I was in the IT industry for more than 6 years from when I left high school.
I also became sick of the crap involved with the customers within that field of work so I decided to go back to uni to become a teacher. While I was at uni I also trained to become a bus driver (this only took 2 weeks) and was employed straight away as a city bus driver part time.
During my 4 years at uni I spent 3 years as a bus driver, but in my last year of uni I had to spend much more time on my course work, so I left bus driving and retrained over my uni break to become a carer of disabled people. This job lasted the whole year I was at uni and I was promoted from a carer to an activities co-ordinator in that time over people who had been carers for 15+ years.
I think IT peoples reasoning and logic skills plus the fact that on average we are smarter than the average worker enables us to move very easily in to 'lower' jobs. I found that bus driving and my work with the disabled was extremely enjoyable, and the pay while a bit less than working in IT was very easy to live off, even though I was only a part time worker.
Now I am a teacher I have spent 1 year teaching primary school in Australia, and now I have moved to South Korea, home of the stupidly fast internet speeds that I could only ever dream about, and I'm teaching English here. I'll be going back to Australia at the end of this year and continuing to teach in a government primary school.
The kids in Australia and Korea love me because I will play computer games with them, also I am teaching them the logic and reasoning skills that most of us IT people (or ex IT people) take for granted so my kids often get test scores noticeably higher than other classes.
I really think that moving to the three other jobs, 1 un-skilled, 1 semi-skilled, and finally the last one skilled, has been the greatest thing I have ever done in my life and I would recommend any IT person who is thinking of getting out to just do it!
As I said, IT people bring a unique set of skills to any job and no matter what the job I think you will find your self getting promoted much quicker than the average person.
6 years ago if you had of told me I was going to drive buses, look after disabled people, and then become a teacher, I would have thought you where crazy!
Today my life is much richer for the interesting people (and not angry smegg heads who just want me to fix their stupid computer NOW) I have met and the new skills that I never thought I could possibly learn.
Slashdot Mirror
I was in the IT industry for more than 6 years from when I left high school. I also became sick of the crap involved with the customers within that field of work so I decided to go back to uni to become a teacher. While I was at uni I also trained to become a bus driver (this only took 2 weeks) and was employed straight away as a city bus driver part time. During my 4 years at uni I spent 3 years as a bus driver, but in my last year of uni I had to spend much more time on my course work, so I left bus driving and retrained over my uni break to become a carer of disabled people. This job lasted the whole year I was at uni and I was promoted from a carer to an activities co-ordinator in that time over people who had been carers for 15+ years. I think IT peoples reasoning and logic skills plus the fact that on average we are smarter than the average worker enables us to move very easily in to 'lower' jobs. I found that bus driving and my work with the disabled was extremely enjoyable, and the pay while a bit less than working in IT was very easy to live off, even though I was only a part time worker. Now I am a teacher I have spent 1 year teaching primary school in Australia, and now I have moved to South Korea, home of the stupidly fast internet speeds that I could only ever dream about, and I'm teaching English here. I'll be going back to Australia at the end of this year and continuing to teach in a government primary school. The kids in Australia and Korea love me because I will play computer games with them, also I am teaching them the logic and reasoning skills that most of us IT people (or ex IT people) take for granted so my kids often get test scores noticeably higher than other classes. I really think that moving to the three other jobs, 1 un-skilled, 1 semi-skilled, and finally the last one skilled, has been the greatest thing I have ever done in my life and I would recommend any IT person who is thinking of getting out to just do it! As I said, IT people bring a unique set of skills to any job and no matter what the job I think you will find your self getting promoted much quicker than the average person. 6 years ago if you had of told me I was going to drive buses, look after disabled people, and then become a teacher, I would have thought you where crazy! Today my life is much richer for the interesting people (and not angry smegg heads who just want me to fix their stupid computer NOW) I have met and the new skills that I never thought I could possibly learn.