Who has done a major career flip?

[Habana Mike]

8 minutes ago, mprach024 said:

Lol  🔴🔮🔴

So, when I joined Snowflake and mentioned to Thierry and Benoit (former Oraclites) I had worked for 3 companies IBM acquired they assured me they had no intention of buying IBM, or Oracle 🤣

Our market cap exceeded IBM's a couple of months ago for a brief while!

[BoliDan]

I have a masters in economics. Never tried to get a job. Really, the degree is worthless, but banks like to hire us folks. Crunching analysis numbers for a bank made me want to poke my eyes out with spoons. So now I I'm a developer, in RMDBS a couple of control languags (php, ruby, C++, python) and very proficient in user views (html, css, js, jquery)  

I could probably make a little more with job in my degree but who wants to hate life? I liked it for the academic side, the practical side never interested me. 

[Deeg]

Ive had a few course corrections in my career.  But most recently I left a job as a marketing director for a coffee importer in the States to move to Japan and teach English.  I think that counts. 😉. Took a big pay cut (though it’s much cheaper to live here) but I’d been to Japan many times including as a student, and I just love the place and wanted to experience living here.  My guiding philosophy is that you always regret the things you didn’t do and wish you had much more than the things you did and wish you hadn’t.

[SonGoku]

I was in IT for -10 years. First as a specialist later in lower level management. The majority of the time I hated the job with a passion. Tried a change of employer but that quickly proved that it was all the same again. Office environment, an endless supply of pointless meetings, stressed colleagues, constantly changing and implementing new frameworks. The list was endless. Getting the feeling you were about to snap a la Falling Down 😄

For 7 years now (wow time passes by quickly) I’ve been driving trains. I love the solitude of it and the a 100% defined work description. No working overtime. You can only drive 1 train at the time. Besides doing a job that provides a valuable service to society I can listen to audiobooks, lectures or cigar reviews while doing it. I finally got around to the big classics by authors like Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Dumas, Cervantes, Thoreau ect ect

[Chibearsv]

2 hours ago, SonGoku said:

For 7 years now (wow time passes by quickly) I’ve been driving trains. I love the solitude of it and the a 100% defined work description. 

I always tell people that when I get finished with the crazy mortgage business, I want to work golf course maintenance for the same sorts of reasons (I did a bit of it for a summer between attempts at a career).  Something about working (playing) with big toys is really relaxing. 

[Nino]

My father pressed me into banking and I did 3 1/2 years at the Deutsche Bank learning the trade from all corners - I hated it (and him) with a passion so 1973 at age 20 I left both home and banking.

Did 2 years as a contract negotiator from 1973 to 75 for the USAF HQ Europe flying a desk and was then offered a fat job overseas for one of the largest civil building firms in Germany.
At the same time, 1975, I saw an ad for flight attendants with Lufthansa.
I had always wanted to travel.
I quit my job, declined the job offer, applied at Lufthansa and a short time later I was on my first flight with a week off in Nassau/Bahamas.
Never looked back - never regretted a day.
Retired in 2009 as a Chief Purser with many happy memories and not a single boring day ...

[Drguano]

13 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

I used to do orangutan bondage porn in the late 80s. Got out when demand peaked. 

Current career is much easier on the thighs, although I miss those fuzzy guys...

Life lesson: don't piss off a coked up orangutan. 

Out of curiosity, were you on the giving or receiving end?

[benfica_77]

I see a trend everyone that works in the Banking industry hates it. My brother worked at one of the major banks here in Canada for 2 years and it was breaking his soul. Finally after a long heart to heart talk with me he opened up that he wanted to quit and become a high school teacher. I've never seen him happier now that he has become a teacher which in turn makes me a very happy brother. 

It's not easy having major career shifts but I applaud those who had the courage to make the move. 

[Cigar Surgeon]

I believe I'm now on my 5th industry? So many that I typed out 4 before I realize I missed one. 

Restaurant industry, retailer computer sales / service / IT / management, telecommunications, tobacco industry / tobacco franchise chain, oil & gas.

Just trying to stay employed. 

[Kitchen]

I went to school to become a high school math teacher because I was extremely good at math.  Turns out that is usually a bad thing for a teacher since they can neither understand nor foresee where students will have difficulty.  I was no exception, and I also hated the politics of public school. 

While in college, I had to take a studio art course and took photography.  I had always been interested in photography, but this was the first time I was introduced to the view camera.  I caught the photo bug, bought my own 4x5 camera and spent nearly all of my free time either taking pictures or working in the darkroom.  After three years of teaching, I left and jumped right into the world of architectural photography, and never looked back.  Well, I occasionally look back at my work from my first year or two and wonder how I ever got hired or ever had the confidence, The Dunning-Kruger Effect was in full swing.  

