universe and everything. Just my words in favour manual or trade work.
Censorship is the opposite of education. If neo-darwinism were defensible, people would not need to try and censor ID.
set up an online business. Start small, join a community.
Read radical news here
OMG! I'm naked and I'm taking a high school test that I haven't studied for!
Posts like this provide tons of leeway b/c there are so many unanswered questions. Most people have just thrown around their opinion, but let's face it, w/o a lot of Q&A, it's all pretty pointless. So here's the stuff I'd want to know.
How close are you to "retirement"? Do you even plan to "retire"? What do you plan to do in "retirement"? How much money do you have in the bank? How much do you need for your current lifestyle? Are you willing to change lifestyles? move counties, move states, move countries, move continents?
Do you want to go school? Do you have another passion? If you have enough money, then the "other" passion may not need to bring in very much. If you switch countries and have money saved, you may already be able to "retire". If you've been working for 20 years, you're qualified to teach at a college, does that interest you? Would you like to write a book? Would you like to try teaching part-time?
How "boring" and/or "demanding" is your current job? Are you working 50+ hrs/week like lots of IT people? Maybe your life would be better by just working 40 :) Are you willing to or able to take a cut in pay and just work less each week? (i.e.: can you work 3 days / week and make 60% of your salary?) Don't write this option off, it's definitely an option. And with an aging workforce that doesn't have enough to retire, you're going to see a lot of this happening. Maybe you can move off to another par of the same company for a while. If you're in IT, you likely have a lot of experience with operations and operations management. Good IT people are not just useful for their IT knowledge, knowledge of business process is essential and portable.
So yeah it pretty much bears down to same questions.
Writing down answers to 1 & 2 will help you figure out what you want. And then you can figure out the right answer to #3 and make it all jive.
IT covers alot of different domains and is used in numerous different (if not every other) industry.
I don't see how you can think that you have exhausted all your options in it.
Technically, after 20-years, you should either be at an Architect or Manager level - both of these open your career up to sideway shifts into other management style roles.
Personally, I think you've got to the stage in your career where you're no longer interested in learning EVERY NEW THING that turns up. You feel you've done enough 12-16hr days, that you shouldn't have to do that anymore (or perhaps you just have a crap manager that doesn't appreciate you and has you doing work that doesn't interest you) - basically, you want to move into management where you're telling other people what to do instead of being stuck with the day-to-day techy issues. You have the benefit of comming from the techy background and thus have an appreciation for the technology - You should do well.
You will miss some of the buzz you get from picking up a new IT "toy" and playing with it, but hopefully, you'll be paid enough not to care.
If you still aren't happy, start your own business. - Don't think about the technology, but rather the business domain that you know best - since you'll need to sell it to Business people and they hold the purse strings - not the snot-nosed pimple-faced linux geek in the corner.
-- "To ask a question is to show ignorance; Not to ask a question means you'll remain ignorant."
Try Financial Engineering....
And yes, it's been more work than play for a few years. There's just something wearing about answering "why is my computer|Windows slow" 30 times a week.
Exactly right. I moved from CA to St Louis 3 years ago for the COL and quality of life. I travel for consulting gigs quite often so living in the middle of the country is nice. The microbreweries in STL are actually some of the best in the country. Schlafly has a great selection year round. I always have a keg downstairs ready for 5pm. It seems like nearly everything is free here: museums, Shakespeare in the Park, the Muny, the St Louis Zoo, the Children's Discovery Science Center, Grant's Farm w/ free beer, AB tour w/free beer. [Everything I mentioned is free and sells beer on premise including the Children's Center]. I love it as long as the air conditioner works in August.
There are plenty of decent jobs in the Midwest. Companies specializing in everything from aerospace to biotech, chemicals to financial are based here on top of tons of small companies with medium IT departments. With more companies utilizing work-from-home, there will be more satellite offices opening in lower COL areas. I already see it in my travels. Why pay someone 85k/yr in Boston when you can pay someone 75k/yr in Kansas City, Minneapolis or Austin?
I make six figures, my house is very nice and within the city limits so it's close to everything (read 30 minutes max from anything by car). With the money I save living here my wife stays home with the kid, we fly all over the country to visit family (6-10 trips per year) and we always go to Paris in Spring. In LA or SF (where I used to live) I would sink that money into a grossly overpriced house, commute 2-4 hours a day in traffic and pay child care since my wife would have to work again. Why again?
Screw living in CA or NY. Love both places. Can't justify living there so I'll just visit a few times a year.
_damnit_
It's my job to freeze you. -- Logan's Run
It seems to me that the first thing you should decide is whether your 20 years of IT experience is going to be one of your qualifications, or simply water under the bridge.
I have no idea what kind of IT work you've been in, so I'm going to speak generally... If you're going to go from IT to genetic research, all that experience you've had counts for pretty much nothing. On the other hand, if you're going to take everything you've learned and turn around and do some kind of consulting, all your experience could be quite valuable, which can justify a very attractive salary.
Off the top of my head, I think any of these paths could benefit from an IT background: consulting, law (especially IP or tech-related), CAD, radio DJ (pirate or other), business analyst, product design...
I thought it was just me!
They're not the same thing?
“Wait for Hurd if you want something real” –Linus
I'd go back to school if I were you. Go get another degree. School is MUCH different the second time around. You could even end up doing some work for the school. They are usually on the bleeding edge of technology anyway... maybe you'll come across something you like!
Burned out on technical work? Then go into Sales. Better yet, go into retail sales. One of two things will occur almost immediately: 1) you'll kick ass, enjoy it, and rake in serious bucks from your efforts, or 2) you'll wonder what in the hell you were whining about in the first place that couldn't have been solved by switching departments.
Luke, help me take this mask off
I've considered the same thing on more than one occasion. Here's my thoughts, for whatever they are worth.
;) If you have a passion that could possibly earn some income, then that's where I would start looking for a career change. But be warned -- just as IT stopped being fun and became work once you "made it" these other hobbies could, as well.
First, think long and hard about leaving IT. The older you get, the better your retirement will be if you stay where you are. Can you tough it out a little longer where you are for an earlier retirement? What does your retirement plan look like right now?
Second, do you really want to leave IT, or do you just want to leave your current employer? I recently found myself getting bored in the position I held, but found a new job with a very fun, very laid back company for more money than I had been making in the old job. In the new job, I get to work on everything from customer Internet connections to core routers, so I'm constantly learning new things. While I had considered a shift out of IT/Telecommunications with the old employer, the new job has renewed my interest in my chosen field.
Finally, okay, so you really, truly, honestly want out of IT entirely, and you can't last long enough where you are at to retire. What are your hobbies? What do you enjoy? I have a couple of hobbies that I would consider pursuing if I were to leave IT. I have been a flight instructor since 1999, so that's one job I would consider. While the pay is nowhere near as good as what I get right now, the job itself is a lot of fun. I also enjoy sea and whitewater kayaking, so I've toyed with the idea of becoming a kayak guide from time to time. Finally, I'm hoping to start on a project to build a cedar strip canoe in the near future. Having never done anything like this before, it currently seems like building custom wooden canoes, kayaks and small sailboats would be a fun way to make a living. We'll see if it still seems like an attractive job option when I finish
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
please stop telling all those urbanite metrosexual latte guzzlers about the midwest. Do you want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs? How many million of those lazy "elite" slackabouts do you want to import, just to drive up living costs and pollute the environment and neighborhoods? Do you really WANT to listen to a buncha fools who all talk like "the nanny"? Who would move in and immediately start telling you what is wrong and you need to do things their way, which is usually quite stupid and insane? Let them STAY in their multicultural crime infested "ground zero" cities where they can chuckle over how "bad" it is in flyover country.
Old sys admins never grow old, they just get moved to /dev/null.
