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Are you satisfied in your career choice?
I'm curious to hear how everyone feels about their jobs and, more specifically, whether your chosen career or field is sustainable in the long-term for you.
I'm curious to hear how everyone feels about their jobs and, more specifically, whether your chosen career or field is sustainable in the long-term for you.
Hell no. I might be a decent developer, but I loathe it and regret getting into it.
A software developer's work consists of trying to build cathedrals on quicksand, in the time one might allot for the construction of a single family home, while random drunks constantly scribble over the blueprints.
Nobody gets paid enough for this bullshit.
That only scratches the surface.
Ever work on the maintenance team for a web app used by state government? I have. You stare at hundreds of defect reports that you are not allowed to fix because the client hasn't decided they're important enough to pay to fix.
So you only fix what you're authorized to fix. Then you test it. And test it. And test it some more. And then you learn, three days before your lovingly crafted and exhaustively tested fix is to be deployed, that the client changed their mind, wants something else fixed, and not only must you throw out weeks of work but you have only one day to reproduce the problem, diagnose the cause, and implement the fix -- because it needs to be tested.
That's if you're lucky. If you aren't lucky, you have nothing to do, but you can't just fuck off because the company is billing the client while you sit your ass diagnosing bugs you can't fix and writing solution proposals that nobody will read because neither management nor the client actually give a shit.
Sisyphus has it easy. All he has to do is push that damn rock.
Yeah, time to look for a new job. I'm a programmer and I love it.
We work scrum. We're a team of 3 programmers and a tester. We maintain 5 web apps / web services, we have 3 week sprints and 1 week of code/freeze and testing, during which time we can work on side projects as long as they're at least vaguely company related. Got flexitime, can work from home when I like, we get the occasional bit of pressure but I don't think I've stayed longer than my 8 hours a day more than 3 times in the past year and a half. There are good companies out there.
I know very little about software development, but that is a great mental image.
It doesn't have to be this way. Have you thought of working somewhere else and/or switching to back-end dev?
Switching to back-end won't necessarily get better working conditions. It's your manager and the company/client that can make it miserable. If your manager is willing to go to bat for you, and the client is not unrealistic with deadlines, you can apply fixes rather than duct tape over problems. But it's very easy to get stuck with a bad client, a manager who would rather meet deadlines than deliver high-quality software, or both.
<sarcasm>No. That never, ever occurred to me. </sarcasm>
ok that's cool, glad I was able to help in some way.
What obstacles are you facing that prevent you from switching projects, switching roles, switching companies, or switching careers?
Also, as a side note, you're a beautiful writer. I recommend you explore that side of yourself more. I thoroughly enjoyed reading and picturing your analogy.
The most immediate obstacle is health insurance. I've got halfway decent insurance, and changing jobs while my wife is being treated for breast cancer wouldn't be a smart idea.
Then there's the matter of lacking credentials. I'm a college dropout, and I'm not willing to put aside my life and go back to school.
Finally, I'm almost 40 and I've got a mortgage to pay. Ageism is real, but good luck proving it before the EEOC or a judge.
In any case, the problem isn't with my job per se. It's me. I've come to realize that I'm not happy with the compromises I made in order to pursue my dreams while still living in the real world. I'd be dissatisfied no matter where I worked or what I did for a living.
It isn't the work I despise. It's capitalism. Welcome to my midlife crisis.
Thank you.
Thanks, but I've been doing exactly that since I was 16. I've got a couple of novels out called Without Bloodshed and Silent Clarion. You haven't heard of them because I went with a small press and I'm shit at marketing.
Taking up software development as a day job was one of the compromises I mentioned earlier. The problem is that my day job often leaves me mentally exhausted. Or maybe it's just that I never properly recovered from burning out in 2009.
Given you keep saying how much you dislike the work you're doing doesn't it make sense to look for employment somewhere else even if it's still in software development? Yea it's bad everywhere but perhaps not as bad? (The site you linked elsewhere suggested you aren't interested in other work).
I wouldn't be content no matter where I went or what I did. I resent the necessity of having to sell my labor, to devote the majority of my waking hours to making rich people richer. That's just life in the USA, but I don't have to like it.
