Doing what you love, and loving what you do... [Archive]

Sun Tzu

11-10-2010, 04:16 PM

Here's some background...

My wife and I use to live in the SF Bay Area of California. I worked at a Fortune 100 IT company (everyone here has heard of it) as a sales specialist. Sales has always come naturally to me. Everywhere that I've gone, I've shattered sales records and been showered with praise (not to toot my own horn here)...and my success at this particular IT company was no different. I was named to the CEO's Club which is reserved for the top 3% in the company, and given upwards of 10k in random gifts/competition prizes per year. Needless to say, I was making a decent living and putting away a healthy amount of coin. The thing is, I didn't love what I was doing. Maybe I was getting bored, or maybe I'm just a restless person, but I felt like a change was in order. Around this same time the Wife and I decided to move to Hawai'i, so I figured once we got there I'd relax, take some time off, and figure out what the hell I wanted to "do" for a living.

I eventually found writing. Despite my occasional grammatical clumsiness, I'm not a bad writer. I don't have a degree in journalism (though I will be pursuing one this coming semester), nor do I have much in credentials, but I've done a respectable job of finding ways to earn a living just sitting on my ass typing away. I have a ways to go in developing my writing style, but I feel like the foundation for success is there. When I imagine my "ideal" career in writing, it would be something like to be a sports writer that covers a professional baseball/football franchise. I have no idea how much it pays, and I'm sure it's still less than I was making in sales...but having grown up a sports nut...I just can't imagine a career packed with more excitement and fun. I've played sports my entire life, so I know how to "speak the language" if I'm around players/coaches. Aside from that, I also feel like I have the social skill-set to succeed in the business...

With that being said, I'm 28, I'm in escrow on my first house (we have since moved back to CA), I'm getting tired of writing articles that are nowhere near the subject matter that I want to be writing about, and I'm getting calls from old bosses/co-workers asking me to get back into sales nearly every week. I don't love sales...but I don't love what I'm doing now either. I'm torn between going back to something that I know I don't love, but I can make a shit-ton of money without breaking a sweat, or I can continue doing something that I may not enjoy for another five to 10 years, at the off-chance that if I eventually get to where I want to be, that I actually will love doing it. It's a pickle of a conundrum that I find myself flip-flopping over every day.

So...I'm wondering how many of you have been doing what you're currently doing since your early 20's...and how many of you have changed careers once, twice, or more. Also, for those of you who have an established long term career...do you love what you do? Have any of you left higher paying careers for something that pays less for personal reasons? Have any of you done just the opposite? Thoughts? Suggestions? Thanks in advance.

Honolulu_Blue

11-10-2010, 04:26 PM

I have been an attorney since I graduated law school in 2000.

I have worked at two firms.

No, I don't love what I do. It's fine, but I have no great passion for it. Still, it has its interesting moments, few and far between though they are, and it pays well enough so that I can enjoy the things I enjoy without ever really having to worry about money.

Mustang

11-10-2010, 04:27 PM

So...I'm wondering how many of you have been doing what you're currently doing since your early 20's...and how many of you have changed careers once, twice, or more. Also, for those of you who have an established long term career...do you love what you do? Have any of you left higher paying careers for something that pays less for personal reasons? Have any of you done just the opposite? Thoughts? Suggestions? Thanks in advance.

Been doing what I've been doing since about 27. (Did the Air Force and then college). My career is established and I make a decent living, but I absolutely hate my current position. It is not that I hate the tasks that I do, I just hate the culture of the company.. one of 30,000 people, kind of hard to make any impression or have any type of job progression. I just basically come in, hammer on the keyboard like a monkey and go home at the end of the day. The only reason I don't go somewhere else is a little laziness, mixed with family and the job doesn't greatly interfere with what I do at night with my business so.. I deal with it. I definitely work to live, not live to work.

Would I go somewhere else to take a job I truly love and make less? Absolutely.. Probably up to 25% less. If I was single, I would have been gone years ago.

Sounds like you might be getting stuck up in a little of the 'romance' of being a sports writer which can sour you since you have an image in your head of what it might be and it isn't going that way.

Sun Tzu

11-10-2010, 04:34 PM

Would I go somewhere else to take a job I truly love and make less? Absolutely.. Probably up to 25% less. If I was single, I would have been gone years ago.

Sounds like you might be getting stuck up in a little of the 'romance' of being a sports writer which can sour you since you have an image in your head of what it might be and it isn't going that way.