TTFN
Start yout own business and do only the things you like. I bet that at the beginning of your IT career you have had lots of ideas and own projects, but you put them aside because of your job. There must be at least one that has not been realised yet. ;)
Herman Hesse was pretty much must-read for the 60's for people who were escaping the grey doom of the 50's (50's were very much like today, come to think of it). Hesse liked to explore the contrast between two parallel lives, Grasshopper vs. the Ant. He accomplished this in great depth, imo and making that balance between what you want to do and what you perceive you need to do was a bit easier for me because of exploring that relationship in a book, early in my life.
I recommend Der Magister Ludi (Glass Bead Game). It's a long read, but a good one, even in the English.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
I can't tell you what to do, but I can advise on what not to do. If you were any good at IT whatsoever, I advise against law school. Law is the sloppiest field you can possibly imagine. When we as engineers ever do the things that legal practitioners do as a matter of course, we kill people. So do they, of course, but the reward structure of law discourages investigation of consequences.
After 24 years in technology, mostly software, I also wanted a change. I chose law school as a route to becoming a technology policy analyst. You, on the other hand, now know that it would be better to become a cook or a high school science teacher, which were the two other things nearest the top of my list.
So what's play? Do you draw? Do you write? Do you play an instrument? Do you sculpt? Do you sew? Do you dance? Poetry? Painting?
What else do you do?
Hell, what else do you do with computers besides your IT duties? Do you fool around writing games for fun? Do you play with processing video? Muck about with audio?
Do you solder weird devices?
Would you like to do any of these things? Or something not on this list?
Start doing them more; take some of that vacation time you probably haven't used. Do them. Take some classes in them. Study the masters in whatever field you're into. Give yourself a few years to reawaken whatever skills you might have let atrophy, and hone them into something that might make you money.
What did you like to do when you were a little child, besides 'maintain information technology systems'? What did you dream of doing the first time you really understood what you could make these machines do? I bet you've barely done any of it in your career. Go do it. Push back at your job to make more room to do it.
Don't buy that HDTV and home theatre system, don't buy that new car, start saving a little. Put some money into supporting some experimenting, and less time selling yourself to a job that gives you the blahs. You'll probably end up making less money as you start out, maybe less money overall if you switch to something really artsy.
You should probably go devour stuff like "What Color Is Your Parachute". And other stuff on choosing a career.
egypt urnash minimal art.
I worked 15 years as a wage-slave, 80 hours a week, 40 hours billable...
Bought a boat and started sailing. After 5 years I decided I liked it and I sold my house in a time that the market was good.
It was the best choice I've ever made, going sailing I mean.
The cost of living is around 10.000 US a year, everything included. But, I fly home once every 5 years, rarely stay in marina's, do all the work on the boat myself. OTOH I like to socialize, drink a beer with sailors and locals, go out for dinner once a week, learn the languages and play music for free (as in beer).
If I go on like this, I can continue for 25 years more, before I've eaten all my capital. In 13 years I get my retirement-funds, and I have no idea how much that will be. I don't worry about money, but I hate to waste it. (The only thing I'm conservative about is my money. I don't speculate, I just want to conserve it and consume it really slowly).
This is not for everyone. Being a sailor is a profession. The mechanics of sailing a boat are simple, but in fact you run a small village by yourself. Besides that, it is not always comfortable. If you have a partner that is going share your adventure, be sure that you are having the same spirit (lots of relations break after 2 years of sailing). There is no privacy on a boat! (and only one captain, specially in critical situations).
How to know if this is for you?
Rent a boat for a couple of weeks, captain included. Tell him your plans. Do one overnighter, at least. (Most people are scared to sail at night, but that way you will not come very far). Stay at anchor, not in marinas.
If you liked it, start reading all the books about sailing.
Start looking for second hand boats like a Westsail-32, a Tayana-37, a Whitby-42. There are a lot of blue-water boats with a price tag of 50 to 100 K. The hardest in that is not to 'fall in love' with one boat. Keep your objectivity, and know the hidden flaws, because later on you have to cope with them. The simpler the better. A boat is not a house.
Wish you all the best in your choice for freedom.
Retirement does have its downside. You can no longer look forward to the weekend, vacations, or holidays. No more rush hour traffic jams, unless you are really in to that. No deadline stress to keep your heart pumping.
Get up in the morning with nothing that has to be done, then go to bed at night knowing that you got almost half of it done. Total freedom to do what you want.
1011 1010 1101 1100 0000 1111 1111 1110 1110
After only 10 years in the IT field (and 7 years in Physics before that), I felt "Why the hell should I line someone else's pockets? Why shouldn't I do what I WANT to do for a change?" Noble sentiments, but this doesn't pay the bills. I'd quite like to write a book, and have quite a lot of experience in writing and researching; in short, its something I love doing. So, if any publisher reads this and wants to take a chance with me, have a look at my website, and PLEASE get in touch. Thanks.
My web domain.
..no one has mentioned "re-education". it's the route i'm probably going to take. i'll take a massive dip in salary, but in 5 years i'll be doing something completely different that will not require 8-14 hour days in front of a computer. i can't wait.
You can go to work for the Geek squad, they seem to make the work fun by filming girls in showers and other things of this type
and try Computer Science? It is a fascinating subject, completely unrelated to most of today's IT jobs.
In Australia, the idea of leaving everything behind is called a Sea Change. Of late, there is a growing group of people who leave the city to live in the bush to enjoy a simpler life, that is being referred to as a Tree Change.
I have been in IT for over 26 years. Six or so years ago a health event happened in our household that made us re-evaluate what was important in life. As a result, my wife and I hit the road. We've now been travelling around Australia for over four years.
At the time, I had just started my own IT business and needed a way to continue to service my clients, so I found a way to have broadband, by carrying a satellite dish with us. The initial dish was supposed to be 2.4m wide, so I needed a truck to get it around the country, so I got myself a Heavy Rigid Truck license.
We found accommodation on the road by way of a house sitting organisation. As a result we were introduced to many communities and living environments. From great to pretty bad. Some communities welcomed us with open arms and others were completely indifferent to our arrival.
I spent time fixing computers for farmers who were short-staffed, so I got onto a tractor, forklift or into a truck and did what needed to be done. I found the physical work extremely rewarding. It gave me opportunity to explore other aspects of my life. One day I found myself sitting in a big truck, loaded with hay bales, singing at the top of my lungs whilst sweating like a pig on a 40 degree Celsius day inside the cab. It was absolutely wonderful and that night I slept like a baby.
Over the years I have found IT both rewarding and infuriating, sometimes at the same time. I find that challenging myself, by leaving a permanent position, starting my own show, talking to people, learning different skills and taking life as it comes a lot less stressful.
I would be lying if I said there was no stress, but these days its about servicing the vehicle, or wondering where the next exciting thing is coming from. No longer do I worry to any great extent about receiving a call at 2am to fix some or other "essential" service. My evaluation of "essential" has changed dramatically.
At present I'm staying in a city, Perth (WA), the place where we originally departed from, in a rented house while my wife and I work to save some pennies to deck out a caravan, so we can go onto the next phase of our nomadic existence, whatever that turns out to be.
To get some sense of the scale of our trip thus far, I have a map on-line here: http://itmaze.com.au/locations/
|>>?
Go into beekeeping. You can sell the honey and wax as products. Maybe get about 100 hives to start with.
All joking aside, consider healthcare. Good jobs an be had in respiratory therapy, nursing, physical therapy etc, with just a two year investment in school.
Why is all the good stuff already modded 5, when I have mod points?
Plastics.
I haven't been on Slashdot for almost 2 years. I took about $3,000 and came to Germany. I was going to move at that time and decided to leave all in storage. Sold it 6 months later. Started learning German. Realized I could have done this in many countries many times and I missed alot. This money was only enough because I had made some friends locally, but at times I realized just how alone, poor I was and that my life WILL change tomorrow if I stop paying attention. People sometimes thought I was crazy, but I realized I could go back to America any time, work a few months, and do it all again, somewhere else if I wanted. Funny thing is, I didn't need the friends either, or maybe just for the small time we shared. Life can really kick your ass if you're not paying attention, constantly. I still live there as I write this, I live in Sittard, Holland on the border of DE by Geilenkirchen NATO base. Been a cook, house cleaner, and now my language is good enough to jockey a register. Many paths to the top of the mountain.