In any case, I can't afford to change jobs now because I have halfway decent insurance and a wife being treated for breast cancer.
I've spent the last 8 years (and two months) working at what was formerly one of the biggest private label mortgage companies in the US. There were ups and downs, but as a college graduate in 2010, a job that was willing to pay me 33k a year was enough to keep me and my girlfriend satisfied. Between both our jobs, we were able afford living together. The job was fun, too. For a little while. You knew it was like working for the death star, but the coffee was free, I could take smoke breaks, I could fuck off for most of the day so long as I did the work and nobody saw me fucking off. But eventually the increases became almost nonexistent and the industry was suddenly unstable. It's always been volatile, and frequently my company would let waves and waves of people go. Then they'd hire new people. Then they'd let more go. Then they would hire more. And then there was a time when things were relatively stable. There hadn't been a serious layoff in almost two years.
I had endured much at this job. I found a niche position that, although it didn't offer me a lot in the way of pay, it offered me much in the way of personal freedom. For years, I could do most of my work either right as it came into my pipeline, or at the end of the day in one swing. Dead of Summer and dead of Winter were always slower, and there were times when I was doing way more work than the pay reflected. I dealt with supervisor and department changes. I dealt with gaslighting coworkers (one woman so insane she faked pregnancies, cancer, and car accidents), and misandrist dependent managers. I dealt with teammates being lost in droves. I dealt with cubicle moves and the entire office got a makeover. I gave most of a decade to this job. I sat in every wing on the third floor and one on the first. In November of 2016, no lie like a week after Trump's election, my job announced that most of our business sources were pulling their loans out of private label companies, including ours. They announced that 1400 people would be let go over the next year or so. And they weren't kidding. For the last 4 months of 2017 I came in every day and did nothing. Just got paid to be there. I was certain I'd be let go. They were changing systems and we had found out that the company was abruptly being bought at the beginning of this year. My team went from 22 people to 7. In like, 15 months. I don't know how I've managed to stay here this long and not be let go.
About a week ago I accepted a management position with a paint distributor with a substantial pay and benefit bump. I start in a week. Now, that's a career decision I don't regret. I'm finally satisfied now that I'm leaving the mortgage industry
Potentially relevant post: People Start Hating Their Jobs at Age 35
You're making me worry that hating my job is inevitable.
I'm 37, I don't hate my job but I do understand why it happens. In the last few years there's been a gradual shift in my general mindset. I've seen enough coworkers and industry peers get screwed for one reason or another, put up with enough beuracratic nonsense, watched the economy go up and down, etc etc.
What this has done is forced me to reframe what is really important to me. When I was younger, I was excited to work for other people, it was a privilege, and I wanted to give them my absolute best. Now, I still do my best, but I moderate it. I prioritize my hobbies, relationships, and family time because no business will ever do that for me no matter how altruistic thier PR makes them sound.
No company is worth your loyalty. Some people are, but never a company. I think that when people realize this, somewhere around thier mid 30s, they can start resenting the fact that they're still at a company they don't really like but still work for because they feel loyalty toward it for one reason or another.
It's never too late to change careers though! My happiness is worth way more than sticking to a career I hate, just because starting a new one would place me "behind" those people who started when they where younger.
I've never had any company loyalty. Nowadays they don't promote from within. They don't offer the same benefits packages they used to. They don't do anything to show me that I'm valuable, and if they do, they're quick to simply pull that rug out as soon as they need me to fix something.
I think the proper mindset here is that you're both benefiting from each other and just as soon as you'd throw them under the bus to further your career, expect the same.
Im in my mid-20s and I have never had any other mindset outside of feeling like a company is renting my time.
Some days I feel my time is worth more than I am paid but others I'm pretty content.
If I were working for a non-profit, I would probably feel a personal connection to what I do and my work but as it is now and likely always will be, it's where I spend my time to make the money to do the things I want to do.
Don't worry. Instead, focus that energy on finding a job that you don't hate.
I got laid off last year at 36. After a month or so of near-constant interviewing, I'm in what I would literally describe as my dream job. It's the culmination of everything I've done in the previous 20 years of all my jobs. I'm kind of terrified as to what I'm going to do after this job ends, but I'm loving it while I'm in it.
