If you were to quit your developer job today and move away from the tech world for a little while, what job would you do?
Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?
1–10 of 55 posts
Re: Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?
#2I would love to be a fiction writer.
I am not good at fiction writing at all. But this is something I always romanticize about. Something about sitting in cafes or home and typing away seems like a perfect day to me. No need to debug, troubleshoot production issues, attend meetings, submit TPS reports, etc. Just you and your writing.
Re: Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?
#3gigolo
Re: Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?
#4I would have a SurfShop that is connected to a Restaurant & Bar in Hawaii - in close proximity to the beach. My life would be complete.
Re: Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?
#5Academia or launching a startup (which is why I quit my job for a research position in academia - eventually... it took me a couple of years though - studying high growth startups)
Re: Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?
#6I would love to be a fiction writer. I am not good at fiction writing at all. But this is something I always romanticize about. Something about sitting in cafes or home and typing away seems like a perfect day to me. No need to debug, troubleshoot production issues, attend meetings, submit TPS reports, etc. Just you and your writing.
I spent four years in college for English literature. You can do that or you can just read the book 'Self-editing for Fiction Writers' and do the same thing in a tenth of the time.
The other thing you could do is to join a writers workshop, in person is always good but there's no reason why you couldn't join some remote thing. The caveat is that however big the workshop is you need to read everyone else's work and comment on it as well, which means if you have a workshop with four people you typically will need to read something for 4x for every one of your submissions.
The other thing to consider is whether you want to write fiction that is necessarily entertaining or literature that is compelling. Those are two entirely different disciplines.
Then simply write a single page every single day no matter what.
Re: Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?
#7Something that's a switch of gears from "deep, isolated knowledge work" to more action, people, managerial oriented work. Project management, realtor, small business owner, recruiter.
If I'm tasked with something, it may take me a day or it may take me a week depending on how well I can think my way to a solution. Maybe it never comes, maybe I'm spending days searching the same SO answers for a morsel of insight or inspiration from poorly written documentation to solve a problem. Drinking coffee, staying up late, maybe it bleeds into personal life, that urge to keep looking into it to finally put an end to the task and deep dizsatisfaction.
I'm often jealous of people in other jobs that aren't this way, that are more "just hustle and do it," where at the end if the day, you either did the work to progress your position/project/whatever, or you didn't. And if you just got up in the morning and physically and metaphorically "showed up" for the job, there was a far lesser chance you'd just stare a screen to no discernable result for 8 hours and feel a sense that no progress was made.
Re: Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?
#8I tend to get jealous when I see people working with their hands, prefferably outside. Sometimes I even observe the guys cleaning the street and thinks, maybe its not that bad after all?
The times I have done such work (like construction) resulted in a much greater satisfaction and feeling in my body than after a day in front of the screen (even though I have been productive). Doing lots of running and gym but it does not generate the same feeling.
Have lately started to do something about it, maybe switch career totally.
Re: Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?
#9I tend to get jealous when I see people working with their hands, prefferably outside. Sometimes I even observe the guys cleaning the street and thinks, maybe its not that bad after all? The times I have done such work (like construction) resulted in a much greater satisfaction and feeling in my body than after a day in front of the screen (even though I have been productive). Doing lots of running and gym but it doe…
Cal Newport mentioned in his last book Digital Minimalsim about the benefits of learning and accomplishing something with your hands in the real world, and how it's argued to further energize whatever else you do it, be it digital.
Re: Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?
#10Some years ago I read a book about a banker who took a summer off to work an Alpine pasture (ie. a summer farm) without electricity and company. Just him and 50 cows. I've been dreaming about that ever since.