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Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?

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Re: Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?

#591

Post by rlonstein »

gravypod wrote: post #11

Welder. It's everything that makes a skill desirable to learn. Very easy to start, impossible to master. Pays reasonably well too if you can find work. Also most welders are people who don't put up with much BS so it's refreshing coming from pretty much any other field.

> Welder. It's everything that makes a skill desirable > to learn. Very easy to start, impossible to master

Indeed. I picked up a bit of hobby glassblowing then metalwork which led me to learn welding and blacksmithing. I don't necessarily want to leave IT for it but I love these things as an avocation. Eventually, I will be good enough that I might offset the cost of my formal and informal education in these things. That's the plan, anyway.

Re: Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?

#592

Post by fusiongyro »

fjdlwlv wrote: post #486
jeffsaracco wrote: post #437

I'd be a baker - I've recently (as of the past year or two) started baking my own bread and find it incredibly therapeutic, fun and interesting. Maybe open up a small bakery with a cafe and if it went well expand it to teach classes on how to make bread, pizza, etc... If anyone is also interested, I'd recommend the book Flour Water Salt Yeast ( https://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals/d... ) as a st…

Opening a bakery would destroy all the pleasure you get from baking

They said that about programming but I still enjoy it.

Re: Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?

#593

Post by fusiongyro »

jeffsaracco wrote: post #437

I'd be a baker - I've recently (as of the past year or two) started baking my own bread and find it incredibly therapeutic, fun and interesting. Maybe open up a small bakery with a cafe and if it went well expand it to teach classes on how to make bread, pizza, etc... If anyone is also interested, I'd recommend the book Flour Water Salt Yeast ( https://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals/d... ) as a st…

Love that book! Just got Bread Baker's Apprentice too.

With you completely. My 10-year-old niece is on-board, telling me about how we're going to do this next week. I'm pretty sure I'd miss programming too much though.

Re: Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?

#594

Post by jogjayr »

taway_1212 wrote: post #36

I wonder if asking such question (and inspecting answers given) is not enough to refute the idea behind basic income - that it allows people to retrain into their desired profession, thus making the society more productive. Seeing that most people desire only a relatively small subset of careers (and almost no one want to be for example a dentist, an accountant, not to mention telemarketer or toilet cleaner), I don't…

> Seeing that most people desire only a relatively small subset of careers (and almost no one want to be for example a dentist, an accountant, not to mention telemarketer or toilet cleaner), I don't think it's going to work.

Or...these careers would either pay a lot more (wouldn't begrudge toilet cleaners making more money), eventually be found unnecessary or uneconomical and go away (no more telemarketers?) or be automated away. That doesn't sound like an entirely bad outcome.

Besides you'd be surprised how many people genuinely want to be dentists or accountants; those careers may not be for you but I'm sure many dentists and accountants enjoy their work.

Re: Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?

#595

Post by johnward »

Something physical. That's the one thing I miss in the IT world. Being chained to my desk for 60 hour weeks is putting a toll on my body and mind. I'm only 30 and I feel wore out from this field. The money is OK but It provides happiness to my family. The construction workers I know can make more on a good year. Plus they get laid off for weeks or months at a time. I've never been off for more than two weeks since I was 14 so that sounds amazing to me.

Re: Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?

#596

Post by peterwwillis »

bobhall1981 wrote: post #478
FigBug wrote: post #56

I'd buy a sailboat and take people on tours in Greece. Except I hate people, which is why I work in tech.

Sailboats are a lot cheaper than people think. Did you know there is no technical definition for "yacht"? In practice, it just means "a boat that's nicer than yours". Don't buy a yacht. In Seattle there are plenty of sailboats under 30' that cost less than $10K. The moorage is the expensive part and costs around $400/month.

And if you have an engine in it, the biggest expense is time (spent trying to fix the f^%!$@ thing)

Re: Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?

#597

Post by mellery451 »

eel wrote: post #264

I would love to get into structural engineering. I just can't justify the cost of school, and the end salaries are not even going to be better than a software developer's. Or maybe be an auto mechanic. Or a woodworker/metal worker/welder. Or a farmer (seriously). Part of me wants to embrace the city and "book" knowledge to further my career, and part of me wants to abandon it and go back to a rural life and just make…

I studied to be an S.E. for 7 years (undergrad/grad) and practiced for a little over a year before I gave it up for software. First, the pay was atrociously bad given they years of schooling. Seriously, I couldn't justify doing it if I didn't absolutely love it because I was barely getting by.

Furthermore, S.E. in practice is pretty boring -- lots of repetitive calculations. Yes, there is room for software automation, but that kind of automation is never rewarded - so much of the tasks just seemed to be coordination and paper shuffling. Beyond that, working on projects often meant waiting years to see anything come of it - think about how long it takes to get a large project from concept (design) to completion. In most markets it's a very long timeline.

That said, if I were to have stayed in S.E. I would have focused on smaller projects (with shorter timelines) and I would have tried to specialize in field engineering (being on-site) since that's where most of the real problem solving happens.

Re: Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?

#598

Post by elliotec »

tomr_stargazer wrote: post #586
jmcgough wrote: post #336

Was just there two days ago, that place is like an engineer's wet dream.

Briefly, and without an intent to shame or embarrass you - I think it's worth thinking more carefully about using (presumably male-centered) sexual language here, especially since the bookstore is named after a pioneering woman engineer.

Women have wet dreams too.

Re: Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?

#600

Post by [deleted] »

johnward wrote: post #588
up_and_up wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's not necessary to make $100k+ a year to have a solid middle class life Depends on your circumstances. 100k with one salary?

I live paycheck to paycheck on six figures in the midwest. I'm not broke but I'm certainly not living it up. People act like 100k is life changing money. I think it depends more on circumstances before you get to $100k. If I had parents who paid for school I'd probably be living it up too.

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