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 !
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.
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.
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.Insane?
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
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.
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.
...I wanted to be... a LUMBERJACK!
Funny, I work with a guy who did the exact opposite.
Perception is the thin dividing line between reality and fiction.
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.
A fireman became him ?
Doolittle :
Bomb no.20 : To explode of course.
I'd become a fireman.
Yeah, they deal with fewer fires.
Apparently that sort of thing happens all the time in Soviet Russia.
Your brain is not a computer.
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."
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.
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!
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
3 years ago I bailed out (made redundant) and took up teaching English in S. E. Asia. My only regret is that I did not do it sooner. I only earn a fraction of what I used to earn but I have so much more fun.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.