Re: leaving for a maximum pay cut of 25%. Right now I'm making about 75% less than what I was making before...which believe me is a major kick in the vacation taking nuts.

I'm not a sports writer now, and my guess is it will be several years before I would be in a position where I could do that for a living. The world of journalism (I've found) is quite tough to break into if you don't have a degree, and even harder if you're a newbie. You have to take whatever clients pay the most if you want to make any $$$, which is where I am right now. I agree that I'm caught up in the romance of being a sports writer, but it's a far off romance that may never show up.

samifan24

11-10-2010, 04:36 PM

I'm 27 and feel trapped. I'm currently co-authoring a textbook on my field and launched a relatively successful reference website last year but am really stuck career wise. Doing both of those things (well, ok, working on the book now) have done nothing to advance my career.

I just took two part-time retail jobs to help me pay my bills through the holiday season. Everyone says I'd be a great hire but no one has offered me a job. I don't know what to do next and I feel stuck and trapped in some sort of post college adolescence hell.

So no, I've had a passion and an ideal job in mind for the last few years but am not even close to feeling satisfied or any closer to finding a job now than I was right after I graduated from college five years ago.

MacroGuru

11-10-2010, 04:46 PM

I broke into the IT industry back in 96, I moved from support to multimedia development to Sales Engineering / Training in the span of 3 years.

I have been involved in Sales and Training of some form or another in the IT and eventually the retail sales industry.

I truly love the training aspect not so much the sales. I miss the pre-sales support of being a a Sales Engineer, it was a great job and the travel wasn't as stressful as it is now.

Would I take a paycut to do what I love...absolutely, I already have. I moved my family across the country to start a business with 2 friends doing what I love.

My ultimate goal and something I am seriously thinking about doing is getting my teaching certification so I can get back into High School coaching. It was one of the greatest things I have ever done, but I want to be a head coach or a DC for High School and if I can move up the ranks eventually, I would love to do it.

johnnyshaka

11-10-2010, 04:47 PM

I hated university, or rather the "school" part of university, so I didn't really go back full time after year one and instead chose to take a federal gov't job that paid pretty well considering I didn't have a degree. It was a good job but not something I really liked doing but it afforded me the cash to do what I wanted on the weekends and life was good.

Fast forward a few years and a promotion or two and I was getting pretty bored. I also had a look around at the "lifers" and didn't want to end up like them so I made a decision to go back to school and get into IT as I had always been interested in computers. I quit my job, moved to the other end of the country (needed to get away from home for a change and to make sure I could focus on school and avoid the temptations of going for beers with the guys versus studying for exams) and learned everything I could about the IT industry and as fast as possible. Within a year I had worked for a few smaller outfits as a support tech and then landed the job I'm at now for a school district...going on 10 years, IIRC. It took me several years before I was making what I was making before I changed jobs and I probably still haven't caught up to what I could've been making had I continued to get promoted like a few former co-workers...c'est la vie.

This job has always been one that keeps me on my toes as we are always trying to keep up with the "latest and greatest" and I think that's why 10 years has flown by. Don't get me wrong, there are stretches when I wonder if a career/organization change would be nice but, to be honest, the pay and benefits are very good, I work 5 minutes from home, and the hours are pretty flexible because I can work from just about anywhere. I've got it pretty good, all things considered.

Do I love what I do? There are parts of my job that I love, some that I like, and others that I hate but at this point, the good definitely outweighs the bad. When the scale tips in the other direction for an extended period of time, then I may have to re-think things.

JediKooter

11-10-2010, 05:12 PM

Spent my early 20s in the Air Force as a mechanic and thought that would translate into a civilian job. Well it did, but, saying it was boring would be an understatement. At 25 I decided to change careers to be a computer programmer, I wanted to make sports games and knew I could make better games than what was out on the market because it seemed my knowledge of sports was better than the people making the games. As soon as I was done with school (1 month to the day actually), I was hired to work as an AS400 operator. Not really a game development platform.

