Career changes

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 2:02 pm

I mentioned elsewhere how much vocational counseling
helped me. It's not terribly expensive either. There are
people whose profession it is to help people find solutions to these problems.

Strongly recommend it.

I got really sick of being in universities. I worked for awhile
as a laborer, then in urban forestry. Working outside is
a very good thing for awhile, but I suspect for most of
us it's a hell of a thing to grow old doing.

Anyhow it became obvious that I was a lot smarter than
I was strong or well-coordinated. So I did some vocational
counseling.

The critical moment for me came when I took an interest test.
It said I would be happiest being a psychology professor
in a university. I knew it meant philosophy, so I went
back to school, entering a Ph. D. program at 36.
Got my doctorate at 41.

I don't disparage the advice we give here, and
I'm convinced the best remedy is vocational counseling.
Maybe some people writing about this just want to
blow off steam, which is fine. But if people want to
actually solve these problems, counseling is worth thinking
about seriously.

pastorkeith · Post by **pastorkeith** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 2:21 pm

Sort of a meandering thread, but cool.

Actually I find that giving 10% is much more difficult for those of means.
There's a story of a person who made $100 a week and goes to a priest and says "Father, I can give 10% no problem" and the priest says, "Very good my son." Then the guy gets a promotion and now makes $250 a week and goes to the priest and says, "Father, I can still give 10%" and the priest responds, "Very good, my son." Finally the guy gets promoted to management and now makes $1000 a week and he goes to the priest and seems sad. "Father," he says, "I have always given 10% but now I make a thousand bucks a week and 10% is real money. I just can't do it. Would you please pray to God for me?" So the priest prays "God, please cut this fellow's salary back to 250 a week so he can feel good about his giving again."

I'm on my second career and I now get to be a part of the best and worst of people's lives and everything in between. It'll be on the job training until I die. And no matter how crappy some days may be, I am always overhelmed at the end of the day, by the simple things. I changed jobs because I spent too much time away from family in my first job. Why I am in my current vocation is a story for another time, but I don't imagine doing something else for the next thirty years - but who knows? Life's funny sometimes.

I am convinced that any job and every job provides us with an opportunity to witness to greater things than ourselves. Every encounter with another human being is a choice. How do we see them? With what eyes are we looking? With what heart? I don't have to find some special job to make a difference - I can do that with every word, with every gesture, every act.

That being said, we all have gifts and passions. I am not sure that there is that one perfect job out there for all of us - but if I am using my gifts doing something that I am passionate about - that would be awesome indeed.

Two cents on a Thursday afternoon.
Blessings
pastorkeith

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 2:30 pm

That being said, we all have gifts and passions. I am not sure that there is that one perfect job out there for all of us - but if I am using my gifts doing something that I am passionate about - that would be awesome indeed.

Especially if it pays well. I'm convinced such problems
are soluble. But you have to play it smart and skillful.

Wanderer · Post by **Wanderer** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 2:36 pm

I've changed carreers a few times...

When I was a kid, I used to do landscaping. And that's not just a glorified way of saying "mowed lawns" I did actual landscaping, including designing yard layouts, flower beds, etc. I did my share of grunt work, too, like digging trenches for sprinkler systems and, yes, mowing lawns

In my lat teens and early 20's, I was in the food industry (always as a cook, never as wait staff) and helped fill newspaper racks for my father-in-law (he was an independent distributor. He bought the papers for 3 cents, sold them for a quarter in racks he owned, and profited about 120K a year in the late 80's).

But I've been a computer programmer now for about 15 years. It's easy work, and I'm not sure I could switch careers now that wasn't spurred on by a life-changing event...It'd be hard for me to start a new career and make anything close to the kind of money I make now.

sbfluter · Post by **sbfluter** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 8:07 pm

That is helpful, Pastor Keith and Jim. I think part of the problem is that in my current job I'm not being asked to contribute my skills and passions. And I'm forced to use skills that I'm terribly weak at. And from day one I sensed I was not welcome. It's hard to stifle the urge to run out the door with some of the nasty treatment I've received.

Maybe I just need a new job in the same career. I took a whole bunch of those vocational tests. Probably every last one of them. They all pointed to the type of work I'm in. That is to say, computer software, programming and art, which I've turned into web development. Funny that I'm not an artist by any means.

