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Anyone else feel the constant urge to leave the field and become a plumber?

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Re: Anyone else feel the constant urge to leave the field and become a plumber?

#12
Seems like OP should just go to a place like the government for a fairly slow paced retirement friendly job.

They could definitely use skilled people and while there can be the same crazy expectations and conflicting missions, you can say no a lot more easily.

Re: Anyone else feel the constant urge to leave the field and become a plumber?

#15
post #2

No. Plumbing is gross and wet. Carpentry, on the other hand...

Plumbing is gross and wet but you clearly know where the bullshit is from the beginning. In software it is creeping from everywhere, changing patterns every coouple of years as well. I probably wouldn’t want to be a real plumber but I hear the people who would. And I definitely get the urge to find something else but generally trading off for something else is problematic as well and generally comes with its own type of bullshit.

Re: Anyone else feel the constant urge to leave the field and become a plumber?

#16
Navigator or maybe some kind of specialist for a cargo ship? Or maybe harbor pilot (if you could break into that closed industry to make bank)

Forest fire water bomber pilot?

On a side note, I always thought it would be a very cool thing if there were some kind of exchange program for people with good skills wanting to try them out in another field, kind of as a rotation. (I originally thought this for academia -- researchers who would love to see another field getting to visit for maybe 3 months or similar) But I guess, what company would be willing to participate in such a thing and let their people do it, having to pay for the cost...

Re: Anyone else feel the constant urge to leave the field and become a plumber?

#18
I'm turning forty this year. My original dream was to get rich quick and retire at 30. Then I pushed that to 40. Now I think I will need to push it another 3-5 years...

In general I agree with the sentiment: high salary is the only nice thing about working in IT. It's simply too much pressure. Best you can do is to make your fortune quickly (joining FAANG helps, becoming a freelancer is a reasonable alternative in Europe), build a house, set up a college fund for kids, and then retire, or find yourself a job as a carpenter, of scubadiving instructor, or whatever you like, as long as it has nothing to do with computers.

Re: Anyone else feel the constant urge to leave the field and become a plumber?

#20
Sometimes I feel the urge of becoming a teacher, teaching math or maybe even programming.

But then I'm reminded of how prviliged I am and how much better the working conditions are as a work from home developer is compared to a teacher... And the feeling goes away.

Maybe the best is if I could FIRE and then just hold evening classes for those who are interested, but I'm not there yet.

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