Has any one found their true vocation / career??

Folks,

I feel like im in a pit of a pickle!!!

Im mid 30’s and have no idea what i want to be doing… i found IT by accident after Uni and have enjoyed so far a good career and its been quite profitable. I posted earlier this week about an interview attended that i thought was hot air.

Since then, i’ve realised that the world of IT doesnt do it for me anymore and i have no idea what would now i stop think about it!!! Love the idea of being out in the fresh air, love riding, skiing, fitness etc

The thought of being in my 40’s and dealing with all the corporate sh*t and the jokers you find in middle management fills me with dread!

I’m sure i’m not the first to feel like this. Has anyone any ideas or any stories of how they’ve done stuff on their own, ditched teh ‘rat race’ etc etc?!?!

Mucho thanks!!

Yep!

I’m a Playboy 🙂

…..so you’re still stuck in IT too then?!? 😉

I know a guy who gave up a 40k/yr job to go and do a thatching apprenticeship.

he lasted three weeks.

I am the same but replace “IT” with “engineering”

So dull it is unbelievable, I would much rather me outside chopping logs or in the gym or running my own business, but in what I have now frickin idea!

How do people decide what they actually want to do once they know that what they are doing isnt it?

Haha brilliant! A good story if slightly reckless! 🙂

You could opt for the carefree option of starting out on your own and avoid all those problems! 😀

organic355 – Member

I am the same but replace “IT” with “engineering”

So dull it is unbelievable, I would much rather me outside chopping logs or in the gym or running my own business, but in what I have now frickin idea!

How do people decide what they actually want to do once they know that what they are doing isnt it?

You are me?

Organic, i consider myself to be reasonably bright, but trying to fathom that question out feels like im banging my head on a wall….

I am the same but replace “IT” with “engineering”

I am the same, but replace “IT” and “engineering” with business copywriting and investor relations. 😯

How it ever came to this I’ll never know.

In my mid 30s too sort of work in it or engineering. Quit the pseudo public sector retirement home of an industry and moved to Oz. I now work about 2.5 days a week and the missus covers the rent. Travel and see the sights just heading back home from auckland Brisbane on Sunday. I really like the training courses I teach and I think in 18months I have achieved more than I did I 7 years in my previous job.

The thought of being in my 40’s and dealing with all the corporate sh*t and the jokers you find in middle management fills me with dread

Great

! Love the idea of being out in the fresh air, love riding, skiing, fitness etc

I’m guessing you have never worked outdoors then. Growing up on a farm taught me that a job inside can be very good.

Hey, I’m in exactly the same situation.
my current contract is ending on the 25th Oct and I have no idea what to do.
I don’t like what I do, but I can do it well and it pays well enough to make it worthwhile.

I have no direction and would be more than happy to retrain but I don’t know as what.
In the back of my head I don’t know if this is just ‘me’ and I’d dislike any job, or just the ones I’ve already had.

I suppose I must have. – Geotechnical Engineering. Good mix of inside and outside. Generally deal with other professionals who are sound. Salary OK.

@Ferris-Beuller
feel the same , esp. about IT and management. Personally as soon as the mortgage is done, i’ll be part-time stacking in Sainsburys and the rest of the week MTB/road riding/skiing etc etc

but then i worry about mt (lack of) pension….

No
Next question

Ooooh boy.

I started feeling something wasn’t right with the world in 99, left my long term (IT) job, started afresh in another (Phone) company. That didn’t work out so after a year I left there for another phone company, that didn’t work out so after a year I left there for a management consultancy, that didn’t work out so I decided that the whole corporate thing was a problem and left there to retrain as a garden designer and worked for myself for a while. Then I nearly died and my world fell apart.

That was when I finally got some help to address what was really wrong and you know what, it was nothing to do with the corporate world. It’s all to do with me and how my mind works. I couldn’t have been happy no matter what I did. I’m still sorting that out but the garden design business died with the economy and now I can’t even get an interview, let alone a job.

So my advice is to take some time and look at what’s really making you feel the way you are. If it’s the career then go ahead and change, but if it’s something else then try changing that first.

I’m sure i’m not the first to feel like this

In IT?!?! 99% of IT people I reckon!