Still, having only parrots for children, commuting by bicycle, and basically living a debt-free, expense-free life has left me enough money to buy some R&R. It's tempting to just walk away. Maybe I should spend it giving my partner permission to quit his job.

He's another reason I feel so disillusioned. Computers make it possible for people to work 24/7. He does that. I tip-toe around my own house because it's become an extension of his workplace. He gets up in the middle of the night to give performance reviews to people in India. Computers are making life worse in some ways. And I'm part of making that possible.

What we all need is less virtual reality, less work. More actual reality. I guess that's why I feel so drawn to cycling and the PCT. Cycling is my daily escape. The PCT is my fantasy. My fantasy since 1975.

mkchen · Post by **mkchen** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 9:24 pm

#1 Aeronautical engineer for NASA and then Boeing (7 years)

#2 RN in a medical/surgical/transplant ICU (5 years)

#3 FNP (family nurse practitioner) for the local health dept (14 yrs and counting)

Definitely took a pay cut going from #1 to #2, but I wouldn't trade my current job for anything. #1-1/2 was going to be flight instructor or bush pilot but I figured out what I really wanted to be when I grew up before I finished my commercial pilot's license, so abandoned that and went off to nursing school.

mkchen · Post by **mkchen** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 9:30 pm

sbfluter wrote:...More actual reality. I guess that's why I feel so drawn to cycling and the PCT. Cycling is my daily escape. The PCT is my fantasy. My fantasy since 1975.

Actually, the fact that at the time cycling to work at Boeing was not very practical was one of many reasons I left. Seattle is much more bike friendly now than it was then.

Ming

cowtime · Post by **cowtime** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 9:37 pm

I've changed jobs a few times-

flower designer- 2 years-fun where I got to use my artistic creativity but it didn't pay the bills

dog groomer- fun,creative, I've always loved working with animals, but it didn't pay the bills

veterinary technician- 13 years, fun, interesting, fulfilling and tied in again with my love of animals, a career I'd dreamed of having.. eventually got burnt out and- it didn't completely pay the bills

rural mail carrier- 19years if you count sub-time(I wish the P.O. did, then I'd have hope of living to retire

) alright, not my dream job, always stressful and frustrating, BUT- IT PAYS THE BILLS. There's a lot to be said for that since I have no intention of changing jobs again.

Also during this time I managed to raise two daughters to adulthood(which is no easy task- I'm sure Em will agree), and farm(verb here not noun).

Oh, and on the giving 10%- I use to think I couldn't but found that I can. Someone once said "if you can't make it on 90% what makes you think that 10% more will make that much difference? It feels good to give.

Charlene · Post by **Charlene** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 10:57 pm

I've always envied people who have known what exactly they wanted to do for a living. I never had any jobs that I felt strongly about doing, they've all just been some way to earn money.

My parents only felt office jobs or sales clerk type jobs were suitable for women, so I took a secretarial training course after high school. Had several clerk-typist temporary jobs, then landed at the phone company in Directory Assistance for 15 years. Great pay and benefits, but I had to talk to over 800 people every single day. Finally transferred to an office job in the phone company. Wanted to go part-time after my daughter was born but was told I couldn't do that in that department, so I got mad and quit. (I should have retreated back to DA and taken all the time off I could get whenever I could get it, but I didn't.) Tried to live on just my husband's earnings from the bookstore but we couldn't. Tried selling Tupperware but wound up spending my whopping 30% commission on new products because we were told we NEEDED to have the new stuff to show at parties. Went back to the phone company in DA again on a term-temporary basis and was laid off after a couple of years. Took advantage of the retraining offered to get an AA in greenhouse-nursery managament because I like to garden and I thought it would get me a good job afterwards. Got a job in a greenhouse all right - watering and carrying flats of flowers around, and eating lunch in a cubbyhole with insecticides all around. Went back to the phone company in DA again as term-temp. Then they closed the office here. Got a job delivering medical transcription then was asked to do some transcription myself. Did that for a while with no formal training, hated the office manager and hated the stress and only got $2 a page, so had to type at least 35 pages a day to make a decent wage. Tried doing transcription from home after my hysterectomy but finally had enough and told the manager what to do with her commas. Still couldn't live on what my husband brought in from the bookstore, so I still had to find another job. Been a cashier at the pet store for 2-1/2 years now, making minimum wage and standing on my feet all day and still dealing with the public.