That's not to say it's all roses and love, but if I can find my dream job at 36 and then look into a bigger, scarier future where the world is my oyster for whatever may be next, so can you.
I hold a BS in Mechanical Engineering, a BA in English, an EMT, WFR and Swift Water Rescue
certifications, an ASE certification and have a Class A CDL.
I work as a Sous Chef.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I actually do love my job, I am living out some crazy Anthony Bourdain style life (sans addiction). I cook like mad, working 40-50 hours a week in 4 days and spending my 3 day weekends travelling with my son.
But I do know that it is something I will burn out on soon. But hey, I love what I am doing, it is fulfilling (in a self deprecating way) and I get three days a week to be an attentive father, read and travel.
Not to mention, I have wasted a lot of money on industrys I couldn't fall in love with just to end up in one that was free.
Heh, I took an opposite path than you. My first real job was a line cook and I swore I’d never work in the restaurant industry again. I went and got EMT certified and realized I can’t stand people enough to work with them when they are in need of (or at least think they are) an EMT. I ended up going back to school and got a BS in bioengineering and now work as an opto-mechanical engineer. I absolutely love what I do.
My brother worked as a line cook at the same place I did and decided he loved it. He went to a culinary institute and now is the head chef at a really nice restaurant and has a catering business on the side to pay for his toys and vacations.
What is it that you did not like about mechanical engineering?
Nothing at all.
It is something that is a passion of mine. But ultimately, passions and careers are not always the same thing.
It is something that I love, but didnt love as a career.
Thanks for the response, it sums up something that I am now frustrated with: being told to find your passion, your calling, your hobby, and you will never work a day in your life. Just because you love something doesn’t mean you need to do it 40 hours a week as a career.
Exactly.
In fact, doing something that you love as a career runs the possibility that you will lose the love you have for it.
That saying in my experience is usually incorrect.
I would say that my career has its moments. I have the opportunity to spend an hour to an hour and a half with my clients, and if they want to talk, I can have amazing conversations with them. Not everyone wants to talk though, so it varies by the hour. Long term, this is not a sustainable career. There's the physical fatigue, burnout, arthritis, etc. And the fact that there's not really much room for growth and development.
Massage Therapist here.
What's the hierarchy even like in the massage therapy world? Like, what's the tops in that field?
You go from doing the massages to running a business that provides massages, and hope that you can keep enough people working for you that the margin you take for yourself covers your bills. If you’re lucky, you can then sell the business to someone else. That someone else will probably run it into the ground not knowing the ins and outs of the business, and the employees will spin off to their own businesses to repeat the process.
Source: I run a bookkeeping business that has helped a number of small, service-based businesses. This pattern is common for massage, acupuncture, chiropracty, physical therapy, anything in that range where you mostly just need an office space some soft chairs and your personal skills.
I went to school to be a pro-fesh-in-oll audio engineer. Did it full time for about two years, but the money was shite. Ended up working in restaurants, again.
Being a restaurant server is better money than being an audio engineer was, so I guess I'm stuck. Been back at the restaurant thing for like four years now. It's all right. Pay is decent for the hours I work, but not a lot of hours, like 30 a week. It can be a stressful job, and can make you feel asocial when you get home, but there are worse fates.
I enjoy the free time my current job offers but would like something with more secure and consistent money.
I have friend who was a sound engineer. He went to a top university and got a job at a famous studio. He worked with some really famous musicians, even won a Grammy for his work. After a couple years he quit because he hates working with celebrities that showed up in their own time, on drugs or were just too conceited to understand that others had lives outside of them.
Now he is a teacher at an alternative school where he teaches one student at a time either how to record music on a professional board, or he’ll teach others how to play an instrument. The pay is enough for a small apartment and he and his girlfriend are able to travel the world when the kids are off school. He absolutely loves his new job and says he will never go back to working in a pro studio again
Oh wow yeah the substance abuse thing in the music industry is nuts. There's so much drinking, it's absurd. Weed wasn't a problem, cocaine was a minor problem, opiates were rarely a problem, but the amount of people who were drunk all the time, even in the studio, is insane. Artists and engineers a like. I knew an engineer who would take a swig out of a bottle of vodka in the middle of a session, and this is someone who's supposed to be a professional at the top of his field.