I probably started at the worse possible time, Nov. 2007, and I had to work 4 jobs in addition to my business to stay afloat.  Now though, I am doing very well.  

I am thinking about starting another side gig producing and selling mead.  Most commercial meads have the same flaws red wine does prior to it being barreled and I feel mead could be eminently improved through wood barrel aging.  I have a few barrels coming from a local cooperage next month and will begin to see where this goes.  

[SonGoku]

1 hour ago, Chibearsv said:

I always tell people that when I get finished with the crazy mortgage business, I want to work golf course maintenance for the same sorts of reasons (I did a bit of it for a summer between attempts at a career).  Something about working (playing) with big toys is really relaxing. 

It sure is. The only thing that could improve the level of relaxing is if they would allow smoking again. Imagine that. Pure utopia 😂

[SpecialK]

3 hours ago, Drguano said:

Out of curiosity, were you on the giving or receiving end?

I thought he was behind the camera ?! It was my understanding that he was the "Fellini of Orangutan Bondage Porn" 

[asudevil08]

1 hour ago, SpecialK said:

I thought he was behind the camera ?! It was my understanding that he was the "Fellini of Orangutan Bondage Porn" 

I believe this needs to become its own thread

[Akela3rd]

I started out in social care and went on to be a social worker. Ended up specialising in unaccompanied asylum seeking children which is as emotionally draining and politically difficult as it gets.
Then I burnt out and life got messy.
I recovered.
For the last 13 years I've worked for a company that does supply, plant and relocation of mature trees. Outside all day, travelling the country, driving lorries and huge machinery, getting dirty, training the next wave and still thoroughly enjoying it.

Sent by spooky action at a distance

[NSXCIGAR]

6 hours ago, Drguano said:

Out of curiosity, were you on the giving or receiving end?

I prided myself on my versatility, let's put it that way.

[xsquid]

Ha ha, how about 3!  Marine Biologist, then Naval Officer, and now Electrical Engineer.  Now if I could just merge the biology and EE together, I could study the fishes that generate electric fields 😉

[Fosgate]

These days are certainly not like it was for my parents. Find a job and work it for the rest of your life and receive a pension. But in the late 90's and early 90's I saw many of my fathers coworkers get screwed out of their pensions with IBM as the company ceased it's PC division. My father fortunately chose to stay with the Business Machines branch and got to see his pension. 

I've worked on farms since I was in 4th grade and took all the Ag courses and participated in Ag organizations in high school as my grandfather and mother wanted me to become a farmer. I was a rough and tumble kid growing up in South Dakota, earning decent money for myself through working on farms and selling bait and mowing lawns until I was old enough to work in a grocery store. I didn't have the interest of going to a full 4 year school for AgriBusiness. I followed my fathers path to tech as I could take apart anything mechanical or electronic, repair it and put it back together. Starting VoTech I realized school and my living situation with my father was not for me. I signed up for the army, which pissed off my father as I was the highest scoring student in the class.

So I spent 4 years in the Army in Tactical Communications. Got out and became a computer tech and sales rep for Gateway computers. That company closed and I then went into car sales and eventually became an Insurance Agent and eventually an Insurance Manager in a call center given my call center experience with Gateway. I left there to go back to a relatives car dealership I worked with before. That was 2008, industry collapsed, my relative lost his dealership. I knew not having a college degree was holding me back and I had the savings so I went back to college and earned 2 majors. Business Admin Mgmnt and Public Health while I worked at a hospital in surgery. (weird I know.) 

After getting out of college my old boss in insurance head hunted me into coming back and work in the business unit in field claims handling everything from property, bodily injury to autos. It's been a wild ride and while the workload is heavy. I'm outdoors, driving a lot but I'm home almost every night and every day is different with no one looking over my shoulder. Now I just consult on auto claims, still go out to shops and busy from May to January but after that work is only a couple hours a day. Currently I'm comfortable financially and planning on attaining a couple positions higher within the next 5-7 years and on the side I'm attaining rental property for retirement. 

Would I do anything different? I wish I would have discovered Robert Koyosaki a few decades ago and started my own business myself or bought into rentals long ago. Though I'm solid now where I'm at Career had it's ups and downs as i worked for 4 companies that failed. Maybe I would have been successful farmer, or soldier who knows. But I don't regret where I am and the wife I'm with and neither would have happened without the path I chose. 

 

[Islandboy]

I definitely have a story that fits the topic.

My dad was a banker, but fortunately I dodged that bullet...for some reason I was drawn from an early age to being curious about all things mechanical and getting my hands dirty actually producing something tangible.