Did that job (another boring one) for 3 years when I was hired by SBC (formerly PacBell & now called at&t) as a DSL installation technician. I got 3 pay raises on my first day there due to a new contract that had just went into affect. That was the most money I ever made at that point in my life and the job was a blast. No office cubicles, no one breathing down your neck or anything like that. Even when it rained, I didn't mind it. Unfortunately, that job got phased out after less than a year and I was then retrained to be a service rep. Basically, a sales job. I hate sales, no, I despise sales and I don't really like talking on the phone, two of the requirements for that job. So that already had two strikes against it in my book. From my first day at the job, my sole focus was getting out of that job. It took me about a year and half before I succeeded. From that job I went on to be an Order Writer for the phone company. Basically, just making sure that the Service Rep who took the order from the customer entered the correct codes. It's as boring as it sounds, plus I had to drive 72 miles one way to get to it, but, I was no longer a Service Rep and no longer on the phone or doing sales. I did that for one year before changing jobs once again, but, close to home as computer operator for the phone company. Boring, but it was fine and it was a 4 to midnight shift.

While doing that, I also started working part time for a friend of mine to do tech support and QA support for his software app. After doing it for a few months and liking it a lot since it dealt with television and films, I asked if he would take me on full time so I can quit the phone company. He agreed and I quit the phone company and just a few months after I started full time, Apple bought us. I was one of only six employees that Apple retained, the rest were not job offered. I was brought on to do QA for the same application, plus it was still in the arena of television and film, so the boring did not come back. After Apple laid me off with a bunch of other people in my department, I knew I wanted to stay in the television and film industry. After two months of being unemployed, I was offered a job at ILM in April of this year doing QA for (at first) one of their in house software apps. Since then, I am now doing QA for 3 internal softwars apps, but, really only focusing on two of them that are being used for the Clone Wars cartoon and other projects at Lucas Animation.

I've always wanted to do something with computers ever since I was a kid and had my first Commodore 64 and well, I am doing something with computers. The best part is, not only am I working with computers, I am also working with film and tv, all of which I love. The job does get a little boring sometimes, the pay is ok considering what part of the country I'm in, but, the payoff is knowing that movies like the Iron Man movies, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Clone Wars cartoon, Star Trek, etc...would never have been possible without my department developing the tools for the artists to use to create all the special effects and animation for those projects. Plus being a complete Star Wars nerd since I saw it back in 77, adds to the whole 'fun' of it. I see people in real life, that before working here, I'd only see them on tv or in magazines doing interviews. There's even a knew documentary coming out on Encore here in a couple of weeks about ILM and one of the people they interviewed was the first person that interviewed me when I was trying to get the job. Crazy!

My regret? I just wish it hadn't taken me so long to realize that I love working in this industry. It just never occurred to me to work in it for some reason when I was younger, plus just not knowing how to get started in it, didn't help. My advice? If you have the freedom, the money and the time, I'd hold out until you find something that you really want to do and like to do and even dabble in a few things to test the waters and see if you like it or not.

jeff061

11-10-2010, 05:46 PM

Computers in my youth, system admin early career, consulting now. As a consultant my area of expertise is something I hand picked because I enjoy it so much. Pay has been...very nice(especially this past year) and consulting fits my professional attitude and demeanor perfectly. So I really can't complain.

I've kept my career simple. Keep myself in a challenging spot where I'm moving forward. When I find myself at a job where that's no longer the case I leave.

My career is one of the few things in life I excel at and enjoy :D.

Sun Tzu

11-10-2010, 05:48 PM

I have to say, even though there are just a handful of posts in this thread so far...it's given me quite a bit of perspective. Thank you already.

jeff061

11-10-2010, 05:51 PM

It's tough to put myself in your shoes(beyond being same age). If you've made good coin and put it away, I personally would absolutely take the risk going after something you enjoy. Without hesitation.

But you have your wife(kids?) and other responsibilities that I don't.

Edit: Also, I would think sales is something you could fall back on without missing too much of a beat?

MacroGuru

11-10-2010, 05:57 PM

Edit: Also, I would think sales is something you could fall back on without missing too much of a beat?

Yes and no on the sales side...things change..contacts come and go and the sales cycles constantly change.

I have seen some of them go from as little as what used to be a two week turnaround to a two month turnaround.

The industry I am in now, we are a seminar based sales company. I have learned an art in sales of reading people even more with this job...but our sales process doesn't translate into other industries to well unless I am willing to get on a phone and dial for dollars which I am not.

So for Sun Tzu, if you have the coin...follow what you like.

Sun Tzu

11-10-2010, 06:00 PM

Edit: Also, I would think sales is something you could fall back on without missing too much of a beat?