It's really not comfortable to be around, man. I don't miss being in an environment were being an alcoholic is okay. Gotta figure after a while that becomes normal, and that's a positive of getting out of that field.
But like you said, there are avenues in the audio industry that are sweet gigs. Glad your mate found one, hopefully I'll fall into one too, haha.
I live in Snohomish County, which is the County right above King County, where Seattle is. So there's some gentrification going on here, and the cost of living has gone up as a result.
Right now we're seeing 1BR apartments peak at about 1,100-1,300 USD, and good sublets for about 700 USD a month. The housing market is high right now too, though it looks like the bubble has stopped growing, and things are starting to drop. We'll see what happens.
I average close to 30 USD/hr with tips, and get about 30 hours a week. I'm also taxed at 30 USD/hr on minimum wage, so my paychecks are pretty miserable, haha.
Yes. I'm a marketing rep in the insurance industry and I love it. It's not for everyone, but for me it's the perfect mix of dealing with people and alone time. Nobody breathes down my neck. I travel a lot and bet to meet new people and see different places.
Can you expand on what your normal day looks like and what a marketing rep really does? I think that is a possible avenue I could take if I get tired of clinical work. Also, what kind of education do you need?
For education, we hire people with four year degrees and no insurance experience. We like sales experience but it isn't required. It's really an entry-level position so as long as the candidate's personality and demeanor are a good fit, we can train the rest.
Mondays I'm in the office scheduling meetings, sending agendas, printing out flyers, and collecting marketing tchochkes to give away. The rest of the week I'm having five meetings a day, usually 20 - 50 minutes a piece. The meetings are basically just conversations where I find out how my clients are doing, how we're doing for them, let them know about updates and shoot the breeze for a while. My days are usually book ended by a 1.5 - 2.5 hour commute, if I'm going further than that I'll get a hotel.
Once my days wrap up, they're mine. Back when I was single I'd use tinder to meet locals and get recommendations on bars and restaurants or stuff to do. Can't do that these days, but I've gotten pretty good at exploring new places.
Happy to answer any other questions you might have.
Been in development for nearly 15 years, while I don't hate it, I'm finding it harder to be excited about it. I can't for the life of me think of what else I would do though. If I were independently wealthy I might just become a recluse if it weren't for my wife and kid.
Same here. 34 now, professional since 19. What I dislike the most isn’t the work per se it’s the management of it.
I’m a web dev so it changes regularly and I love that. But the hardest parts of my day are managing a team with no focus or goals working on projects with folks with near-zero scope.
If I could just code and belay the people angle I’d be completely happy. As it is in my current job I work with folks who don’t really seem to make a proper effort to get things done in a timely and organized manner.
It wasn’t always like this and it certainly varies depending on where you work.
Yea I agree. Though our problem isn't that scope isn't just near-zero it's that and at the same time it's so huge that the people in charge cannot decide to tackle an MVP to completion without re-prioritizing midstream and pulling resources to work on the new thing. We're a new-ish company and we've just started making revenue so we rely on external funding and a lot of times that funding comes with strings to demo a new product or feature one a deadline that is usually attainable but at the cost of code quality and deadlines of other features in progress.
This is a question I’ve been asking myself continuously the past month or so. I’m still technically a student, but I’m done with my classroom education and now have a year of internships until I can begin working and getting payed as a physical therapist.
There are so many settings in my career path that I’ve yet to see. I always thought I’d do outpatient orthopedics, but I’m in it right now and feel like a glorified personal trainer at the place I’m at. Most of my patients are post-op because of our clinic’s relationship with surgeons and we treat multiple patients per hour because of poor reimbursement rates from insurance. However, I absolutely LOVE when we sometimes get a patient with a weird pain unrelated to any surgery. It’s like a mystery. We figure out what’s causing the pain and educate the patient on how they fix it. It’s so rewarding to hear somebody say they can now play soccer with their kids because they’re no longer in pain or being able to get back to the activities they love.
If I could work in a place that did this kind of therapy all day, I’d like to think I’d be incredibly happy. But right now, it feels like most of my day is giving post op patients incredibly simple exercises and watching lie there as they do them. I don’t feel challenged nor do I feel like I need an expensive doctorate to do this kind of work. Perhaps I could start my own little cash pay practice that markets toward the types of patients I enjoy treating, although I don’t feel like I’m gaining the skills necessary at my current place.