Redundancy looming and how to get motivated to apply for a new IT job? I think I’d rather spend the rest of my days on a park bench with meths in a paper bag.

Yes.

I really enjoy my “paid work”. I was lucky to be introduced to some ideas and skills by an Australian in the mid 90s and have made a living on the back of them since.

The biggest step was going freelance 8 years ago.

My brother (IT) is finally (after a lot of abuse and kicking from me) looking like he too will be going freelance soon (on the back of an existing corporate client) and I really hope he takes the opportunity to re-balance his life properly.

My ability to control my work/life balance means I get the time to play with a landy, chop wood, go on plumbing courses, build stuff, spend time with Mrs Stoner and of course look after the kids outside of the school day, unlike my dad who I hardly saw until gone 8pm each night.

But then other days, like today and yesterday, Im sitting in front of the computer threashing out some work, hitting problems, finding solutions, but getting a bit annoyed as there’s a new part to fit to the landrover in the kitchen and I dont have time to go out to he workshop to do it.

My new air rifle has just arrive din the gunshop too, so I am going to drive into town later to pick it up. But not until I finish this piece of work. So I really ought to shut the STW page down and crack on… 🙁

Your not the only one. I believe very few people do things they love, most just do it for the money!
I know people who have taken different paths, it’s a lot of hard work, but it can be rewarding.
My brother is setting up a ski chalet and will do summer Mtb. At the worst, it will be “at least he tried”. At best he gets away from the daily grind. I doubt it will make him rich. He’s had to save a lot and work hard to get it started.
Others I know work abroad for high pay, lots of time off and early retirement. Lots of hard work though and away from home.

I work in a job I hate, that I got into by accident, shit wages, but I work 9-5 (I refuse to do overtime), it’s a safeish job in turbulent times. Best of all I can afford to bike and hang with my friends and family (the important things in life). But I don’t like where the job is going.;
Unfortunately I’m being pushed into management. Management people are in general cocks, I hate all the stupid meetings. I hate the contractors I have to deal with.
Need a way out of management that’s all.

My brother is setting up a ski chalet and will do summer Mtb. At the worst, it will be “at least he tried”. At best he gets away from the daily grind.

This is my route for the next couple of years. Have thought about it for years. Finally time to take the plunge. (I’ve got everything crossed)

Oh yeah forgot to mention I’m an independant consultant, so like stoner have a lot ability to manage my time. – I think this is very important to maintaining sanity. The downside being, I’m very rarely completely on holiday.

The thought of being in my 40’s and dealing with all the corporate sh*t and the jokers you find in middle management fills me with dread!

Kinda similar story to you – I had a proper graduate career path, left Uni for a well-paid IT job, then one day about 6 months in I looked around the office. A big open-plan office full of tubby, balding men who think postcode databases are the most exciting thing in the world, and realised that I couldn’t live my life that way, So I quit to start a bike shop.

The problem I had was the big jolt between being independent and showing initiative and creative thinking in Uni, and being a small cog in a corporate machine. Now, after 15 years of working for myself, I’m pretty much unemployable anyway, so looks like this is it for me. Which I’m more than happy with.

Love my job, manage a YHA in the lakes and whilst it has it’s ups and downs (I should be cleaning showers not typing this) it’s still something i enjoy doing and want to develop in after 14 years.
Got into YHA whilst i was thinking about going into instructing but discovered that you get way more time to play in the hills if you are free in the afternoons and don’t knacker yourself out leading the same walks and abseils all the time.

Since then, i’ve realised that the world of IT doesnt do it for me anymore and i have no idea what would now i stop think about it!!! Love the idea of being out in the fresh air, love riding, skiing, fitness etc

The thought of being in my 40’s and dealing with all the corporate sh*t and the jokers you find in middle management fills me with dread!

So go work for a small startup type company and there won’t be any middle management. Or start freelance consulting. There’s also a reasonable amount of variety in IT, albeit nearly all office-based and using computers – obviously.

Is IT my dream job? It’s not far off, I’d rather be doing more technical stuff than I am at the moment, and the risk of being driven into management is always there, but given a good client or project the job’s creative, intellectually satisfying, and reasonably well paid.