This is absolutely true (IMO). It's a personality trait as much as it is a skill. It's also not even that I dislike sales, which I don't, it's just the draw of potentially having a dream job. I should just win the lottery and recruit JediKooter to design a new all-inclusive PC football game entitled "Maximum Football"...Pumpy can be the lead beta-tester.

*edit for Macro*

I had the coin, but the majority of it has gone bye bye thanks to A.) A destination Wedding, B.) A four week honeymoon, C.) A six-week vacation where I drove around the US, D.) Buying my first house. We had zero help from family on all of these too. So, that puts me in a spot where I no longer have a lot of coin in the bank, and I have to make a choice to continue down the "just getting by" road at the chance that I'll love my potential future job, or turn back to the cushy "coinville" where I'm a VIP but it smells kinda funny.

JediKooter

11-10-2010, 06:07 PM

This is absolutely true (IMO). It's a personality trait as much as it is a skill. It's also not even that I dislike sales, which I don't, it's just the draw of potentially having a dream job. I should just win the lottery and recruit JediKooter to design a new all-inclusive PC football game entitled "Maximum Football"...Pumpy can be the lead beta-tester.

*edit for Macro*

I had the coin, but the majority of it has gone bye bye thanks to A.) A destination Wedding, B.) A four week honeymoon, C.) A six-week vacation where I drove around the US, D.) Buying my first house. We had zero help from family on all of these too. So, that puts me in a spot where I no longer have a lot of coin in the bank, and I have to make a choice to continue down the "just getting by" road at the chance that I'll love my potential future job, or turn back to the cushy "coinville" where I'm a VIP but it smells kinda funny.

Only if I can be a jerk on the message boards.

Alan T

11-10-2010, 06:28 PM

jeff061

11-10-2010, 06:38 PM

Learn Cisco UCS and Nexus switching :D.

Currently at a very large client where I'm doing a VDI deployment to a Cisco UCS cabinet. Pure awesomeness.

dawgfan

11-10-2010, 06:46 PM

I graduated with a BA in Psychology in '92, wasn't interested in moving on to grad school, so the job I was working part-time during college became a full-time job while I figured out what I wanted to do long-term. Went back to school in '95 to get an AA in computer animation, graduated in '98 and have been working in the video games industry ever since as an animator.

I very much enjoy what I do and make a decent living at it, so I'm very fortunate in that regard. The conundrums in my career are as follows:

- I wonder how long I can continue to work in video games - 20 years from now, will there be a place for a 60 year old guy in this business? If so, does it mean I have to move into upper management and away from the creative work I currently do? Will I be OK with that when that time comes, or will I still think that sounds unattractive as I do now?

- While I make a decent middle-class living now, I certainly wouldn't mind making more money. That will require continuing to move up the job ladder working for other people, or taking the big risk of moving out on my own as an independent contractor/vendor or starting my own business. The issue with continuing to move up the job ladder is that it typically moves further and further away from day to day creative work and more and more into management tasks like budgets and scheduling, things I find far less interesting than the creative work I do now. The danger is that I'll get to a point where I'm too expensive and get riffed for a younger, cheaper version of myself.

So I guess that's a long-winded way of saying that, I currently do what I love and love what I do, but I'm far less certain that I'll be able to do so long-term, so I'm pondering where my career might lead in the future and how to continue to support my family.

Fortunately my wife has a career path that has a higher earning potential (pharmacy), so there's some cushion for us as a family. Still, when you start having kids and thinking about future expenses and wanting to have a comfortable retirement, you naturally start to worry about how it will all work out.

Alan T

11-10-2010, 06:47 PM

Learn Cisco UCS and Nexus switching :D.

Currently at a very large client where I'm doing a VDI deployment to a Cisco UCS cabinet. Pure awesomeness.

Yeah, we did our UCS roll out 2 years ago. Nexus we're doing this year so I had to learn that last year.

For this year I'm going to be working on IPv4 to IPv6 conversion options as well as moving from layer 3/4 firewalls to layer 7 firewalls with user controlled authentication (similar to 802.1x). Those projects likely will take most of my year I believe.

jeff061

11-10-2010, 06:50 PM

dawgfan

11-10-2010, 06:51 PM

Regarding your specific goals - if you want to be a sports writer/reporter, seems like the best thing to do (if you haven't already) is start a blog. Work on your writing chops and then hope that you get enough exposure and followers that you get invited to a sports blog network that generates some revenue so you can get paid, or get hired to one of the dwindling number of traditional media outlets that cover sports (with newspapers dying left and right, there's fewer gigs). Or hope that your own blog explodes enough in popularity that you can monetize it without having to join someone else's network.