The last time I took a test to see what jobs suited me, librarian came up fairly high on the list. But that would mean more expense for training, and then I'd probably have to move to find work, and my husband doesn't want to move, because his mother is here in town now and he feels responsible for her. And that's still dealing with the public. I hate dealing with the public.

9-1/2 more years and I can start collecting early Social Security. 7 more years and I can start taking money out of my IRA without tax penalties. Then, if my health holds, and if my husband's health is good, we can travel. Finally. No more only taking one week of vacation together because he can't afford to close the bookstore more than that, and he can't afford to hire someone to work while he's gone because their wages for a 6-day workweek are more than he clears in 6 days. My MIL is 85, surely she won't still be around by then!!! My husband is a typical Cancer, really devoted to his mother. I'm Aquarius - I want to be free!

So if you find a job that brings in lots of money with lots of free time with very little public contact and that is available in the Spokane area, let me know!

edited to correct some info in the medical transcription part, not that I think anybody really read the whole thing anyway.

anniemcu · Post by **anniemcu** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 12:16 am

Alas, one of the defining tell-tales for diagnosing ADD is the abnormally large number of job/career changes... I don't care to count them all up again. Suffice it to say that, if I could ever have handled a regular schedule, I'd be far better off financially than I am... but not necessarily happier.

Find something you genuinely enjoy doing, and then figure out how you can live on what you make.

chrisoff · Post by **chrisoff** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 2:33 am

As much as I'm a geek and web development is pretty much the only vocational thing I'm good at, I really hope I'm not still doing this in 20 years time.

Bugger knows what I'd do instead though.

brewerpaul · Post by **brewerpaul** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 4:30 am

After nearly 30 years as a Podiatrist, and at age 56, I changed careers and became an RN. I'm now working at a local hospital in the OR.
Best move I could have made! I was getting burned out on all the ancillary b*llsh*t required to run a medical practice. I still loved patient care, but hated insurance companies, government regs, paying bills for rent, utilities, payroll, etc. Now, I still do patient care but at the end of the day I go home and leave the worries behind. I really feel like a 20 year old, excited about what I do every day. If you're dissatisfied, I'd strongly recommend looking for an alternative. You spend too much time at work to be hating it all the time.

JohnnyQ · Post by **JohnnyQ** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 5:52 am

In terms of 'serious' careers, I've been an Economist (what i'm qualified to do) and a researcher in Dublin, but could not live away from my wife for 5 days a week so I changed career into Accountancy and moved home. As you may have heard, accountancy is a boring career, so I'm going back to university to do a P.Hd in Political Science. I'm still only 31.

My mother and father, on the other hand, have changed careers in their early 60's. Mum (whose job was similar to a Purchaser) is now a Psychotherapist & Lecturer and Dad is now following her into psychotherapy from accountancy himself.

Careers may not always be enjoyable but they should challenge you sufficiently to make them satisfying on some level. If not, it's never too late to change.

sbfluter · Post by **sbfluter** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 8:37 am

Charlene, you sound like a Web developer just waiting to come out.

Many of you have had very interesting career changes! I think I read about Paul's change from doctor to nurse. People tend to think that taking a step "down" is a bad thing. I really think all jobs should have more respect. I always try to be nice to people in retail and restaurant because they get so much abuse.

As for the giving thing, I made a decision a few years ago to quit buying Christmas presents for my family. Instead, I bought them goats, chickens and llamas from Heifer International. That was the first time a gift from me ever made my mother cry tears of joy. Even my nieces and nephews thought it was cool.

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 8:44 am

sbfluter wrote:As for the giving thing, I made a decision a few years ago to quit buying Christmas presents for my family. Instead, I bought them goats, chickens and llamas from Heifer International. That was the first time a gift from me ever made my mother cry tears of joy. Even my nieces and nephews thought it was cool.

This is the best idea. We have done something similar for the past few years after agreeing that no one in the extended family really needed token gifts.

As for finding perfect careers...I find that even when you're doing that which you "really want to be doing," there's an inevitable element of drudgery and tedium that creeps in at times, and that at least a small measure of self-discipline is essential. I guess no job delights us all the time.

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Career changes

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