...used to be a library...now it's just a mind-cemetary
I'm in the same basic situation as the OP. I have been a unix admin for like 12 years, and am now admining 2500+ unix servers at a very large financial house. Even with lots of places around here that have unix, I cant help but wonder where I can possibly go next that I wont be jabbing bamboo up my fingernails from sheer boredom. Once you have managed hundreds or thousands of servers, you cant exactly go back to a small shop with 5 sun boxes...
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
Sell extraneous assets, buy a camper or small house in cheap area and code what you love to code... If you've got 20 years behind you, tell the f*cks to treat you with the respect you deserve or f*ck off and take your talents to where they should be after 20 years of learning and hard work. Money follows love, there ain't enough money in the world to force someone to trample their love for the sake of meaningless crap forever... and without love the code is shite. They're either too big, too ignorent, too irrespectful or misfocussed if they won't help you get back to loving what you do. Go, take your knowledge and do something useful with it. You may step out of comfort zone initially, but you'll get it back and more... plus not throw away the last 20 years of hard work.
Glad you enjoy St Louis. It's a nice town. I miss it sometimes.
I was also fond of the various stuff in Forest Park (the museums, the zoo, etc), and I have to agree that summer there sucks outside. AC is a must.
Have a soda at Fitz's for me.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
Go dairy farming. That'll sort you out.
Some thoughts:
You can try consulting. It's not a significant career change, and it'll allow you to see some variety. It's also very easy to leave, as contracts do end.
A mentor of mine left tech to become a professional carpenter. He installs custom cabinets.
Scott Adams (the guy who writes Dilbert) now owns a restaurant.
Whatever you choose to do, make sure that there's enough value so that you can keep the standard of living you want. Selling asaragus on the side of the road isn't going to allow you to afford a brand-spanking-new BMW.
No, I will not work for your startup
You could try the movie industry. Still be able to use your IT skills and help design and build those monstor render farms. Or go into business for yourself and build a private renderfarm that you could then lease out time. It wouldn't just be in California, there are post production studios all over the world.
Or... try a non technical field like art. Become a special effects person for ILM or Disney.
The problem with most people who have a mid-life crisis and go searching for happiness is that they seldom find it -- they toss out the things in life that are more scarce than they think (careers, family stability, etc) in search of some euphoria that doesn't exist, and even if they think they know what it is (car/job/girl/location/etc), eventually they end up back where they started emotionally.
I think a lot of this reinforces "the set point theory of happiness" -- basically the idea that people largely have a happiness set point they return to regardless of their life events. What this says to me is that people who are unhappy and want something else and actually choose something else usually end up unhappy again, not because they lost X or gained Y or didn't gain Y, but because they're just not happy to begin with.
Since I live here in Kansas (Kansas City metro), I'll tell you that while it's certainly cheaper than New York, the difference isn't that great.
It might be closer to $100K (NY) vs. $40K-60K, unless you live in the cities or burbs (KC, Topeka, Wichita), where it might be closer to $100K (NY) vs. $50K-75K....
In parts of Johnson County, Kansas, a mere $60K income could be disasterous for a typical family of four, unless they are rather thrifty. Now, if you live in NYC, you most likely won't be buying as nice of a house, and you may rent -- granted.
Otherwise, the differences really aren't 4 times or even close -- maybe 1.5 to 2 times, and yes, the cost of living vs. pay is nice, here....
Obligatory: There's no place like home.... click, click, click
I spent a year in Fairbanks, Alaska making ice-cream for minimum wage. I was happy, but I thought there must be more. I got married, get certified to teach, and we moved to a remote Yup'ik Eskimo village on the Bering Sea. I was making about $36,000 a year, expenses were high but there were no restaurants, no movie theatres, no bars, so what we didn't spend on necessities didn't get spent, and we were happy. When our first child arrived, I was worried that I'd spend too much time in the classroom (during those 180 days of the year when school was in) and therefore I thought I'd move to a cushy job in IT. Went back to school, then got hired by a truly gigantic company in the midwest to write software. I'm making well over a hundred grand, but since I'm always working we always eat out, and sure the house has running water, but boy, those amenities will cost you, and alcohol is way too easy to come by, and so I'm not saving much more money, and I don't get to spend much time at all with my children, and I'm decidedly not happy, and I no longer know how to end a sentence. So I'm with you. I gave notice, and at the end of this month, I'm done with this little jaunt. Even my manager admitted she was more than a bit jealous. The other rats who fled this ship before me have no regrets. Nor, I hope, will you, or me.
I switched from a software analyst job to teaching a year ago after recovering from a burn out. I find it extremely stimulating, and though correcting papers/projects isn't the funnest thing I can think of, there are tons of advantages you won't find in any regular workplace: the (usually) relax beat, the fun you can have seeing what it's like being a teen/young adult again, and the whole summer off (I get about 8 weeks vacation during summer, and over a month at Christmas)... those are really great conditions to be working in.
That said, teaching isn't for everyone (neither is IT, for that matter). But if you think you would like it, it can be a great opportunity, but prepare to take a drastic net salary drop (But do calculate it over working about 10 months instead of 12).
"I remember Y1K, every abacus had to get another bead"
If you're looking for a complete change of scenery
why not try part time horticulture or agriculture.
If you decide you like
being out doors and working growing plants and/or animals
you couls expand into full time.
Most green houses and animal barns are now automated
in some way. There's room for improvement though.
It's more of a lifestyle than a business, but it
has it's perks. ie: free food.
Cooking is low paid but can be interesting.
Once again, free food.
I made a database to calculate recipies for
huge batches of muffins for a big bakery.
This indicates that there is room for
technical improvements in that field.
Just taking stock and tracking products in these fields
are huge IT projects.
Come work for me... in the entertainment sector...
You gotta link for that offer?
Search Google and YouTube for these projects. That's really all the information you need. Take it from there. Easy. Next?
That was my first thought also - Teach! I have worked in IT and Database Administration for over 13 years, and am in the process of becoming a teacher so I can teach computers and applications. I love children, and would much rather be teaching them in creative ways and learning from their fresh perspectives than telling mindless users the same thing over and over! I also agree that the time off is great and that will give me more time to really enjoy my family and time to have a life. Hope you find your way. :)
Ummm, the money that rolls in rolls right back out just as quickly. 2 kids in highschool, 3 more kids in elementry school, a house to pay off, utilities, gas, food, etc... Oh, and I forgot to mention that I live in Japan. Cost of living here is pretty high. We're not starving, but for where I live, I'm maxed out. It would be nearly impossible for me to make any more money than I am right now (less than $100,000 a month).
I have considered moving to the Tokyo/Osaka area, or even back to the USA but without money in the bank I would most likley need to leave my family here and go back alone for a year or so to get settled... So many choices.
I also have this itch to start my own business...
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
Oops. less than $100,000 a year, not a month.
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
Grow your own grapes, make your own wine.
Play around with some organic chemistry, soil compsition, try breeding different grapes, and get into the nerdy side of winemaking.
Slow your life down, and if you get bored, you can always figure out something to do during the really slow periods. You can pick up time consuming hobbies, perhaps learn to play an instrument or pick up some kind of crafting, like painting or woodworking. Maybe you can learn to make your own barrels for the wood.
Plus once the final product is done, and if it's good, you can make quite a few bucks. And there will be plenty to drink!
If you want to get serious about selling wine, you can travel around the country talking business with distributors, or go to other countries, perhaps south america, australia, europe and see how the other winemakers do it. Talk shop! Live life and relax around the countryside and soak in the scenery.
