To the OP, have you looked into schools that are local that would let you finish your degree? If you can find something there and keep your current job at the same time you would have that current job safety and still be working towards something new that could turn into a new career.
When I feel like I'm not moving forward, changing, or growing my skills & talents I start to feel pretty frustrated.
Yes. I've got 19 years in the same place and nothing to show for it but debt from exploring other avenues/hobbies. Too bad it's not that easy to find anything secure in my chosen field (publishing).
DirtyBird222 wrote: I've been doing this IT thing for about 4-5 years now. Great pay, great benefits, job security if you actually show up and act like a normal human being, just no job satisfaction.
Dr. Hess wrote: Boring is good. Job security is good. Steady pay is good. You do know that they call if "work" and not "play time" for a reason, right? And that's why they give you money to do it, right? Enjoy your time off.
Read what the good Doctor wrote. Again. And again. And again.
I don't know why people don't use their time and money from having a good job to go and get satisfaction elsewhere in life. Sure, having a satisfying job is great (mine gives me an ok level of satisfaction), but at the end of the day, I love everything I do outside of work (which is much more beneficial for my health IMO).
In reply to HiTempguy:
Where is all this time and money I'm supposed to have? You're living in a dream world.
You could, theoretically, have time and money from a theoretical well-paying office job with decent vacation time. I think I could be happy with such a thing.
(Alternate answer: It's in a piece of railing on a megayacht)
In reply to Nick_Comstock:
No, he's living at the heart of one of North America's biggest oil and gas epicenters.
HiTemp, are you still working the 9am-5pm shift, or do work that rotating weeks on, week off, weeks on thing?
GameboyRMH wrote: You could, theoretically, have time and money from a theoretical well-paying office job with decent vacation time. I think I could be happy with such a thing.
Me too. I think 5 or 6 weeks would be good enough. A week around Turkey Day and Christmas, a nice two week vacation in March, a few three day weekends during the summer. Yea, that'd be good.
My bitches have nothing to do with the op. What HiTempguy said just struck a nerve with me. Not because I disagree with him or anything like that. I'm just completely burnt out. I'm tired of working all the time. I would kill for a set schedule.
Anyway I'm just venting about my own personal situation.
Nick_Comstock wrote: Anyway I'm just venting about my own personal situation.
And that's just it. Its real easy to say "suck it up, a job is better than no job" when you've got a minty job. When your job overworks you for mediocre pay, little flexible time, unset schedules, crappy benefits and then outsources you after 10 years, I'm not going to blame you for wanting to switch jobs or careers.
Everyone has their own idea of what the perfect job is. I've got friends who don't care about vacation or workplace culture, they don't care about flex time or employer-paid-education, all they care about is how big that number is on the paycheck every two weeks.
HiTempguy wrote: Read what the good Doctor wrote. Again. And again. And again. I don't know why people don't use their time and money from having a good job to go and get satisfaction elsewhere in life. Sure, having a satisfying job is great (mine gives me an ok level of satisfaction), but at the end of the day, I love everything I do outside of work (which is much more beneficial for my health IMO).
You try to tell people the secret to happiness, the meaning of life, everything, and they don't believe you. I think I read a short book about that at the end of High School. These 2 monks figured it out. It kinda boiled down to "don't give a E36 M3." Someone came along and killed them for it.
I once had the itch. Luckily my doctor had a cream that cleared it up in a few weeks.
I had one of the secure corporate jobs for a couple of years, hated every minute of it. Told them to stick it, cashed in everything, sent the wife back to work and winged it.
Now I have no job security, no benefits unless I supply them, and all the headaches that go with being self employed.
I wouldn't go back to the secure job for double the money I'm currently making, which is double what I was making.
To each his own.
Life's too short to spend 5 days a week in misery. If you hate it, 4 years in, imagine what it will be like in 20 more.
pres589 wrote: Guys in the building next door started tearing apart a large (for my company) jet yesterday. With power tools. It was another one of those times that I really resented being constantly tied to a desk. They're to cut the thing to ribbons; no part can be large enough to be recognizable as an aircraft part unless the part is going back to the manufacturer or into spare parts supply. If I ever get that hot tub time machine built I'm coming back with an A&P license and asking to be sent to work in a service center in Europe.
Have my A&P. Where is this job? 
Please PM me the details
(deleted long, thread jacking, rant about how stupid/inefficient I've found corporate life to be)
I wish I had a career. All I have is a berkleying job that I berkleying hate because I have no berkleying capital to start my own berkleying business. Berkleying divorces at just the right time to berkley my finances into berkleying black holes. I'm 0-2 on marriages and they've both left me. I don't know whether to be angrier at them or me. Berkley this berkleying E36M3.
PHeller wrote: In reply to Nick_Comstock: No, he's living at the heart of one of North America's biggest oil and gas epicenters. HiTemp, are you still working the 9am-5pm shift, or do work that rotating weeks on, week off, weeks on thing?
9-5 my man, wouldn't trade it for the world. Every once in a while (as in next week), I go up north for 5 days. 6 hours of double time a day! And steak from The Keg every night 
While my location does definitely help, I do not earn extraordinary money in my field. I don't know anyone with my diploma who earns as little money as I do, hell, 4 years ago I was in sales fresh out of college earning this much. And I worked the same hours, and had about the same perks (probably better). But I hated the location (Calgary) and didn't like the work very much. I then went through 3 years of being poor as all hell working for the gov, and finally got to a comfortable place. Lemme tell you, $45k per year doesn't do much in Alberta in the bigger cities!
Nobody can help you with luck or circumstance. Some people just get the short end of the stick. But I got where I am with determination and hard work, and I've worked a lot more overtime than most people (sept 2012 to 2013 was 1000 hours of OT). I've been "sort of" rewarded for it. Im pretty content. (bitching about being poor on GRM helped me relieve stress lol)
At the end of the day, nothing will change unless you change it. The only other thing I can say in my little wisdom is to get this sort of job, you need a post secondary education, and you need to be someplace that requires workers. If Alberta had been in a recession with no jobs, I would have been out of here in a heartbeat!
Yep.
dj06482 wrote: As a few have mentioned, I'd keep your day job and explore other avenues that interest you as a hobby. If the hobby develops into something where you can make a living at it (and want to), then you can figure it out at that point.
Nothing ruins an enjoyable hobby faster than turning it into something you have to make a living off of. Whenever a home brewer come through on a tour and bemoans how they "missed their calling" and should have become a brewer, I tell them they're wrong. What they enjoy about home brewing is not what production brewing is about. They really are better off working a whatever day job and playing around with home brewing on the weekends. I enjoy what I do, but my passion is beyond merely loving to home brew, to a single minded obsession with every detail of the process.
Yes, earning a living at something is a great way to ruin a hobby. I've done that a couple times. For example, after copying really crappy Morse Code all day long, 8-16 hours at a time, day in, day out, the last thing you want to do is go home and copy Morse Code.
Meh, if you have to call it work and ask these questions you are doing it wrong. Unfortunately for me, I do call it work and I am doing it wrong.
In reply to stroker: A truck driver at work was married five times. He said he wasn't going to get married again, just find a woman he didn't like much and buy her a house.
In reply to TRoglodyte:
That was Rod Stewart's line.
I changed careers not because of boredom but out of necessity. If I wanted to either break my back mining coal or working for minimum wage, I had to step up and reeducate myself again.
Now that I've finished school, I couldn't be any happier even though the field I chose, nursing, is back breaking work. All I have to do is keep my nose clean and get a masters degree and I can choose my career path.
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