I also worked in acute care in a hospital setting. Most of my job there was basically walking patients, getting them out of bed, teaching them what not to do with their new metal hip, etc. It was very easy and repetitive, but at least I knew I was making a difference. I took the CS50 class online during this internship because I needed some kind of mental challenge, thinking perhaps I could eventually learn enough to have a backup career in case I can’t find a job I enjoy. But man, programming got old quick. It felt like I was trying to manufacture problems that didnt really exist just so that I’d have a problem to solve. I could only imagine how much worse this would be working for a company.
I’ve yet to be in a neuro setting yet, and I hope I get to before I graduate. I would imagine working with patients with spinal cord injuries and strokes and whatnot would be rewarding and more challenging than what I’ve seen so far.
I’ve always loved school and thought teaching would be an incredible career. I hear horror stories about how hard it is to get a job teaching, how long the hours are, and how poor the wages are. So I didn’t pursue that. However, I may be able to teach some classes with my clinical doctorate in the future.
I’ve also wondered if I could make a career out of writing novels and self publishing on amazon.
There is oh-so much to think about. If anything, I feel fortunate that my field is very easy to find a job in. Also, it pays decently (although schooling is incredibly expensive compared to the salary, fortunately I got into one of the cheapest schools). Lastly, it’s flexible. I can work as much or as little as I want, and working 30 hours per week is a huge goal of mine so I can spend more time with my fiancée and our future child. This can allow me to try opening my own practice on the side, try out writing on the side, etc.
I’ve always been one to stress about whether or not I made the right decision.
You mentioned being interested in teaching. I don't know if you're in the US, but I've been teaching in public schools there at the middle and high school levels for over a decade. If you've got any questions or want me to give you a rundown of what to expect, just ask!
The short answer to any of those is that I cannot recommend it unless you really know what you are getting into. I wish someone had sat me down when I was starting my career to explain what it would be like, warts and all (although there have been a lot of changes in education over that time, so it's hard to know if anyone had the foresight to see that things would get this bad). My motivation for posting this topic was that I don't think I can do this through to retirement. Teaching used to be seen as a safe, lifer job, but it has moved far away from that. One of my family members just retired from teaching and she said she never would have continued in the field if things back then were the way they are now. That comment has really sat with me, as I've spent my entire career so far wondering whether I have the fortitude to keep going.
What are some of the things that have changed over the years in education that make it less appealing? I was thinking I would teach part time at the college level or something, but I’d love to hear more about your perspective in middle and high school education.
Honestly, there's a lot, but the main thing I've noticed is that the accountability climate has reached nigh-toxic levels for teachers. Responsibility for nearly every student outcome has been pushed onto us, with the expectations that we will "own" a student's learning more than they will.
That's abstract, so let me give you an example. Let's say you have a student who does not do their homework. They have been in school for many years and are no strangers to the idea of homework assignments. Furthermore, let's assume the homework they are not doing is not particularly onerous. It is simply the student choosing to not complete the assignments.
Accountability culture has no room for the student's role in this process. It doesn't even consider that they have the choice to not to do something and own the consequences of that decision. Instead, it becomes a failing of the teacher. The expectations end up looking something like this for you: Did you post the homework? Did you give the student time to write it down in their agenda? Did you remind them to do it in case they didn't do so the first time? Did you check in with them to see if they understood it? Did you post the assignment online? Did you link to resources online to help the student at home? Did you contact the parents? Did you give the parents the assignment? Did you try to motivate or engage the student? Did you try rewards? Did you allow the student chances to make up the missed work? Did you provide time during the day for the student to come and see you if they had questions? Did you check in with the student to see if anything is going on in their life?
The expectation for any educational issue is that the solution lies with the teacher, and it creates the expectation that we will micromanage our students to success. It also implicitly removes their agency and responsibility. Education is not just about acquiring skills and base levels of knowledge but it's also about developing independence, work ethic, and habits. In the current model, very little of the latter half is pushed onto students, because they are insulated from the consequences. Systematic grade inflation has been standard practice at every school I have been at. It is very difficult to fail a student. It is even more difficult to hold a student back. Every year there are students who effectively opt out of their own education by failing to study, complete assignments, and apply themselves. And, every year, the school system waives grades and deadlines to push them through, with the eye of scorn given not to the students themselves but the teachers who didn't do enough to reach them.