Of course, this isn't limited to just wine. Beer is another possibility. Or scotch.
obviously this shouldn't be planned unless you have a decent exit plan if your entire harvest goes bad..
I'm rather curious so I hope you don't mind me asking, but I was wondering how you ended up in Japan? I've sort-of developed an interest in spending time over there.
Over 30 years in IT fried my brain. Since I retired I have been a river guide and a construction worker . I am now making maps. ArcGIS and my *&^%$ Dell crash frequently giving me HBP again. Next up is pine straw farming.
Become a project manager. Learn some ITIl stuff, Keane, etc. The cool thing is you can use your experience with IT to lead IT type projects and be much better with your time/cost initial estimates, keeping you from eating up a change budget.
I'd consider a paper route.
My papers are delivered by a 40 year old man. Good for him. That's what I say.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
5 kids? in Japan? Thats ... expensive. And I just hope they all go to public schools, and will never ever think of going to a private University ... Good luck with that ;)
from another guy living in Japan, but definitely staying single
"Freiheit ist immer auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1871 - 1919
I worked as a Systems Engineer for Data General (Australia) in the 80's and then did software development for 15 years.
1. Go into semi-retirement and give your spouse a chance to pursue her/his career. For males, becoming a house husband (as I have done looking after our son just finishing primary school) might give you some new insights into life.
2. If you think you have the aptitude, try teaching either in computing or maths. There is usually a demand for the latter. I tried but they wouldn't accept my degree qualifications after 30 years. I was hoping to get away with just a 1-year teaching diploma but not to be. My age (50+) probably counted against me too.
Danny, Sydney.
Seriously. Your website is very "geek", like "it doesn't need to look good if it works".
Thing is that people respond, with their wallets, to nice looking sites. At the very least the clunkiness will lose click-through because users won't trust it.
You should brand your sites too (think stamping cattle with a hot metal stamp!) so people recognise that it's the same company from one site to the next and that you're not just advertising other peoples sites.
YMMV.
I tried this once. I worked for a startup that evolved to a big company for 10 years, slaving away at a manic pace. Then Oracle gobbled us up. I left in the wake of the acquisition gracefully. I took a year off and became a scuba instructor in the west indies. It was great... for about 6 months. Then I would start looking at my dive manager and say... your website sux, want me to redesign that? Maybe do a little SEO? And then I started in on it - reorganizing information architecture... the works. About a week into my little IT project and I realized that once a geek, always a geek. So, I came back to IT and got a real nice screen saver and desktop background.
I recommend big vacations or little sabbaticals. Its not pretty when we try to run from who we are! (pathetic)
You need much more information than you've given to go into this decision, but how about trying law?
As a computer professional, you already have an analytical mind, so you're a step ahead. Assuming that you have very good non-computer writing skills, it might be a good career move. You'll be working among smart people, and -- because the law changes every single day -- you need to constantly learn new things. And if you have worked as a technical kind of person, patent law might be a good choice because too many lawyers are afraid of it.
I will say that this is not the career move for everybody. If your reading and writing skills are not really good, you should look for a different field. You also need to do well on the LSAT and get into a good school. Be realistic -- if you don't go to a "top" school, then either you're at the top of your class or you're not getting one of those super-high-paying law jobs. Know the employment statistics *before* you accept a school's offer. Ask probing questions. Realize that once you get into law school that your life will revolve around schoolwork for the next three years; it is *much* harder than undergrad. (Don't even bother doing a 4-year part time or evening program.)
But if you think you're up for the challenge, go for it!
I recently decided the same thing after 20 years. I started flight school a few weeks ago. Technical challenge. I'm not sure if I will ever become a commerical pilot, but I will have fun trying. It can be done in about two years. However, it's expensive. You have too be healthy and have good eye sight (glasses OK) for commerical license. Most flight schools or small airports can offer a trial flight for a reasonable cost. It's just fun!
Good luck.
I sit in an office full of geeks who go home and play on computers after hour.
Me? I go home and rennovate the house (or plan for the next house we are building in the country).
I go around and help out friends on projects they are doing on weekends. I'm getting involved in a
volunteer program at a ski resort I have been to for years. I have in the past taught swimming, I have
worked as a lecturer at university (so there is teaching experiece to draw on).
In IT I've played architect, support person, programmer, trainer, tech doc writer.
Jack of all trades, master of none - maybe true. But Jack was never unemployed, bored or
wondering 'where to next'.
Do stuff because you are curious about how it works. Do stuff because you can't understand it and
want to. Do stuff for fun and follow up on all those things you think 'I wonder what that is like'.
You may just find your next career.
Now, back to finding out what the *&@*@k is happening with those user sessions and that *@&*@&king firewall!
In my next incarnation, I hope to come back as a code monkey.
Unfortunately, doing anything year after year, month after month, week after week, day after day is very taxing on a human being, even if it's something you are passionate about in otherwise smaller doses.
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
My first actual paying job was as a violinist. I played in a professional symphony during my senior year in high school.
Now, after nearly 30 years as a programmer, I'm getting to be pretty much "overqualified", so I'm returning to my original love of music. I've now got 19 students for private violin lessons, and I am selling violins and related accessories on the internet. When the inevitable layoff/H1-B replacement/outsourcing occurs, that's what I'll be doing full time.
Concealed Handgun License Courses in Plano, Texas
If your tired of the IT stuff, go flip burgers.
Actually, I got sent over here by the Marine Corps and after I got out of that I decided to come back. Came back, got a job working at the international telco here, got married, had some kids, changed jobs a couple of times and *poof* here I am.
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
3 in public elementry school, 1 in private highschool, 1 in public Jr high. 3 youngers are in Kumon as well. If it weren't for the family, I would have changed jobs long ago but now with a house and family... well.. the options are fairly limited.
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
I have never lived in Kansas, but I have had Aerospace customers there. Here, I googled a few current job openings in Wichita (at least some of which probably pay 100K):
Aerospace Manufacturing Estimator : Personnel Services, Inc. : Wichita, KS
Aerospace Sales : Personnel Services, Inc. : Wichita, KS
Aerospace/Aircraft Sales : Personnel Services, Inc. : Wichita, KS
Assistant Avionics Lab Lead : Specialists Group LLC, The : Wichita, KS
Aviation Courseware Writer : Computer Training Systems, Inc. : Wichita, KS
CNC Machinist : TECT Aerospace : Wichita, KS
CNC Programmer : TECT Aerospace : Wichita, KS
CNC Programmer : TECT Aerospace : Wichita, KS
Design Engineer : Top Echelon Network : Kansas City, KS
Engineering Supervisor : TECT Aerospace : Wellington, KS
Estimator : Specialists Group LLC, The : Wichita, KS
Helicopter Pilot : US Army Recruiting Company : Manhattan/Junction City, KS
Hone Operator : TECT Aerospace : Wichita, KS
Manufacturing Estimator : Select Search, LLC : Wichita, KS
Mechanical Engineer : Specialists Group LLC, The : Wichita, KS
PMEL Technicians / mtc-00001513 : MTC Technologies : Wichita, KS
Production Planner : TECT Aerospace : Wichita, KS
Purchasing Manager : Specialists Group LLC, The : Wichita, KS
Quality Inspector : Specialists Group LLC, The : Wichita, KS
Senior Aerospace Buyer : Personnel Services, Inc. : Wichita, KS
Strategic Business Unit Manager : TECT Aerospace : Wichita, KS
Supply Chain Procurement Agent 4 : Spirit AeroSystems Inc. : Wichita, KS
Technical//Training Writer : Select Search, LLC : Wichita, KS
Tool Builder : Personnel Services, Inc. : Wichita, KS
Amen to that. I live in the Twin Cities, which as luck would have it is a great place to be in IT. We have 22 of the Fortune 500 headquartered here, and it's pretty easy to make good money if you have solid technical as well as interpersonal skills. I've looked into going coastal, but it's pretty unlikely. Schools here are great, COL is low, and it's easy to get to either coast by plane. The weather is not so great, but oh well.