Maybe that's a path that you can pursue initially while also working sales in your old field so that you can build back up some fall-back money? Or would your sales job be too time-consuming to allow you sufficient time to write and blog?

Alan T

11-10-2010, 06:58 PM

Very nice, certainly don't need my advice then :). 2 years ago on UCS? Sounds like you are in a nice spot.

Good luck on the v6 conversion, haven't been exposed to that yet (networking is way down on my skillset).

Well for UCS it is more of an ongoing thing than we were finished with it 2 years ago :) We primarily use it for our UCCE deployment worldwide right now, but we keep threatening that we'll use it for more soon! :)

I don't want to derail Sun's thread here though. Mainly my point though was possibly one of the reasons I love my job is that it is constantly changing or evolving. 15 years ago, when I started, I was doing dramatically different things (token ring bridges, fddi connections, banyan or vines routing, etc). So it really doesn't feel like the same job it used to be.

Coffee Warlord

11-10-2010, 07:15 PM

Been writing code professionally for 11 years now, and I'd like to think I'm pretty damn good at it. Getting a vague set of specifications/needs and coming up with something spiffy is still a thrill.

I've worked at what, 4 companies in that span. Some have been miserable, some have been pretty enjoyable. While I do want to run a team of my own in my next job (which I'm already poking around, since my current job is one of those where I like the people, hate our corporate overlords), I don't particularly want to go into pure management. I like being able to get down and dirty into projects. It's the creative problem solving I've always dug.

Although I'd love one of my side projects to somehow catch on big and make money. :)

Sun Tzu

11-10-2010, 07:15 PM

Maybe that's a path that you can pursue initially while also working sales in your old field so that you can build back up some fall-back money? Or would your sales job be too time-consuming to allow you sufficient time to write and blog?

You know, I've been considering that very thing. Sales (at least what I do) is a nine to five kinda thing, so time wouldn't be an issue at all. I've been in contact with a buddy who is big into SEO who helps people set up blogs, and he said he could help. Odd that you mentioned this.

rjolley

11-10-2010, 07:22 PM

I've been an Oracle DBA since '98 and I still enjoy it. I've had other jobs in addition to a DBA, working with MySQL or SQL Server or doing Oracle development or being a system admin, but I don't see myself doing anything different for the next 5-10 years.

Maybe by that time, something else will catch my eye or I'll be far enough in management that I won't touch the database much, but for now, this is where I'm comfortable.

Now, staying with one company for longer than 3 years, that's another story...

lungs

11-10-2010, 07:32 PM

I'm the same age as you and I can honestly say I love what I do and will be doing it as long as I can. My situation is probably unique from most as I'm applying the family trade of farming. For my own personality it's a perfect fit. I control my own destiny. I don't have to kiss the ass of any superiors. Now part of that is the leeway my still-owner father has given me but that was still a trust I needed to earn. A family business dynamic is just so much different than entering the bottom of a corporate chain and climbing it.

Anyway, I can't say I entered this profession because of a true love, but more saw it as an easy decision since none of my siblings had any interest in taking part. I guess it was sort of a given since I was a young age that I'd be the farmer of the family (and the hell raiser, but that's another story).

I fell out of touch with my farming roots as a teen and somewhat in my college years but really when I entered the real world of being a dairy farmer, it all came back in full force.

I'm not going to get filthy rich doing this but I have no desire to do so. I wouldn't complain if it happened, but I'm not a slave to money. I can already enjoy pretty much everything I enjoy in life, but I also don't have a wife to answer to and kids to feed.

Not sure I have any real advice for you but I do find it enlightening to see what kinds of decisions other people my age are facing.

lynchjm24

11-10-2010, 07:41 PM

Take the money and write on the side. Sportswriting is really a dying profession. There are way too many people on the internet who can do it just as well as professionals and don't seem to care they don't get paid.