The homework example is a bit of a caricature in that no one will ever sit you down and ask that chain of questions--it's more that that's the path that the moving goalposts will take in order to determine the point of failure. If you answer yes to one, the goalposts move to the next and continue until the answer isn't yes. At that point, the "no" becomes a failing of the teacher, wherever that happens to be.
This dovetails with the idea that student success is driven by individual student needs. As such, in any classroom, you will have students with a variety of needs and ability levels. In any given middle- or high-school level classroom, you will have a minimum spread of about 4 grade levels of ability (often much more). For example, in an 8th grade classroom, you will almost certainly have some students operating at a roughly 5th grade level and some at a 9th grade level. You are expected to meet all of their needs and have all of them access your content. This is, philosophically speaking, actually a strength of the US educational system: we mandate instruction for all of our students regardless of their ability level. It's something to be proud of, in my opinion: we genuinely do educate everyone!
In practice, however, the responsibility for meeting those needs has been largely ignored at institutional levels and instead compressed to the teachers. For any given lesson you are supposed to make it accessible to the lowest-level students in the room while also challenging the highest. And consider the needs of your English language learners. And your students with attention difficulties. And your students with social issues. And your students with issues at home. Most lesson planning these days does not follow a single path but instead has multiple branches and outcomes. Consider that, at the very least, you break tasks into "high," "medium," and "low" so that you can reach all your students. Those are rough breakdowns, far from individualized to your specific classroom, and yet you've already increased amount of planning you have to do for any given lesson by a factor of three.
Finally, the moving goalposts create the problem that there is never "enough" to your job. You can never be satisfied with the work that you've done, because there's always a next step you could have taken. Nay, you should have taken, because I have yet to mention that most teachers take their moral imperative to teach very seriously. When we drop the ball we feel bad because it ultimately means the students are getting a subpar education. The problem is that, according to current standards, we are never not dropping the ball. Test scores are never good enough. Student learning is never high enough. They're never doing enough critical thinking. You're never incorporating enough technology. Your lowest students never made enough gains. Your highest students were never pushed far enough. 80% isn't close to success--it's a 20% deficit.
These have been the consistent mindsets that pervade every school I've been in. Even with supportive administrators, you cannot escape the specter of more, and that's after you've already been working to capacity all day and outside work hours and on weekends. You spend your own money on supplies, your own time on the interminable demands of the job, and the resounding message that you're met with is not gratitude for a job well done but that you're not doing enough. A rule of thumb I tell new teachers is that, on any given day, you will only be able to get done about 50% of what you're supposed to. Whether and how you choose to make up that difference is up to you: that's why you'll hear horror stories of so many teachers working ridiculous hours. It's not that we're working inefficiently--it's that we take our work seriously and put forth our best effort on behalf of our students. And the demands of the job are such that work of that caliber is never going to happen within work hours only.
And it's why I don't know if I can keep going in this field. The burnout is pretty severe. People point to "do-nothing" teachers who sit at their desk all day and hardly try. I genuinely believe most of them probably once tried and gave it their all, only to get chewed up by a system that demanded more and more of them while giving back so little. They realized they could only get 50% of their work done, and they finally said "then that's what I'll do." Sure there are some people who are just ill-fit for the job, but in my experience bad teachers are more of a product than a mindset. I look at myself in 10 or 20 years, and I know that's where I'll be if I stay here. The current pressure of the job is unsustainable in the long-term, but short-changing my students by not doing my best for them is equally untenable.
I'm in my current career due to a career change. I love what I'm currently doing (management at a quantitative hedge fund) but hated by old career (software development). I've been working in finance and moving more and more to the quant side for about seven years and spent about the same length of time as a software developer.
I'd happily continue doing what I'm doing for years - even if I came into a large amount of money, I'd probably just do what I'm doing but with my own money. I'm not sure the industry will still be around in anything resembling its current form in the next decade or so.