Make smart choices in your life, and take ownership of the dumb ones. Me, I live in a big house (probably bigger than I need: not a great choice, but one I can live with). I take the bus to work most days (which helps offset the cost of the house), I keep my energy bills low, don't eat out too often, and sock money away for retirement, education, etc. before thinking of spending it on vacations, et al. On the whole, I'm pretty happy. Not without worries, not without bad days, but that's all part of being alive. When I started learning to focus on the important stuff (for me that's my family) and get the other stuff out of the way as quickly as possible, I became a lot happier.
One of the things I sometimes worry about is whether or not IT (specifically software engineering) is going to take me to retirement. I've already gone through several major career changes after seventeen years as a professional, and I hope that if software doesn't support me all the way (the market is less interested in s/w engineering), that whatever I end up doing is at least as stimulating. And that my mortgage is paid off first.
We're all going to end up dead soon, make sure you're enjoying the journey you're on. If not, make a change (that's where this story got started, right?). If you live in the US, you probably have that opportunity; it's one of the reasons it's a great place to live.
Go into Plumbing. The work is steady, fulfilling and pays pretty well. You'll be outside, get paid for the hours you work and have great job security...everyone has to flush you know.
When I was in my early 30s, I took a break from my IT career and went to art school. Which includes a fair amount of computer usage these days, and even some coding (Flash ActionScript, for example), but also working with wood, charcoals, pencils, oil paint, watercolors, etc. I can't say it was a great "career move", because it certainly hasn't brought me riches or fame or job security, but you'll hear no complaints from me either.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Kind of like how every damn non-geek dreams of running their own business and having absolutely no idea how to use technology that drives said business...
"Keep at least 3-6 full bottles of hard alcohol on hand, a 2 week resignation notice,..." - Poetmatt
I went through primary and secondary school learning as much about IT as I could. I racked up a lot of little cheesy certifications. But It wasn't till I was out of school with a BS in Information Systems that i realized i don't want to do this kind of job after working all my life focuses on just Computers and IT. So I am now back in school again this time focusing on a dual major in Gen. Physics and Pure Math. My goal is to start doing research and be a professor and I plan on going on for my Masters and Phd. I realized that the money I make dosn't matter as much anymore. I would perfer to help educate and know that maybe some bit of research I do might help make the world better and help us understand just how it all started. I think if you want to get out of IT you could always go back to school depending on what country you in they have programs for people to go back to school and get a degree in something else with the help of Pell grants like I did in the USA. Note you have to be 25 and over for pell grants and it dosn't really matter if you already had a degree already or if this is your first time going to college. Also I started out this second time about going to a community college and i found the edcuation their to be far more hands on that when i went to a typical four year school. Also I saved a boat load of money.
"Have you ever considered piracy? You'd make an excellent Dread Pirate Roberts."
.. 14 years as corporate IT whipping boy. So burned out I practically begged them to fire me. Decided it wasn't IT / Tech I hated, it was the PHB's, the meetings, the regular commute and the sheer stupidity of those that lead. So I downsized myself, started my own little Network / PC repair business. I limit myself to taking on customers with 10 PC's or less. Nice mix of real estate agents, lawyers, art and design companies, a couple financial guys, a *lot* of home users. You know what? The pay is about half where I was but the hours are great. I keep my own schedule, enjoy a phenominal working relationship with my clients and believe me, people are actually grateful to see me and thank me when I fix a simple spyware issue or rescue their kids' photos from a blue screened PC. With a little push I could easily get near what I was making at my last job, but I enjoy all the free time I have now. Pick up the kids from school, weekends free, plenty of time between clients to browse Fry's. It's not for everyone, but you couldn't get me to go back to the corporate world if you offered me double salary at the company of my choosing.
Happiness is where you find it.
I've worked in IT for 12 years or so, I stopped counting. After about 10 I found myself in the same place wanting to change careers out of sheer boredom and lack of challenge. I've been both an artist and a musician for over 20 years in addition to being in IT, and both of those have had their ups and downs, profits and losses. I pursue them now more than ever in light of my being unemployed and having great difficulty finding IT related work where I live.
/plug
A long time ago I started a web comic about the people I worked with in IT, and I recently resurrected it. Though it's not bringing me any income, it beats the hell out of IT and I can vent all those years of frustration out into a comic that hopefully makes others laugh as well as see just how much shat one has to put up with when dealing with "people".
http://www.cubicle101.com/
If you become a merchant sailor, you can see the world and be paid quite well for it. Another plus to this field is that your coworkers will not look down on you for spending all your money on booze and hookers, mostly because they're doing it right along with you.
After 27 years in the IT field, I too was finally burned out of the IT field. The late nights, the on-call the less-than-bright users, the PHBs and the bullshit of non-technical people making technical decisions...
It took me a couple of years to finally figure out what my *REAL* passion in life was and I am now pursuing it. I started culinary school, been studying my ass off, but I couldn't be happier!
I have a wonderfully supportive wife who is keeping us afloat until I can get out of school. Granted, the pay for bakers / pastry chefs is about 1/3 - 1/2 of what I used to make, but when you weigh the cost of being burned out against your sanity, it doesn't matter.
The only advise I would give you would be to reduce the amount of your outgoing expenditures and find something that you REALLY want to do.
Like my dad always told me, "...do what you love and the money will follow..."
Think about, it after that many years in the IT business you could get a nice job teaching others the business. And since you say you still like IT you can do some academic research on new ways to make or break it systems. plus YOU GET SUMMERS OFF!!
I'm in the middle of the process of moving away from the IT career to "something else", as well. Studying law for a change. And has found a coleague of the same age, doing the same, saying "I'd prefer being retired lawyer then being retired IT guy". And since nowadays there's more and more law related issues in IT and the Internet, law was even logical choice for me.
Which is exactly why I'm not getting an MBA.
I used to think that way too. When I was nearing completion of my BS in CS my lab partner and I were chatting. I was trying to decide on a job or an MS, he was going to work for about 5 years and then get an MBA. I looked at him as if he were on crack. I got a job and then got an MS too.
Many many years later I started working on an MBA. I'm actually thoroughly enjoying it. I'm learning about the other half of the successful company puzzle. Frankly, as a geek I was about as clueless of the business side as suits are clueless about the tech side. To be honest, I feel that I have a more accurate perspective on things now that I can see both sides.
I quit my job as a game programmer a few years ago to go into accounting. For some reason I decided to chase a big salary when I was already making plenty and was perfectly happy. I had never been anything but a coder and the culture shock was pretty severe. What I didn't realize is how good the quality of life is in high tech, and how good the people are. After a terrible tax season I quit, contacted my friends in the industry, and I'm on my way back.
Lessons:
1) Make sure you don't just need a break, or change of scenery (different employer or focus). My impulse to change careers came at a stressful time, but instead of just taking a break I totally jumped ship. In your new career you will be starting again from square one, and if you go back to IT you'll have lost a lot of seniority.
2) Don't burn your bridges, you might want back in. (Although I burned my bridges on the way out of the accounting industry and boy was it sweet -- rules are made to be broken.)
3) Handle your future with care. You're more likely to damage it than anyone else. Happiness and salary are two different things (it's a cliche that you have to live to understand I think). That being said, do what feels right. Especially if you're actually unhappy.
And you can always invest in rental property or some other simple business. You don't have to work for the man.
Hi,
I am in the same position, entering IT in 1989. Yikes, I used to be the young gun. Anyway, I decided to return to school to get my Bachelors degree in a technical related field, with the intention of going into an MBA program. If Managing IT completely turns you off, you can use the MBA to enter into other areas of business.
Take care.
What options does one have in bioinformatics, besides academia?
Why is this marked as funny. Believe it or not there is a booming job market for lumber jacks and I myself have thought of it once or twice. Think about it, you are out in the open all the time, breathing in mother nature pure and doing physical labor. And for the hard work you have machines. It does not sound that bad.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
RockStar!