Sure, I sometimes wish I had an outdoors job, but then you realise it’s been raining everyday for the past week, and the appeal starts to fade…

I know of a guy who got sacked from a well known theme park. Needless to say, he sued for funfair dismissal….

I think he won the case.

Basically work is shit;if you enjoyed it they would not need to pay you

I was made redundant a month or two ago and have been enjoying being unemployed. Unfortunately it does not pay well but on the up side doing sod all is great.

Junky’s kind of right… but I know folk who genuinely love their jobs.

My brother, for example. He’s a chemistry lecturer at the Uni of Liverpool, with loads of research papers in progress and several free trips around the world each year… Loves it.

My Dad was a senior manager at a clay company… and (before he retired) lived for his work.

I am the failure of the family. 🙂 😯 😳 🙁 😥

Grass is always greener. I think especially office folks tend to think their real calling is working outside, getting all romantic about the idea, tending the land, chopping the wood, stroking the cattle or whatever.
Some of them make a move into that sort of thing and then find out it’s freezing, backbreaking, the cows poo on you, wages suck etc.

I wouldn’t like to work in an office but I studied hard to do what I do, same time as a lot of office-based roles and so it kind of annoys me that there is such wage disparity between a lot of office roles (IT) and skilled manual work.

I trained in cabinetmaking. It has good points and bad points same as anything. I’ll never earn decent very wages but I suppose what I do is tangible. I teach it now so the rewards are more evident.

How I would love to be kayak23 right now…

Just this year I’ve discovered how much I like working with wood – and I’m actually pretty good at the basic stuff. Making a cabinet sounds awesome compared to writing about crap natural resources companies…

Basically work is shit;if you enjoyed it they would not need to pay you

Oh man, you sound like you need a hug.

A very good friend of mine (kind of like my godfather) is a cabinet maker. Very talented.
Burglars turned his workshop over last week, took every tool they could lift. He has no savings or insurance (uninsureable premises or somethign). He has no family so my family has been helping fund replacing all the tools. It will take him a long time to get back to where he was.

Stoner, that’s crap. Poor guy. 🙁

I’m guessing you have never worked outdoors then. Growing up on a farm taught me that a job inside can be very good.

Best reply ever 😆 😆

Oh man, you sound like you need a hug.

Not really but thanks for the offer
How many would keep working if they did not need the money?

Your going to be a busy fella giving them all a hug 😉

How many would keep working if they did not need the money?

I reckon most people would continue to do some form of work if they became mega wealthy. If I suddenly didn’t need to work I wouldn’t spend all my time shuffling about in my slippers, I would look after my kids, write some open source software, help out in the village a bit more, look after my grandparents more often, probably get dragged into some mad cap scheme and find myself working like a slave again. All of those things are ‘work’ to someone.

similar thought shere though in my early forties, made all the more real by my Dad dieing in April whhih has really made me think..

He worked from 15 – 85 and loved every minute (a sailor and latterly a captain of a big yacht thing) retired when the yacht was sold and died a year or so later!

At his funeral there were many amazing stories and none of them started “one day in the office…”

Would really like to do something I love, maybe in bikes or something, that would let me spend more time with my family and have a bit more flexibility..

Run a little cycling event company with a mate but never going anywhee that would make it financially viable,also have a bit of a windfall from my dad which means my mortgage could be paid off very soon…

I just hate sitting in an office at a company that is going nowhere…

what to do….and would i have the balls???

Not staying in bed for the rest of your life is not necessarily working

I am sure i would do something to but it would be something i wanted to do not something i had to do to get money – Big difference

in answer to the original question

no

I don’t know what my ideal job would be, probably something creative that had a good sense of achievement

or driving a car around a track all day

got bored of engineering after 20yrs – tried a few things and ended up where i am now (dealing with scrotes and whinging people) – have worked outside most of my career and love it, I tried an office job once, I lasted 3 weeks.
I’m now at a crossroads in my mid 40’s, off work with stress (not the job, the f*-&*” management) and now working on my exit strategy – I am desperate to work for myself and do something that I enjoy so have a few plans that are gradually coming together. The most desirable one will be a gamble despite all the reasearch but I’m 100% sure that It’ll work out – won’t know till I try.