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?"
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.
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.
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 question is not what HEshould do, but what would you do. The guy's looking for personal opinions. Instead of telling him why he shouldn't ask people what they think, try telling him what you think. Think of it as a brain-storming session for everyone reading the discussion, not just the original guy asking the question. Lots of people may get ideas from it that they would have never considered on their own.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
What do you like to do?
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.
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.
The opposite of progress is congress
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.
Truck driving is not all it's cracked up to be, though. My friend recently quit his trucking job to go into IT. *Insert comment about the irony* Although you get to drive around the country it isn't like you actually get to do anything when you visit places. You just watch the scenery go by and continue to drive. It can also be very dangerous as trucks can be extremely difficult to handle, especially when the weather is bad. Although the pay can be good if you have done it for a while, it can be difficult, if not impossible, to get any type of loan if you have just started trucking because truckers are paid by the mile and the bank needs to have an idea of how much money you make in a year. This probably isn't pertinent in this case, but it is something to think about.
Get a smaller house, move 2 miles down the road where the property values are 30% less, don't eat out 5 nights a week, whatever.
You're apparently unaware of just how insane property values in New York (and Southern California, and Singapore, and a few other places where human congregations exceed 300 people per square kilometer) really are. Try "move to another state where property values are 30% less", because it isn't just 2 miles down the road, it's 200 miles down the road. Where concentrations of people need food shipped in from far away, food prices go up. And all the rest.
A $100k job in New York City is the same as a $25k job in Kansas- that's how different the prices really are.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
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 think you are missing the point.
You don't need to learn to seperate your hobbies from your skills. I would venture to say that that is the worst thing you can do. A hobby is work that you don't get paid to do. If you enjoy your hobby and you are passionate about it, why can't you make a living at it too and then be passionate about your job? Employers want employees that enjoy coming to work. That's why they offer so many incentives like day-care, flexible schedules, cafeterias, company transportation, discount programs, recreational activities and so on and so forth. They WANT you to LIKE to come to work. They don't want it to be difficult for you to come to work. Why do they want all that? Because a happy employee is a productive employee that contributes to the good of the compnay which benefits everyone, including the employee.
If you chose to seperate your hobbies from your skills, that's up to you. However, if you have developed skills then it's obvious that maybe, at one point, enjoyed those skills enough to focus on them. So if you are artificailly limiting yourself by confining your skills to work, you must find your hobbies just as dreadful. Mainly because you aren't as skilled at your hobbies as you are at your work which is based on skills you likely enjoy more.
IT is a hobby and a job for me. I didn't get into it because it was something that I could stand doing for decades. I got into it because I really enjoyed working with the computers. I also saw a good deal of earning potential that could support my other expensive hobbies and the skill sets I could pick up were also transferrable to my other hobbies. Also, no matter how much I know, no matter how much experience I have, there is ALWAYS something new around the corner to discover and learn about.
There is a tremendous potential for growth in any profession as long as you are willing to look past your nose that you are seemingly keeping on the grind stone. You should take it off every once in a while. You might see things for what they really are. Afterall, if you keep your head down and grinding away, how are you ever going to take a look and see all the opportunities around you? Don't go through life with such large, self-induced blinders on. You are missing way too much!
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.
He got modded down as a troll, but he's exactly right. It was just about the best advice offered here.
The worst thing you can do with a mid-life crisis is follow your impulse.
Do not change careers.
Do not buy an expensive sports car.
Do not leave your wife for a 20-year old bimbo.
They might all seem like VERY good ideas right now, but your rich, comfortable 60-year old self will thank you if you stick it out right now as you go through this "trapped in a life you hate" phase and keep cranking away.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
If you live on 80% of your income in NYC, you have $20k left over every year.
This is a HUGE difference--it's the difference between being able to retire at age 45 and being able to retire at age 70.
And, only an incredibly poor or incredibly stupid person spends 100% of his income in the local economy.
Not to mention, $100k in NYC is more like $70k in urban Kansas.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
If he can afford to retire now, why not get a job that he enjoys even if the pay is crap? Why spend 10 more years hating the job?
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.'"
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
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.
That's good advice, as long as what you meant by "go from there" was "then stay in your current job that pays well, and have fun with your hobbies on evenings and weekends."
Do you want to live like a 22-year old again? In a tiny apartment with a roommate or two and an old beat-up car in the parking garage? Having to borrow from family to buy any big-ticket items? With no health insurance? Being on the bottom rung of pretty much everything? Only without as much energy, naive optimism, or potential for growth?
If so, then changing careers or starting a new business is a fantastic idea.
Otherwise, find the fun in what you are doing now. Being poor when you're fresh out of college is normal. Being poor as a middle-aged man is depressing.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
You seem to think anyone would actually pay you $100k in Kansas. No, they'll pay you $25k, and say it's because the cost of living is so low.
It actually pays to take the higher-paying jobs in more expensive areas (up to a certain point), as long as 1) you're frugal, invest wisely, and save money, and 2) have an exit strategy. This is because you'll have some leftover at either place, but you'll have more leftover cash in the high COL place. Plus, there's more economic opportunities (such as the recent real estate boom) to take advantage of. The idea is, you make the most of the high-COL area while you're there, and save up as much money as possible, then you get the hell out and move to a lower COL area and retire/relax/take a lower-paying job etc., while enjoying a big pile of cash, paid-off nice house, etc.