Went to Oregon Institute of Technology out of HS, got an Associates degree in Diesel Technology, which just means I was a certified heavy equipment mechanic who had to pass a bit of college english and math. Came back home, got a job at Maui Pineapple Company - one of the Island’s largest employers at the time. After 4 years of working on large-scale agricultural equipment hands-on, I was put in charge of the maintenance shop, and after another 4 years, was put in charge of the Harvesting of over 8000 acres of pineapple crops. Did that for 12 years, but it was a mixed bag of stressful fun. Great to spend my time mostly outdoors on Maui, not so great when battling crappy weather at 4 am with acres of ripening fruit we can’t get to, and battling the antiquated union and its clueless powers that be. It was also during this time that Maui Pine had an eye on future executives and wanted to bring people up from within, so they offered to send a few of us middle managers through night school to get our business degrees. In one of the best decisions I’ve made, I took them up on it.  

Maui Pineapple Company was always a very good company to work for, as they really took care of their employees, but In my 20th year there I was sent to Costa Rica, one of several regions of rapidly growing competition from corporate behemoths like Dole and Del Monte, to observe pineapple operations there. I came back frightened and enlightened, having seen the writing on the wall, and I knew the 100 year old company I worked for was in its final chapter. As comfortable as I was in growing into and knowing my job, it was time to re-invent myself now, at age 45, rather than wait another 5 years when it would be forced upon me. Ugh.

Meanwhile, I got to know a guy that I swam with at the local pool who owned his own business designing/manufacturing/installing high-end custom millwork for residential projects. He had been paying attention to where I had found myself career-wise and offered me a job, despite my having no prior experience in the construction industry. He apparently could see future value in my business and organizational skills, but he wisely made it a requirement up-front that I invest a year or so starting at the bottom (carpenter on the installation crew) learning the nuts and bolts.

Long story short (a little late for that I guess), I took that leap of faith almost exactly 15 years ago, and couldn’t be happier that I did. At this point we are General Contractors doing both residential and commercial projects, and I’m a project manager and partner in the company. I’m so glad I made the change when I did, I imagine it would be significantly more difficult to re-invent myself now.

Oh, and, Maui Pineapple Company ceased operations about 5 years after I left. Timing is everything.   

[Ken Gargett]

3 hours ago, xsquid said:

Ha ha, how about 3!  Marine Biologist, then Naval Officer, and now Electrical Engineer.  Now if I could just merge the biology and EE together, I could study the fishes that generate electric fields 😉

as a kid, desperately wanted to be a marine biologist. given where i live and a thorough understanding that if you so much as put a toe in the water, there is every chance a great white will go all robert shaw on you, perhaps better i didn't. 

 

fosgate makes a really good point. things are so different now to our folks' eras. dad was a lawyer and for him, it was never about changing professions (i think he loved it, although he once told me he regretted not being able to get into the navy - was too young when he was keen). you did not even change law firms. that was not done. and if you made someone a partner who turned out to be a dud - and there were always a few - you stuck with them. you did not exclude them. you stuck at this for life. 

so different today. 

[Bill Hayes]

At the point now where I want to make a change but very undecided. After 25 years in advertising, I'm well past my used by date in that industry but I'm stubborn like a limpet to my own detriment. On the upside, I have just come off a long freelance contract working on the digital side of things which adds a lot of strings to my bow. I've had to evolve as apposed to change but the writings on the wall, which gets me to the point of this pointless rant, what to choose. Any advice helpful. My ideas - love the ocean and recently single so no obligations - Abalone diver, volunteer marine biologist to get experience, work the tourist boats in Nth Qld once the borders open up, scuba diving instructor. Love AFL football - I keep applying for jobs in the marketing departments but COVID has cut costs. Love craft beer - work at a small boutique brewery and grow a bushy beard and get a nonsensical tattoo for credibility and increase check lumber jack shirt and ironic cap wardrobe. Ha ha! Only transferrable skills are social media influencer for all of the above - just need a hook.

[Rhinoww]

Great topic. Appreciate the honesty this group has with each other. I have said it before, but what a great forum. 
I have stayed in the same industry - law - first at a mid sized firm, then a large firm. After 2.5 years at the large firm I realized that if I didn’t have a massive book of my own business I would always be grinding for someone else. I jumped ship to work for a client managing their law firm work. Been at my current employer for 25 plus years. Boring from a story perspective but I really enjoy my work. 
I do want to thank all that have contributed to this thread though. My son is about to graduate from college in May and is starting to interview for jobs. My advice to him so far has been pretty general to find something he will enjoy doing that can support what he wants to do in life. Clearly I should tell him to avoid banking from the comments here.  He’s young, and has time to explore, take a leap of faith, and perhaps experience a bit of a reboot along the way. If there is one theme of the renewal stories here it is about finding a path of personal satisfaction without burnout.
I guess it’s hard to screw up your career too badly when you are happy.