I can tell you that I was a broadcasting major and spent some time actually following a professional team and it's not what it's cracked up to be. There is a reason why there are a lot of bitter sportswriters. Since I grew up in the shadows of ESPN and have a Communications degree I have dozens of friends and classmates who work for the WWW.... to a person they despise sports at this point, even the ones who write for the dot com in the niche sports they used to love (NASCAR/hockey).

k0ruptr

11-10-2010, 11:15 PM

RE: Everything

Should of never left Hawaii. :D

JonInMiddleGA

11-10-2010, 11:35 PM

Lemme see here ... 2 distinct career arcs.

From 17 to almost 30 I spent in radio, on-air & management.
From 30 to now 43 I've been in advertising.

Loved the early portion of my radio days, knew that's what I wanted to do from at least as early as 13. The pay was a joke but I loved so much of it & accomplished pretty much every professional goal I had for a lifetime by my early/mid 20's. By the last few years of it, I had grown extremely weary of getting paid next to nothing, working often ridiculous amount of hours, and being surrounded by halfwits who couldn't find their ass with both hands, a bloodhound, and a GPS.

The financial reality struck around the time I got married, hit again with the birth of a child. Through that period I transitioned out of radio into advertising.

Worked with some sleazy m.f.'s who made DC politics look like amateur hour compared to interoffice politics. Made more though, and by the time our own agency eventually hit its stride had a few years of making damned good money. With the state of the economy & changes in the advertising world that happened before the crash, I'm back to making next to nothing again.

Give me a genie lamp & a choice to wish for the money or the fun & I'll take the money in a heartbeat. Family responsibilities bring financial realities that make that decision ridiculously easy. Give me unlimited money & ask the same question & I'd probably be very happy living the life of the idle rich.

There's relatively few things that are fun forever if they involve the concept of "have-to"; i.e. if they're jobs/work. (I'll point you up the thread for a take on the life of the average sportswriter that I'll endorse based on the ones I've known).

And as I've learned, when the opportunity to make money is there, it doesn't come with a guarantee that it'll be there forever. If you miss the chance to make hay while the sun shines, you could very well find yourself regretting it later.

You asked, so there's my two cents fwiw.

Izulde

11-11-2010, 01:11 AM

Journalism is a dying profession in general, let alone sportswriting.

StLee

11-11-2010, 03:39 AM

Here's some background...

So...I'm wondering how many of you have been doing what you're currently doing since your early 20's...and how many of you have changed careers once, twice, or more. Also, for those of you who have an established long term career...do you love what you do? Have any of you left higher paying careers for something that pays less for personal reasons? Have any of you done just the opposite? Thoughts? Suggestions? Thanks in advance.

I have been teaching since I was 21, though not consecutively--I had three years of graduate school between my first teaching gig and my next one. As far as teaching is concerned, it's not the career I imagined when I became an English major, but it was a better fit than some of the other choices I had: editing, local newspaper, and local radio station. I tried all of those things in college, and teaching seemed to be the profession that would keep me closest to my dream: fiction writing. Fast forward twelve years later (I'm 33 now), and I only published two of my creative pieces, neither in anything prominent, and I've been working on my "great American novel" for three years, still in its first draft state. To me, teaching was a means to a different end, though it hasn't worked out yet.

But I am a person who made a HUGE change withing my profession, and it has certainly made a difference on my outlook of my profession. I felt like I was in a dead-end job as a community college English instructor. I didn't like my students, I didn't like my school's management choices, and I didn't like that the school put the burden of three people on each one of its faculty members. I was teaching on average 21 hours of composition, meaning that I had approximately 150 essays to grade at any one time. The job was draining me quickly. So what was my change? I quit the job. Though it was basically a tenured job, I walked away from it because I despised it. Then I went to South Korea and got jobs within universities, and I have loved it. Though I am overworked sometimes, the experience has been fresh for me, and I have experienced a complete renewal as an ESL college instructor. Yes, I miss teaching literature and advanced writing, but I have a lot more "Aha!" learning moments in one month now than I ever did in an entire semester of American community college teaching.

I haven't regretted my decision to move to Korea for one second. It was the best thing that ever happened to me, and it led to a lot of other positive changes in my life, including losing over 40 pounds, giving me access to many different kinds of experiences, and meeting my wife.

Dutch

11-11-2010, 07:42 AM

I've been in the Air Force for a while. I still love my job. I've been in a classical IT role since the mid 90's...although as of late it was as a "manager" of enterprise services (Tier 1 level authentication, messaging, data storage/recovery, and configuration management) in Europe and not an actually technician.

