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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?

#71

Post by artemonster »

civilized wrote: post #34
lolinder wrote: post #23

This comment and its top reply are dead on: https://old.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/sm54ri/a... No job is going to get you away from unreasonable people with unreasonable expectations, and most trades introduce a bunch of other unpleasant things that you'd have to deal with. It's all tradeoffs. Someone may legitimately prefer the stresses of a trade to the stresses of working in software, and that's great…

Quoted post unavailable.

I like how in our progressive society it is absolutely frowned upon to invoke any association between observable societal statistics and, say, race/gender, but its okay to bash BMW/audi drivers. So, user civilized, why is it okay for you to generalize? And why exactly you were sorry? (I am aware that this is a tangent discussion to the original post, but it may be an interesting one)

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

#72

Post by polishdude20 »

praptak wrote: post #38

My constant daydream is machining. So far I learned the basics of FreeCAD, watched a shitton of machining videos on YouTube and researched some lathes and mills. Unfortunately it is a hobby that requires lots of space to keep the machines and tools.

What about 3d printing?

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

#73

Post by spicybright »

One of the best jobs I've had was working part time at a pizza place in my early 20's.

I made just enough for rent, food, and fun. The job was easy to be good at, but rewarding because I was helping actual people. Most of the time it was slow so you got to joke around with the other employees.

But sometimes you'd get slammed and have to organize your crew to work efficiently for a few hours, which was stressful, but very fun to figure out and do well at.

I think about that a lot when my current software job becomes really boring or difficult.

EDIT: Oh, and I was certainly less sedentary being on my feet all day. I slept really really well after a long shift.

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

#74

Post by dsego »

banana_maker wrote: post #22

Occasionally that thought pops up. Then I remember I’m making insane amounts of money, from the comfort of my desk in my house. At 25 I’m making more than my parents ever did, with a fraction of the physical effort. If I really hated it, I could save up for some time and do something else, because again… I’m pulling insane amounts of money for software work. Trades like plumbing, electrical work etc are -hard- work.…

> I recognize that I have the privilege of not sacrificing my body and health for my income

Oh, sitting in a chair in front a screen for hours on end does wonders for the body. It's still early, you'll appreciate it in ~10 years.

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

#76

Post by hodgesrm »

civilized wrote: post #34
lolinder wrote: post #23

This comment and its top reply are dead on: https://old.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/sm54ri/a... No job is going to get you away from unreasonable people with unreasonable expectations, and most trades introduce a bunch of other unpleasant things that you'd have to deal with. It's all tradeoffs. Someone may legitimately prefer the stresses of a trade to the stresses of working in software, and that's great…

Quoted post unavailable.

Hey! What's wrong with BMWs? We have two of them. Both diesels. The gas mileage is slightly below amazing. (Though my lawyer says you should always buy them used, never new. He's very good on life advice in general.)

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

#78

Post by Beltalowda »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #25

I'm a software engineer who does his own plumbing and his own electrical. Example projects: * rewire 1920's three story house with romex instead of knob & tube * install 6.6kW ground mount PV arrays and connect to grid * replumb two kitchens and three bathrooms * install water softener (all copper, dozens of required brazed joints) I love doing that stuff (carpentry and cabinet building too). But ... a couple of time…

I worked in a daycare for a while when I was young; I really liked being a scout leader and figured I might want to do something like this for a living. I didn't like it very much: turns out that a few hours on saturday is not quite the same thing as 8 hours every day.

I think in general "doing this for a hobby and fun" and "doing this for a living" are two entirely different things. Many people love to cook as a hobby, but being a chef in a restaurant is a completely different thing. Years ago I had a friend who loved to drive trucks as a hobby; I never understood the appeal myself, but he just loved the feeling of driving a truck. He left his teaching career to become a truck driver and in a matter of months ended up hating it (and he ended up going back to being a teacher).

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

#79

Post by soheil »

I think what this comment hints at is the tight coupling of money and working in tech. I think for most of us it all started as fun and curiosity. We were gravitated to computers not because of money, but because of passion. Then suddenly we realized there is immense amount of money to be made with our skills. Naturally we started benefiting from that by getting a job in tech. Then we became addicted to the money and since now we didn't learn any other skill than programming we didn't have a choice but to continue working in tech. What was once a passion now turned into shackles that we can't wait to get rid of. It's sad, ironic and extremely frustrating.

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

#80

Post by polishdude20 »

lawn wrote: post #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.

I was a teacher at a local tech institute for mechanical engineering. The social contact with the students and the variety of things I got to teach was really fun and rewarding. Unfortunately, the pay was bad and I couldn't see myself staying there for long and in such a high cost of living area.
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