What? I have a career?
What? I have a career?
I'm pretty happy with what I've done and where I've been. If I was forced to choose a different path, I would have gone to a trade school for welding and fabrication and I'd be building hot rods.
docwyte said:Would've liked to have gone to the Air Force Academy and flown planes, either heavies or an A10.
If you really wanted to fly the Navy has a lot more planes. Plus wings of gold. Not lead ( er aluminum)
Aside from that it's about a million times more fun to land on Rocking and rolling Aircraft carriers than a big boring airfield that stays in the same place and never moves.
I went thru school and got a Supply Chain Statistics Nerd Operations Management Major. I was dodging the higher level math and landed in 400 level statistics - DOH. I would be be doing my same Job making more money out of the gate as a Mechanical Engineer having done the same level of math...
In reply to PMRacing :
My first plans were to be a professional Racer. Then I thought OK an airline pilot. The reality of that life hit me post Vietnam. My third choice was sales.
That worked beautifully until the Great Recession and following that I stumbled doing whatever someone would hire me to do until I retired. ( hopefully in 3 more years)
I would but also have no idea what I would do differently, even knowing what I know now.
In reply to PMRacing :
Well do it.
In reply to docwyte :
I tried to get in the Air Force Academy, but I wasn't a black athlete. Four eyes would have kept me out of the cockpit though.
frenchyd said:Aside from that it's about a million times more fun to land on Rocking and rolling Aircraft carriers than a big boring airfield that stays in the same place and never moves.
Airfields in California do move from time to time. :)
I am a retired Mechanical Engineer / Manager. If I were to do it all over again I would still get the ME degree because it gave me so many different options for what I could do, and I tried to take advantage of everything that seemed interesting.
I worked auto parts and as a gas station mechanic while in school. That taught me that cars are more fun as a hobby than working to a deadline on someone else's project. With the degree, I had a choice.
I was lucky enough to be able to work in many different areas for a couple of different companies: component and engine testing, engine design, stress analysis, vibration analysis, electronic controls development, wiring harness design, engine control systems, software, and systems design. Some was hands on and some was leading small teams (4-12 engineers). I enjoyed all of it, and the most fun was being able to constantly keep learning something new.
There are enough different types of career choices as an engineer that if you are not happy, you can always try something else that sounds better. That is easiest if you can move around within one company, but it is possible to make incremental changes while changing companies.
And if you think you would be happier turning wrenches, or running your own company....do it. Use your skills to figure out how to swing it financially and go for it if it makes sense. Poor and happy beats rich and stressed. In the end we all die anyway - may as well be happy until then!
Might have stayed in the Air Force. 4 yrs in, s/sgt, instructor in aircraft maintenance. Lived of base.
Or i should have taken the offer to learn radar an then teach. It was made to me while I was still in basic.
noddaz said:What? I have a career?
Samesies.
I'd kick the living snot out of myself for not taking the army up on the offer to fly helos. I'd kick the snot out of myself for not taking the intel job. And I'm durn sure as shootin' tell myself to get out of dead-end technician work before I got into it, maybe skip the attempt at college education and get something more useful or at least have an actual plan other than the BS white collar job line I'd been fed by the system.
I dropped out of HS my senior year and got my GED and got a job. Married at 18 to a girl I knew for 5 weeks. First kid before 20, we actually got married first if you can believe it. I've done everything from dig ditches with a shovel, to run heavy equipment, to inventory control for a regional construction company, to computer interface wiring for industrial plants and a hundred other little jobs between. My career was a slow starter. My degree is literally from the school of hard knocks, but learn I did.
At times the struggle has been real. I've been dig in the couch for change broke more than once in my life. I have wondered where the next meal was coming from. I've also bought Christmas for entire families before. I've been married for 33 years. 4 kids. 4 grand kids.
14 years ago, a business partner and I pooled our meager resources and started a small company that sells, installs and services automatic and commercial door systems. We will never be rich but we are free of debt and currently keep 5 families fed and housed. We managed to keep the company afloat and together through the 2008 crash and so far through the current difficulties. We have had some lean times but have managed to keep the team together. I think that's a pretty decent accomplishment in the era that considers the employee a tool instead of part of the family. We look out for them and they look out for us.
Would I change anything. Not on your life. Did I do things the hard way at times? Yep. Could I have done things better? Sure, but then I wouldn't be who I am, and I actually like who I see in the mirror in the mornings.
The Good Lord has been pretty good to me.
Toyman01 (Moderately Supportive Dude) said:The Good Lord has been pretty good to me.
Amen brother!
What a long, strange trip it's been.
noddaz said:What? I have a career?
This mostly. I've wandered through life without a plan and it's treated me well. All I knew in HS is I didn't want to be in computers like my dad. Didnt have the patience for college, joined the AF. Wrenched on planes, wrenched on vehicles, managed unit training, hooked my computer to my co workers to share training files. This made us the 2 most qualified individuals on base to create a LAN (which was barely a thing in those days) Bailed on the AF after 12 years and 1 war and floated through the corp world since pretending Im an IT guy. Still don't know what I want to be when I grow up but I'm one of the most overpaid HS graduates I know and Im told if you hit 50 without growing up you dont have to so Im not.