The best part of being in the military is that no matter what you think of your job, you'll get a new environment every 3 or 4 years. I've recently moved to Tampa, FL and have moved into a position that is severely undermanned, so I get to manage and be a technician all at once (which I think is the ideal IT job).

But I'll be moving on pretty soon, not because I'm bored or tired of it, but because the military is basically for young folks and I'm not getting any younger! I'm almost 40 years old (I'm a man! I'm 40!) and will need to move on soon. It's pretty scary sometimes to think that my next job might be a "long-term" job that I might not like. So while I'm in a different boat than Sun Tzu, this thread is equally fascinating to me.

Draft Dodger

11-11-2010, 08:42 AM

my job is just the 40 hours per week I do to allow me to do everything else. don't hate it, don't love it, it's just a means to an end.

my wife is an ER nurse and absolutely LOVES her job. she's noticeably happier on days she's scheduled to work. that's great for her...but I don't ever see myself being happy about my job.

PackerFanatic

11-11-2010, 09:18 AM

I am on the lower end of the spectrum when its come to experience here (I am 25) but I have been in "the business" since I graduated college in 2007 and can honestly say I do love what I do. I am at my second company since graduating, doing programming (mostly web programming and some .NET stuff as well). When I graduated, my wife and I had been married about a year and expecting our first kid, so I was anxious just to get something and start making some money. Got a decent paying job just a few weeks after graduating, but it was an almost hour commute one way every day - and the job itself sucked. It was a very small IT department (less than 20) and very clicky. I didn't feel wanted or needed and I dreaded going to work every day - which is definitely not a mindset you want to have (especially when you have to drive an hour to get there). Plus I live in Wisconsin, and as many know, the winters here can be brutal - so driving that long is especially not fun. I found my current job after 10 months at the old company and I immediately knew it was the right move. I took a decent paycut (about 10%), but the job was only a 15 minute commute and the atmosphere here is so much nicer. Love my co-workers, love my daily duties, just love it in general (been here ever since). Sure money is tight (my wife is a stay-at-home Mom, she does do some babysitting while at home to help), but we are both very happy with what we do and okay with being a little tight. It's not always about money - I would much rather have a happy home life and be happy with what I am doing on a daily basis and be a little strapped for cash than be absolutely miserable (or especially have the wife be miserable) and be loaded. The "being loaded" part will come one day, hopefully :)

lordscarlet

11-11-2010, 09:28 AM

I am 31 and I love what I do. I have been a full-time developer since 2000. The only thing lacking in my professional career, perhaps, is drive. I enjoy what I do so I've been fine continuing to do that everyday -- I haven't necessarily gone out and sought advancement or the like. I have been at this job for 6+ years. It's not necessarily the ideal job in my field, but the people I work with are great, the position is stable, the pay is good, and I know what to expect.

JPhillips

11-11-2010, 10:16 AM

I've always wanted to be an artist and wouldn't be happy doing anything else full-time. I started as an director, actor and sound designer working while still in college and now I'm almost forty and still working on unique, creative projects every month of my life. I get tremendous satisfaction out of working with a team of artists to create performances that are rewarding and can't be duplicated. The joy and satisfaction of that work has made up for a lower income.

I did decide to go into college teaching a few years ago. I generally love working with student artists, but I also value the consistent income and benefits. Th grind of continuously looking for work wore on me and adopting a child changed my tolerance for periods of unemployment. If I had stuck it out in the professional world I might be successful enough to stop worrying about money by now, but I might have stayed a struggling artist. It wasn't a risk I was willing to take with a child.

I teach classes I generally love and get to talk about the work of artists I admire on a daily basis. I get to see students make discoveries about themselves and their place in the world. I get to direct projects that appeal t my interests and moods. And, I still work in the professional world, just not as often as in the past.

I wouldn't trade any of it for a big salary, although I'd certainly like to do what I love and make a lot of money. I've worked with too many people over the years that committed to a "real" job they ended up resenting. I figure financial security isn't worth much if I'm an unhappy father and husband.

Mustang

11-11-2010, 10:20 AM

The best part of being in the military is that no matter what you think of your job, you'll get a new environment every 3 or 4 years.

Unfortunately that is what killed my Air Force career. Was in Germany for 2 years and then went to Langley. Unfortunately I was moved to a unit where the NCO in charge of the shop was a guy that played favorites and his favorites were those people with families. Those guys were invited fishing on his boat, went over to his house for dinner and were given a free pass on the job with various things. The single guys and those not in his little circle were just basically shit upon. Re-enlisting and being stuck with that asshole for another 4 years just wasn't an option. I probably should have just volunteered to go to Kadena and tried to get the hell out of there.