Never mind, if you weren't one of the 17,000 shown the door this time you'll probably be in the next round :-)
In short, you're saying it is the Worst. Idea. Ever?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Met the fleeing Californians did ya? They've truly made a mess of things were I live. Most of us natives whish they'd go home... can't wait to get out of here actually, there's no sign of their migration ever stopping in these parts.
of course, what else? it got absolutely nothing to do with IT whatsoever, even though, you have to know your stuff, to get the job itself.
http://www.reliefweb.int/ See Professional Resources > Jobs
But you might want to read this page first:
http://ngosecurity.googlepages.com/
"Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's brains..."
Well I've moved to traffic control - you know - a lolly pop man.
Pay is ok, hours are fairly long but can be organised around your life.
Not much hard work - we're paid to watch other people work.
Shuts people up when you get asked what you do at a party.
No more - can you help with this computer problem, just shrug
and say you don't any more.
Do work with free software, free support - just for fun for friends.
Go well
"He doesn't likely need to pay a mortgage -- He probably inherited the farm."
As someone whose family just did inherit a farm I can tell you yes, we don't have a mortgage. But you don't even want to think about how much we had to pay in that lovely "inheritance tax" to keep it in the family. I know quite a few people - in fact 99% of the people I know, who couldn't have paid the taxes without selling the farm or getting a mortgage. Farmers get ripped in more ways then you can count. The mega corporations make all the money - it is the economy of scale... and "Mega Corps." don't have to pay inheritance taxes...
If you had any real clue about how much it COSTS to run a farm you wouldn't consider the million $ cut off on inheritance taxes to be very much at all. Having it is nice. Having enough to work it is a slightly taller order, and one they rarely leave the farmers family with after the taxes are paid. It's actually quite a lot of why "mega" corporations are buying them all. The families can't afford to keep them.
And tractor tires cost more then my car, and a new combine costs more then our house. So don't kid yourself about the costs they incur. And that cash better be in the bank, unless you just like being in debt forever.
And we grow wheat - but I can't remember ever not having to go to the store to buy it when we want to bake. It just doesn't come out of the field in a very usable form.
I have been having the same sort of thoughts, after >25 years in this line of work. I think the first thing to work out is what do you really want to do in your future? I don't think I will ever want to fully retire, but I can see that I will soon no longer be attractive for most employers, so I will have to find something else. These have been my considerations:
- I like: to use my hands, construct things, solve problems. Growing things, like in gardening etc (I'm an esxpert orchid grower). Playing music.
- I'm good at: Programming. Managing systems. Solving problems. Teaching. I am very good with children and animals.
At my age the expected thing is to go into management, so I am now systems manager - I like the challenges involved; so I could stay with the company for a while and learn as much about managing as possible. I could possibly go higher in the organisation, but I could also start my own business in a few years' time. If I do, this is a couple of things I will do:
- set up telephone numbers in the areas I want to be reachable from, probably with Skype. Customers don't want to call somebody overseas; but I would like to live in China where prices are much lower. This way I could still charge prices typical or a little lower than what is normal for the US or Europe, but my expenses would be low.
- become an expert in something that is easy to deliver electronically. I'd go for web applications, I think. Some sort of international trade might be a good option.
If you don't want to move abroad, you could still settle in an area that is beautiful, but a bit remote, where house prices are low, but where you can still have a fast new connection; then ply your trade from there. If you're a good amateur musician and have had some success, you could record your own music and sell that (though I personally wouldn't bet on the financial success). I think the most important point is that whatever you do, it must be something that you can enjoy doing a lot, because it will be hard work; either because you don't have much success and have to work long hours to make ends meet, or because you have a lot of success and have to work long hours to meet demands - there's such a thing as getting mugged by success.
... is to, in about five years, sell my flat in London, buy a house for half the price Oop North with no mortgage, and go back to working on the buses. Unfortunately, this was also my plan five years ago.
It's better than walking the streets...
I'm working nights on my MBA. No need to go down, along with the ship.
After 15 years in IT, going from entry-level code/design monkey to high-middle/lower-upper management, I was done. I loved the problem solving, I loved keeping up with new ideas/tech/trends, but I was really really REALLY just not feeling any sort of real fulfillment from the work. I got a lot of people contact, but, come on - it was with techies and so it was kinda cold. I was productive, but I didn't really feel like I made a difference in the world.
I decided to talk to a "career psychologist" - I know the kinds of things I'm interested in and have a rough idea of my aptitudes, but I wanted to get a more objective perspective and fresher ideas. The two strongest fits were education and counselling. I've taught before, and enjoyed it - never really thought of it as a career for me, more of a sideline. I'm the "go to girl" amongst my circle of friends for discussing problems, life in general, etc. - so counselling wasn't a bad idea, either.
Anyway, long story short, I went back to school and am now in progress towards a PsyD (the clinical psychologist version of a PhD), helping to teach classes, working in a counselling center and loving every minute of it. I get to work on REAL problems, I get to be challenged by a constantly evolving field, I get to feel like I make a difference. And the money won't be bad either, eventually.
That's what worked for me. I'd definitely recommend talking to a career psychologist - I mean, they can't just give you tests and say "This is what you will enjoy and be good at" but they can maybe help you explore your interests, aptitudes, find things that maybe you hadn't really considered or thought about before.
Good luck!
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
Snowboarding in the Alps.
Posts, MyBio or Sig, may contain satire, sarcasm, bolded nouns be sardonic or even witty & be Church of SD
You said that you are working for a large company, so what opportunities do they offer? I was in IT for 12 years and was able to make a career change in the same company. We have a Lean/Six Sigma program that offers training and job changes. I was able to make the transition while staying with the same company, no loss of benefits and a consistant check, they even paid for the training.
Go back to small companies and do IT there. Large companies love to pigeonhole people. And large companies tend to have sterile, boring, mind-numbing environments. The small companies are where the more exciting, mind-stretching work is.
Or do what I've done: buy piles of books and learn tons of interesting stuff. Virtually everything I've every decided to read a book about has come back to help me at some point.
A good Idea would be to get a 1 year MBA degree and get into consulting. That way you don't waste too much time and money studying and you get into a challenging, fun and different career. And you can still get some of the IT projects!
Lord of the Binges.
There's a chap who used to maintain Supercomputers at a top Uni who is now doing Bus Conductor out of some London station. Not much reward for a lifetime hacking at the coalface.
You see IT isn't considered a real job by the suits else you would have got promoted into management by now. The same with trying to change fields, they don't consider the skills required to maintain an IT dept as applicable to the real world. You see, if they don't understand it, it must be easy.
Now you'll have to excuse while I go upstairs and my manager reads me out loud, an interesting article out of PC world.
davecb5620@gmail.com
Get the movie office space and try some of the things in it (none of the criminal bits), or be creative with it, gut fish on your desk, say strange things in meetings, just do whatever you feel like and wait for the payout or promotion.
good luck
I've spent just a little bit less than the poster in IT and really wanted a change. I'd spent the last decade building the technical side of websites for people that really had no idea what they were doing but I'd never actually built my own site.
My site isn't really a porn site at all, it's adult social networking which means that I don't need to bother creating any content, it's been created for my by the users. All you really need to do is put together a structure that doesn't stink too much and let the users get on with it. Of course there are thousands of adult/couples sites but virtually all of them charge subscriptions but I've had experience in an open source company so I used some of the same ideas (building a community, not charging fees but making money from advertising, etc).
Answering the question directly I think there's a lot of other websites that you could build and you could probably just do it in your spare time until it starts earning for you. I've probably got about another 6 months to go before I'll be able to quit my day job, currently my website income is about half my salary. But qute apart from the money it's just been really satisfying to do.