In reply to docwyte :
I tried to do just that out of HS and they didn't accept me. I love flying but it's so expensive to do private
I'd have listened to my dad (mechanic for 30 years) and left cars a hobby to save my back and finished my accounting degree. But 50k a year beat out going to school and then the economy crashed in 08
if I could go back further I'd avoid the 3 wheeler accident that messed up my right foot and failed my army entrance physical
I personally wouldn't do it differently. While I was getting my Engineering degree at night I had a day job in a general machine shop as a machinist/fabricator. Bridgeport milling machines and Southbend lathes are for anybody, but I could run every damn machine tool in the place, including the ancient planer and Bullard manual vertical turret lathe ... as well as the B&S cylindrical grinder, no easy machine tools to master. And I also mastered heli-arc (TIG) welding. I loved it and found great satisfaction in my work. That was back in the seventies. I got my degree in '74 and with the practical experience was able to get a good job as a Manufacturing Engineer at a great company. Nice. But an opportunity came up and I had a chance to get into the commercial side of the business, for more 'scarole. It was up to me. So I did. That move changed my whole perspective on what I wanted to do. I spent the next 35 years in marketing and sales. So while I found a lot of satisfaction and enjoyment in my early years as a machinist/fabricator (with very little stress I might add), my very lucrative marketing and sales career based on my practical experience and Engineering education worked out extremely well for me. I should add that there was a lot of hard work, long hours, much domestic and international travel, and extreme stress involved. But it was worthwhile.
So my point is, what do you want? Maybe rather than changing career altogether, could you tweak what you're doing now to create a new path based on your experience?
I'll add, be prepared to put the time and effort into what you want, and the rewards will come. (That's been my mantra, and it has paid off).
I guess I'm going to get a chance to give it a try. I started working for the county prosecutor at 17 years old (yes, you read that right). At about 55 years old, I'll be maxed out in terms of any retirement benefits and, the way things are structured, staying longer than that actually results in lower retirement benefits. Assuming my health holds, there's no way I'll be ready to quit working. I will, however, be ready to be done dealing with problems I didn't create, so I kind of doubt I'll keep practicing law.
Current plan (not kidding here) is to see if I can train to be a railroad engineer or (failing that) conductor.
I would have gotten help for my depression and anxiety as soon as I could drive a car to said help. My life and career would have been completely different.
I would have worked hard to get through Chemistry and gone on to get my BS or possibly an MS in Marine Biology. At least I would be giving back to the planet instead of taking from it like I do in entertainment
Go back to active duty after I crosstrained in the Reserves. Spend the next 12+ish years on active duty, retire and get paid. Then go to Mech Engineering.
Hard to say, I don't think I made bad career decisions so much as had my career limited by circumstances and my own shortcomings. Until recently the only more lucrative career paths than IT I could've realistically had access to were in management or accounting (the only skilled jobs the economy where I used to live ever seems to need), managing other people is something I'd prefer to avoid and accounting is about the most mind-numbingly boring thing I could imagine. I honestly can't think of any realistic different education or career choices I could've made that would've left me financially better off without making me too miserable to stick with them.
Having worked a couple of fast-paced support-heavy jobs since I moved to Canada, I have a newfound appreciation for my old job: Apart from the awful commute, relatively crappy pay and sometimes terribly boring work, it was actually pretty good. It was a mostly low-stress job with only occasional bursts of fast-paced work required, hours were on the lower side with a good amount of vacation time, and it offered me a lot of creative freedom and plenty of opportunity to learn - even if it was something completely unrelated to the job, because there was often free time 
I'm probably a much smarter person for having worked there, although that only seems to be good for helping me survive the financial fallout of making kid money for a decade and knowing all the reasons I should be miserable 
Moving away from an economy that hardly had any decent jobs for anyone but accountants and managers and nepotism beneficiaries earlier definitely would've been a good idea all-around but that's not exactly a career decision. So without getting into wild alternate histories, my paths were limited and I started out on the best viable one available. Wasn't a bad choice in general either, maybe not the best, but not bad.
I truly stumbled into insurance claims by accident. It's been good to me but it's no longer a fun industry. Employment hangs on a thread year to year.
Missed opportunities:
I should have done a stint in the military.
There is a watchmaker school less than 30 minutes from my door. I could have been repairing Rolexes and TAG-Huers anywhere in the world if I'd done that. I like working with tiny things (model building) so this would have been an easy thing. I hear it pays quite well.
Should have hired on with the railroad but being on call was a huge turnoff. Had I sucked it up and stuck it out I could have retired by now with a nice pension. Plus, trains are cool.
Only late in life did I find my interest in psychology. I'd have liked to become a therapist specializing in men's issues. That would have required college, something I never aspired to as I disliked school so much.
Today, maybe I'd enjoy being a motorcycle mechanic working on 50s-70s bikes. Not sure what the demand would be but I do enjoy wrenching on them. Cars? No thanks. Only for fun and only brands/models I'd want to touch, not someone else's idea of a 'cool car'.
If I could do it all over again, I would not have gone to college for engineering, and instead just became a plumber right out of high school. Didn't decide to become a plumber until I was around 32. Wanted a job where I knew I could be home for all of the important moments as my kids grew up. Now, I love my job. Its very flexible and pays way more than it should. The whole no benefits kind of sucks, but that can be taken care of privately. No kids are going into the trades, and there is too much work for the number of guys in the trades now. Can't imagine how bad its going to be in 10 years, as just about every guy on any of my jobs is 45 plus. Most are retirement age or older. My dad is 78 and still works 50-60 hour weeks because he loves it. Getting dirty, goofing with the guys on the job, and being my own boss sure beats sitting behind a desk. The best part may just be making customers happy. You get to go in and save the day, all the while charging near ridiculous money. When I first started out, people tended to think of tradesmen as less than equals. We were the dumb kids in school that could only find a job swinging a hammer. That has changed.
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