Of course, that was 18 years ago. I hope he is dead now.

CraigSca

11-11-2010, 02:48 PM

Yeah, we did our UCS roll out 2 years ago. Nexus we're doing this year so I had to learn that last year.

For this year I'm going to be working on IPv4 to IPv6 conversion options as well as moving from layer 3/4 firewalls to layer 7 firewalls with user controlled authentication (similar to 802.1x). Those projects likely will take most of my year I believe.

What will be using as your layer 7 firewall?

Alan T

11-11-2010, 02:55 PM

What will be using as your layer 7 firewall?

We decided to go with Juniper SRX platform. Cisco's stuff just isn't there yet and seems to be heavily HTTP focused rather than other applications. I actually have checkpoint certification but my upper management refuses to entertain bringing them in for some reason I don't know. (Something from the past I guess).

Edit: we also looked at other newer layer 7 firewalls such as palo alto, but we had concerns with them not being able to handle the amount of throughput that we needed.

GCCSteel

11-11-2010, 04:08 PM

I will quote Charlie "Tremendous" Jones:

-"Work," wherever you find it, implies only one kind of thing: detail, monotony, preparation, striving, weariness. That's what we all have to overcome, no matter what our work is.
-If I can get excited about it while it's miserable, it's going to be tremendous if it ever gets pleasant.
-We need to be learning that God never made the job that could make a man, but any man who can get excited about his work can make a job.
-There is nothing that can make you more excited about your work than a sense of its importance and urgency. I believe that the fires of inspiration and greatness in our hearts can be kept burning only by developing this sense of urgency and importance in our work - not the work I'm going to do, not the work I wish I could do, but the work I am doing now.

I'm not entirely sure if these are relevant, but felt they were in the ball park, at least. I do feel happiness (in the workplace, life, etc) is a personal decision. That said, outside factors obviously play a role.

I find envisioning where I want to be in 5-10 years and assessing whether my current path will get me there is productive. If you don't know where you want to be in 5-10 years, then this probably wouldn't be as productive, however.

Disclaimer: I am only 24. Take all of this with a grain or two of salt.

Sun Tzu

11-11-2010, 05:09 PM

Interesting viewpoints, though I did cringe at the "G" word. Overall I still understood the message, which is the most important thing :)

JediKooter

11-11-2010, 05:28 PM

You should become an international man of mystery.

CU Tiger

11-11-2010, 09:05 PM

18-23...I was a GA/ assistant football coach thought that was my future. What I always wanted. Hated the 100 hour weeks. Hated the 18,000/year salary. Hated the fuzzy metrics. The only career Ive ever seen where there is no right/wrong way to do anything and do the most fucked up shit of all time that lends good results is praised.

Married/Kid started my own electrical contracting company. Even within that career there are divisions I love and divisions I hate. I Love the industrial controls work, it makes me think and its like a giant brain tease puzzle, often 100 feet in the air in a weird facility. But those jobs are few, far between and very competitive. We niched ourselves as an ultra high end residential company specializing in theater rooms, "home networking" and home automation. Naturally the home networking thing is come and gone..but the other stuff is just launching really. That said its monotonous and I hate most of the clients, but the money can be fantastic. Today as the organization has grown I am mostly a people manager with very little grasp of what we even do in the field any more. I have to force myself to stay relevant and in touch, and when I do I remember how much I hate it. Honestly the last 6 months there hasnt been a day where I havent considered closing up shop selling off all the company assets and starting over. Maybe as a bar tender in a tropical island. Honestly the only reason I don't is because 48 people and their families depend on me. It is a small ego trip to come in in the morning and look around and know that I created it all from myself and a tool box in the trunk of a car (when I couldn't even afford a truck to work out of) So I have the golden handcuffs firmly planted...I dont know how to escape, and everytime I want to I think about the opportunities and experiences my kids have because of my sacrifices that I never dreamed of growing up in gov't housing.

So to me, my purpose on this planet is to serve my kids and provide an opportunity to them I never have. For that I sacrifice my happiness in exchange for their financial well being.

The odd thing is, if I had a genie and a magic wand I have no clue what I would want to do with my life. So I guess I will just keep doing what I do.