Blog: www.fabent.co.uk/blog
I'm already in IT for more than 15 years now; started with computers around my 13th, had my first at my 15th; the interest started by opening a VIC20 computer, programming in all sorts of uber-caveman-languages from Basic (with 3.5KiB of internal usable memory) to Assembler to Borland Pascal and now to Perl. In the meantime I have been spicing up my education by reading books, following the hardware business with PC's starting since the Amstrad PC 1512 with 4 real gray tones! yay!
It has been an evolution, I am a walking library of knowledge, computer has always been my passion, letting it work. Where everyone else would say a computer was something with illogical ways I found the computerworld always "quite" logical. I've seen the rise of Microsoft; have been in the OS/2 support group for a while; like duh, anyone with a clear mind would agree with me to choose the latter; did some development too there, I've had lots of hardware to work with even MicroVAX (VAXservers), SGI O2's, still got 5 SGI Indy's here don't know even what to do with them because they look too nice to throw away ;) ...
... Connecting stuff! Already since I've had my 5th PC I was running DOS, Windows and OS/2 in network through 10Base-T; the evil network which has shocked me many times; this together with a 1200 baud modem. It has brought and tought me Lantastic through a store nearby my elders place; I helped them installing their network while they helped me learning Lantastic; I liked that software so much.. Frontdoor and Remote Access where getting the 6th PC while the 7th PC was getting the Lantastic fileserver. I started getting in touch with Funet.fi's Internet; the world has opened up to me ... It was still that time when the Internet felt still "secure" if you know what I mean ...
.. to most .. heh .. typically to someone who works in IT; I guess there will be never a way to hide my true nature ...
The one tide brought me to the other island; I've been studying electricity and electronics and school since I was young, PLC is a rather fascinating course, for sure when you are the one creating the first year in school; It has tought me logic, which brought me further into networking..
Next to (graphical) programming there was also another passion
I've been taking my IT field always very serious and started making programs while schooltime, some programs where of benefit to the school and some I wrote and distributed through Fidonet. No-one at school ever found out. That was the time when they called me a nerd; I knew better;) I could whistle my handshakes (for a second) and proudly had my first ZyXEL U-1496 19k2 (with lcd - still working) this after a year of development. I knew the term phreaking, blue, black and diverse of other colored boxes; more systems around the globe where getting penetrated through dial-up and bbs; my interests grew in that direction how such defacements where taking place and started to know a lot about security. I got attached to linux starting at the early 1 versions and am pretty glad for that; this probably because of my earlier unix background with BSD and SCO (NO TOMATOES !!) The nerdyness has completely vanished with exceptions to the gadgets around my house which are
Currently I am running my own company together with my business partner, the company is running on linux and bsd; together with my knowledge through the years; There are lots of indifferences inbetween "us" because I am very technical and I know what I'm talking about and my business partner is very money oriented and not so experienced in technical choices. This gives often fire and ice together. It causes burnouts and headaches (if not only by bouncing against the walls with it).
Moral of the story
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
I dream of retiring from the IT industry to work as a dive master at one of the many SCUBA shops in the Caribbean or Thailand or anywhere else warm and exotic.
After getting laid off three times in a year due to downsizing or "bad attitudes" (I'll show them a bad attitude, stupid work monkeys!) I opted to go back to school in politics. I'm now wrapping up my PhD in political science. The appeal of running for office is very strong, now more than ever. Outside of that, I'm planning on teaching.
As far as IT and lay-offs, you know the old sayings about the tallest blade of grass is the first to be cut and the squeekiest wheel gets the grease? I think their problem with me was usually the smelliest turd in your leather lounge chair gets shoveled out with zeal.
Happt job hunting, to all!
g
Happit, for those who don't know is one less than happy. So, I don't wish you happiness in your job hunting, but just a little less. Sort of like, "not proud, not shame, but less shame".
g
Typical houses in Columbus OH:
700k = 3000 sq ft pretty old house with top suburb schools
350k = 3000 sq ft cardboard house in exurb
270k = 1200 sq ft old house with top suburb schools
220k = 1500 sq ft exurbs cardboard house
150k = 1200 sq ft fixer upper in bad schools
50k = 700 sq ft cottage house in bad schools and gang
And, the best neighborhoods and best school districts are still going up in price. The median neighborhoods and schools have houses going down in price. The rich indeed are getting richer....
Time to do something different.
I am building my portfolio in order to become a Creative.
Wish me luck.
ChozSun
ChozSun.com
For my part, I decided to keep my IT skills, but use them differently. I've been working in the not-for-profit sector for some time, and as the name implies, there's not much money in it (relative to what some for-profits might pay). However, there are three factors that make it worth it for me.
1) The first is that I'm working on software that helps organizations whose cause I believe in. I don't want to get all preachy, but it's worth considering whether your issue is with your job per se, or just what it is you actually get to accomplish.
2) Working particularly for smaller organizations, my work tends to be about "the big picture", which is more interesting (at least for me). By that I mean, if you're working for a major institution, chances are you share your work with dozens, or hundreds, nay thousands of other workers, can can be the proverbial "cog in the machine." Working for a smaller company, you get the chance to be involved in all levels of a project. Moreover, by being a project lead, you can shape what the application is, what kinds of technology get to be considered. While your guidelines may be fixed and firm in a financial institution, doing pro bono or discounted work usually means you have more latitude to try new things.
3) For my part, I do NFP work at a discount. Partly, this is to help them, of course, but it has a fringe benefit. By giving them a deal, I have greater power to decide when, how, and on what I will work. They're happy to get my skillset, and I'm happy to work in my own way.
So, a major thread in all this is getting to do what you want to do, not doing what you're told to do. Having more creative input and control might be what you're really after. But it's worth considering whether what you're working on matters to you, and whether choosing something else that definitely does might be a legitimate solution to your problem. Think of it as a sort of paid retirement - your own boss, your own hours, bad pay, but being paid to do what you want, when you want.
$.02
Neil Verplank
It's interesting that you impugn my character so readily, knowing so little about my work habits. I am regularly commended for the hard work I do. The difference here is that you evaluate me on what I have written, whereas my employer evaluates me on my actions. They don't care what I think as long as I produce, which I do. My loyalties lie where they do because I view my job as a fee-for-service arrangement, and since I like my paycheck, I give good value for money. But my job is a paycheck, not my life. It's a way to buy toys, pay the rent, and so on, and little more. Similarly, my employers don't lie awake at night worrying about my self-actualization or spiritual fulfillment--they view our relationship just as commercially and pragmatically as I do.
I'm sure judging people by words and not actions ingratiates you with the kissasses. Yeah, I know, I know, you don't tolerate kissasses, which would no doubt come as a surprize to the kissasses you've worked with. If you pay more attention to what people say about their beliefs and motivations than you do to their actions, then you are susceptible to kissasses. Don't be annoyed--most people are suckers for that. But keep thinking you can assess my actions by my loyalties. I guess the fact that I was pointing out that I was mirroring my loyalties on my employers' just sort of escaped you, since you didn't impugn their characters.
How about staying in IT and changing countries?
A background in IT can open doors to work in pretty much every country. There are companies willing to sponsor your work visa if you contract through them (I use http://www.myitg.com/)
Base yourself in London and spend your time seeing Europe (what I am doing for a couple of years.)
Move to Australia or France and discover how life should be lived!
You will be amazed how your perspective on live can change by seeing other places and cultures. Take yourself out of the American 'bubble'.
To paraphrase Paul Newman in "The Color of Money", if you are good at something, the best at something, then money is easy. Everyone has something they like to do, all you need to do (if money is an issue) is to get paid to do it. Like to fish? Get a job or start a company that charters fishing trips on your favorite waters. Consult - experience is worth it's weight in gold. An engineer? Design something outside your field. Being an under-30 Network Administrator in today's tech market is a blank check for me personally, and I'm capitalizing on it. When it's time to hang up the spikes, you bet your ass I'll be doing something I like, for money or not, but I won't be explaining PEBKAC, ID-10-T or DEU (dumb end user) to anyone else.