You have to be careful, though, because you have to look at the pay versus the COL, and determine how much leftover money you'll have for saving and investment. Especially take into account home ownership, because buying a home in a moderately-high COL place which will appreciate greatly is a much better deal than renting an apartment in an insanely-high COL place (Silicon Valley, NYC) and having nothing when you move out. As long as the realty market is stable, home ownership can make a huge difference in your life, as many California refugees have shown recently. If you own a home in a high-COL place and stay there a while, even if you don't pay off much principle, the value will go up so much that you can take the profit and buy a whole house in a low-COL place.
If your plan is to stay in one place your whole life, then the high-COL place may not make much sense. But anyone should know by now that it doesn't pay to not be mobile. You want to earn a good living, you have to go where the money is. It's not going to come to you out in the sticks.
Difference is that if you go to work for a body shop, unless you're already a veteran you'll spend the first few months cleaning paint guns and sweeping up the shop, whereas with an ASE cert in auto electrical and a little bit of competence, you'll be making more than you ever did with computers.
Dude, I'm pretty much in the middle of the pack when it comes to programmer salaries in my region at my level of experience, and I've yet to meet an auto mechanic of any kind who makes half as much as I do.
These days, when a component of an electrical system in a car fails, they don't bring in an engineer to rebuild it. A shop monkey reads the diagnostic computer that tells him which part to replace, he replaces it, and the car is back on the road a few hours later.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I disagree. Whether you're rich and comfortable or not, when you're lying on your deathbed, are you going to think back on your life and say "if only I had tried this" or "I may not have done everything I wanted, but I gave it my best shot?"
The only people who should ignore their dreams and stick with the lives they hate are people who believe in reincarnation. They believe they have another shot at it, they can try it again. The rest of us have to believe that we have to make it in this life or not at all. And while you may not make it if you try, you definitely won't make it if you just rest on your laurels and live in complacency.
Live your life, it's likely the only one you get.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The commentors to this statement have it pretty right, but let me add my .02 worth. None of these are critical of you or your ideas, they are just good advice for many people in your situation.
... the more the better ... when you are 59.5 you will be amazed how wise you were years ago
1. Keep your job - stability is fleeting and you will be glad you stayed with it when you are finally outsourced or laid off
2. Start paying yourself from the nice salary you are making -
a. if you are in debt, pay it down asap
b. if you are not in debt, save money as much as you can
1. set up a fund to go around the world and fund it decently - 15K or so should do the trick
2. put everything in your 401K that you can
3. pay down your house so you can save even more
c. whenever you start feeling that everything is pointless, look at the progress you've made and congratulate yourself
3. Learn something new, maybe even pay for your own certs / classes -- once you have certs note how much better you are treated when they realize you are secure in your skills and knowlege and marketability
4. Focus on your family and spend quality time with them. They are really the reason you are working anyway. enjoy them - they are your reward for putting up with the crap
5. Remeber to look around and appreciate at least one thing each day. Whatever it is, it didn't have to happen and if you count your blessings you will find you have more than if you grump around expecting the world to conform to your perspective du jour.
if you make $100k in NY and save 15% you'll have $225k after 15 years, or about 80% of a really nice house in a ritzy Manhattan (Kansas) suburb
If you don't get shot first living where you would have to live to save $15k a year in NY.
Check out my sysadmin blog!
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!
Being retired doesn't mean "never working again". It means "never needing to work again."
More specifically, it means "doing whatever the hell you want."
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
"What you are doing now is pining for the chance to see if there's more to life than what you've already accomplished.
There is. And you already have it."
Bullshit. that is a contradiction. What kind of a superhero is so awsome that they can accomplish all there is to do in life and be simultaneously such a retard that they dont know it.
If you already have it, then kill yourself. why the hell would you want to just hold on and slowly watch the world crumble around you while you sit uselessly and smug in your knowledge that you HAVE it? explain the meaning of that? yes.. it would be great for your boss if you just kept on cranking away.. afterall.. thats what its all about right?
life is not about stagnation. Its not about HAVING. its about growing. Its about seeing, learning and teaching.. and in the end its about dying. And it doesn't matter if you die broke because in the end. YOU DIE. You may as well die right now if you've done all you are ever going to do.
Don't be a chicken shit. success is measured by challenges overcome, deeds accomplished, inventions and creations, not by dollars. I look at people 10 to 20 years older than me who have basically decided 'ohh.. my time to live is over' and it is beyond pathetic. It is the very definition of OLD. And the same time some people that age dont have that attitude.. and they dont seem old in any way. you can lose everything you have at ANY time. and in the end you WILL.
Perhaps you'll have an interesting tale to tell when you are 70 so you wont be completely useless.
if every man experiences a longing to find something MORE as they get older perhaps that is a clue. There *IS* something more.. and whoever tells you that you should just take it easy is killing you. They aren't a friend. They are a parasite holding you back.
lets say someone works their ass off then hits 65 and is staring down a whole wad of cash.. then what? go and pay people to shuttle you around like an idiot for the rest of your days? Why did you live at all if that was all you ever thought to accomplish? sit around and uselessly accumulate for your entire life, and not only are you destroying your own life.. but you are destroying the lives of everyone around you by being a horrible role model. you and all your loved ones are being diminished.. with that philosophy you may as well all be oxen, pulling the plow. nothing more.
Go live.. be human.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
"an career in IT" - COMMON .. the question implies you've been around the WHOLE field of IT .. and I for one refuse to believe you. ..
I know that feeling when its not enough "play" anymore, you're taking the blackboxing/exploration/creativity out of the equation and rely solely on allready aquired skills.
what do you do?
you aquire NEW skills in the field, wich has the potential to gap over to your current work
Hows your AI doing? Datamining? It takes a long time for AI to become "boring"
hundreds of possibilities im sure.
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
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..."