I had the exact same experience about 7 years ago. After 2 years as a lead developer at a very large financial institution, I had convinced myself that I was sick of IT and made a career change. After 3 months as a science teacher, I realized it wasn't IT I was sick of, it was the company I was working for. I got back intot he IT field at a small, fun company and couldn't have been happier. I've moved around since, but stayed in the field with the knowledge that I really do love information technology as long as I'm in an open, creative environment where I can really enjoy it.
You may very well be sick of IT altogether, but before embarking on a total career change you may want to take a stab at just working for a company with a different corporate culture to see if that's really what you want.
"Someone's gotta have some damn perspective around here!" -- Commander Susan Ivonova, Babylon 5
...do whatever YOU like. Why ask for ideas/permission/approval?
Learn everything you can about how to save, invest and optimize the money you do have. This is a skill which is very similar to the optimizing you do in software to create the best overall design. No matter what career you end up in, having the ability to understand the best ways to invest will supplement and someday replace your current career. Learn economics and how markets work. Learn about real-estate, learn about stocks and bonds, learn about options or commodities. Learn how to manage risk.
Once you have a good handle on your own finances, branch out and help others organize theirs. You would be amazed at how many people can make 100k a year, spend 110k, and have very little to show for it.
Check Steve Jobs' speech at Stanford
The company is not bad, hang on there.
I forget about the inconveniences of work when I can jet off anywhere in the world on my holidays, buy most things I want (within reason) and help others with what I earn.
I found more bearable the daily grind when I stopped trying to be a hero (i.e. working from 9:00 to 17:00, no exceptions) and got more involved in my favourtie hobbies (travelling, classical music, chess, volunteering, running, etc). All of the sudden I found myself fitting my job around my outside commitments, no the other way around. Mileage may vary, but you may be able to do this (specially nowadays that companies recognize the value of flexible working).
Maybe what you need is to downsize the importance of work in your life, after all with so much experience, you are no longr in a junior position and you can get your job done more efficently.
Gathering all that experitse is not easy, milk it for all what is worth. Starting from scratch doing something else may sound appealing, but you have a huge handicap against you....
I had a thirty-year career in the IT field, starting in 1966, when we used punched cards for the compiler. I walked away from it in 1996, and never looked back. The changes included becoming involved in a spiritual organization, volunteering my time and skills there, traveling, meditating, and now, writing a children's book and volunteering for environmental organizations. If you are willing to step out of the stream, there is an entire ocean waiting for you. Good luck.
Your previous IT training helps you with the planning mindset needed, and the job will probably be lower stress.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Ah, the problem is that most places seem to require a high degree of fluency in Japanese, and its pretty damn hard to become fluent while living in America.
My options seem to be going back to college and getting into an exchange program, or English teaching.
Like you, I've been in a computer related field for 20 or more years. I've worked in academic computing, in startups, as a free-lancer, and most recently as a researcher for the military-industrial complex. It's all been satisfying for the most part but I started to feel burnt out. My burn out came from a number of things, not just from work. Once I realized that, I learned to change some of my environment and some of my behaviors that were hurting me. I kept my job and I'm happy about that.
One of the best things I did recently was to promise myself that I'd make my photography hobby pay for itself. Since June 2006, I've had work in four shows. I sold a photo in one show and had a nibble in another. I bought a ledger book and am keeping track of my photography expenses and income. So far, I'm in the red. However, the reaction to my new series of photos is encouraging and if I sell five or six prints I'll recoup the cost of the medium format camera I bought to do the series. I feel confident that I'll be able to show more of them and sell some and eventually have a show of the entire series. I don't know if or when I'll switch to photography full time. I think I'd like to.
My advice to you is to look at your whole life and change what's not satisfying, not just your work. Get help with that if you don't have the skills to do it by yourself. If you have a hobby through which you can make money, try it. Maybe you'll be able to switch to it full time.
I quit being a code-monkey, became a Paralegal, went to Law School, became a Tech Attorney. Make more, work less, and love every moment.
My tips?
Be honest about why you are quitting. Your boss might understand and might be willing to shift you to a suitable career or help you with new contacts.
Identify why you are wanting out: burnout? want to work with people? want to stop working with people? want a change of pace? bored?
Identify what you like to do: work with people? be alone? play with tech? play games? movies? porn? eat? play music? dance? sleep? what blogs do you regularly read? what topics do you like?
Invert why you want out, combine it with what you want to do, seek a career that satisfies both and potentially uses some of your old skills. Get new training or go back to school if you need too. Sell yourself. Use your contacts, even acquaintances!
Enjoy your new career.
Or, failing all else, do what I almost did. I said, "If I do not make it or do not get into law school, I am going on my walkabout." I was ready to finalize all of my bills, grab $1000, forward all my mail to a friend or family member, get out of my homeland as fast as possible, and walk between countries from there. I planned to do this for at least one year, if not more - and to take my wife with me. Unfortunately, I got a job, found a new career, and enjoy what I do now. On the other hand, the walkabout is still there for when I need it. It was a good motivator to have something to do if what I am trying to do does not work out.
-M
I also spent 20 years in IT and after the downturn a few years ago I decided to make a radical change. I was able to find an IT job at a University and have used that proximity to begin retooling for the next career. I'm now working on a doctorate in education. I could have chosen anything that the university teaches but have always wanted to be involved in higher education.
There are two things to learn from this. First, look for a job somewhere that has other fields that you'd like to explore. Second, go to work somewhere that is friendly to education and retool. Fortunately, my employer satisfies both of these ideas.
Remember, after 20 years of work, you probably still have another 20 years to go. A second (third?) degree makes sense for changing jobs.
Good luck with it.
well, academia is the most fun, but you can work for for-profit medical research and biotech firms as well, like Amgen and so on.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Over the years I've found myself migrating from coding to sys admin to tech writing to marketing writing. When the lights finally went out on my IT career and I found myself to old and to expensive for anyone to hire I turned to PR writing and have never looked back. I earn my keep writing business plans in English for Web 3.0 types who are stuck in jargon hell. It's more run than I've ever had and I keep current.
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www.industrialmyth.com - legends, myths & fairy tales for the high tech trade.
So very try, I'll second that - I'm in Minneapolis here, and it's almost impossible to NOT work. A simple drop of my resume on Dice and recruiters are literally beating my door down for contract work. I'm making 6 figures, doing what I want, and have plenty of money to burn - I love it here!
Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
with your skills i am sure you can open your own consulting business like i did that will only cost you about $1500 in California. with the business model that i created, eventually you will have more than enought to live and help the poor at the same time. for business model or how it works, visit www.AngelTech.US - wish you well
Funny thing about working in IT - you learn to spot repeating patterns in data, and match them up to certain results. I got bored one week, and wondered if, amongst the chaotic mess that is the global investment industry, there were any really freakin' obvious patterns that fell out if you filtered the data a little bit. I'm not talking about subtle seventeeth-order pertubations, I'm talking about patterns which would mudwrestle Godzilla in the ruins of Tokyo for the title of "Most Unsubtle". Yep, there were. One year later, I'm still working in IT because I'm not stupid enough to throw a career away on a whim. But I've also made (after tax) an additional five times my annual net salary, for about two days' work. Retirement is most definitely on the cards, and it ain't gonna include punching a clock or chasing up a client ever again. Who'd've thought the best place to apply IT skills would be in a completely different industry?
This is harsh, but welcome to the reason people don't have kids in overdeveloped countries. Particularly 5 of them.
5 kids per couple is great when you need cheap farm labor and/or half of them won't survive to adulthood. Not so much when you're responsible for them, you need closet space, and you want to retire... ever.
People in Soviet Russia, however, appear to be afflicted with amusing juxtapositions of the aforementioned situation
Don't know where you are, but I'm living in Pennsylvania. The single most prevalent comment I get when people find out I'm from New Zealand is, "New Zealand? Why on earth did you ever leave that paradise?"