Now 1.15. That makes the working day about 17 hours so far. More of the same tomorrow. Really must get finished and go home. Got to be up in 5 and a half hours…

Double 😥

Ive just been made redundant after 25 years in my job and most of the time feel pretty scared about what’s not available out there, got a bit of btreathing space though as i am walking away with a decent pay off.

The scary thing is that most jobs out there in my line of work do not pay anywhere near what I have been earning and still got a big mortgage and kids etc…

I am looking at changing direction too but it seems the job market is decreasing by the day.

I jacked in my 9-5 job in November due to other personal things going on and am now set up in France gardening.
Completely different but still here and getting by and it’s very rewarding personally. Pay completely different to that monthly pay cheque I slogged away each month for but here they seem to value what’s important.

oh and they think the Brits are 1) rich and 2) mad. Maybe not so much 1) now.

They’re right. Maybe we could set up a dilbertesque empire for all us disattisfied IT peeps, chuck in some spy cams, and sell it to the tv networks?

In fact maybe this is already happening – we’re probably on French prime time tv?

rich_tee. Sounds ace. Where do I sign up.

I sacked off a well paid job as a lawyer 4 years ago after 10 years of having to work with and be answerable to… basically… w@nkers and thinking i was getting an early finish if i got away before 8pm.

After that travelled a bit, worked in a bike shop and am now a firefighter. Best thing i could have done. Money is ok and its a recession proof job that fits round family life pretty well with shift patterns.

I think too many people feel the need to have a well paid job, above and beyond what they actually need to get by comfortably – fine, but you can lose that well paid job at any time as recent job losses have shown.

I now work on a busy station so get all sorts varied jobs and get out and about meeting people. Also met the soundest mates through work and look forward to work. Never had that in law.

I was going apply to the fire service years ago, but found you need to have 20-20 vision. Still the case? (just out of interest, like)

Sticking with IT for the next 5 years then plan to take a gap year with the mrs and travel around the world in our early 50’s. Hopefully I can negotiate a sabatical so I can choose whether I want to go back to IT or do something else. Kids will be off the payroll by then so I don’t want to leave it until I retire in case I don’t make it that far.

I do what I want to do now. Not doing software development as my main job any more, am now a researcher in a computer science department, looking at ways of using computers in performance, games, art and fun stuff like that.

On the plus side
– I get to do really fun stuff.
– My bosses are not idiots.
– I don’t have to live in London.
– I get to go to exciting places
– I’m quite flexible with hours, holidays etc.

On the down side
– I work harder. At the moment I’m finishing my PhD, so I’m working long hours. Before I started here, I’d always worked strictly paid hours only – in at 10, home at 6.
– I don’t always take enough holiday.
– I have to live outside London.
– After 3 years doing a PhD, I’m now looking at the potential to be paid over £10,000 a year less than I was previously.

I’ve also previously worked in computer programming in companies in London, which was fun too. For me IT outside London (in Nottingham) was what really sucked, all the interesting and fun work, where you get to work with clever people who are really into their work seems to be in London. Nottingham was full of bored, cynical career people who were just in it to pay their mortgages, who every so often got so completely fed up with a job that they quit and moved on to one of the other 2 big employers in the town (only to inevitably come back after a few years when they got fed up at the other ones).

Joe

DezB – no, not the case at all. Since DDA your sight does have to come within certain limits which would be tested at the medical but it doesnt have to be perfect. Most brigade websites have details of the requirements which you can print off and take to the optician to be checked against. We have guys at our station who wear glasses and i have heard of firefighters who have had their breathing apparatus facemasks adapted for glasses.

Ditched my secure, nicely paid easy job in Sept 07. I was a project manager at Vodafone and had been with the company for 8 years. Although well paid, I was skint anyway, commuting 110 miles a day and although I worked with great people in a beautiful office and a great restaurant/canteen on site I was sick of it and spent a lot of my time on this forum as a result.

Sitting at my desk one day and looked at my to do list for the day. Although it involved some new projects I realised that every day it was exactly the same nonsense I had to deal with and no matter how good something was – be it 3/10 or 10/10 quality wise, the reaction/enthusiasm of my boss was fixed at 4/10. A thankless task.

So deep in debt, with a wife and 2 kids to support I decided to quit and join the fire service. Madness.

However nearly 17 months later, and with a second job of painting/decorating/home improvement working for myself I have never been happier. The money works out the same, I see more of my kids, I am flexible as to when I have to work and the 110 mile motorway commute has been replaced with an 18 mile round trip along the Thames by bike.

I enjoy my work for the first time since I left Uni in ’93 and managed bike shops for 4 years. I love going to work – I actually look forward to it.

I must be honest though – I did question my sanity at the time, but purely because of the financial pressure it would put me under, and with the economic situation of the last few months, it has been hard at times, but thank God I made that decision.

You need to keep some key things in perspective from my experience.

1. Don’t stay where you are because of the people you work with, no matter how well you get on. You need to put this to one side. Friendships will last if they are as good as you think.

2. It’s only money! . . . and I don’t mean to sound flippant about this, but I was in the $hit big time when I left with debts mounting, but like most things in life there is usually a way through it. It takes a lot of planning and self discipline, but it is achievable. I was approx £30k in debt at the time and my job change equated to a £17k per year pay cut! Amazingly I am better off now.

3. Think how it will mentally change you and the effect this could have on those close to you – wife, kids etc. Talk it through in detail with those concerned and look at the worst case scenario. If you think it’s still do-able, then go for it.

4. Write a list – pros and cons. Ignoring money – write down what you like about your current job and what you might miss if you left.

5. Think longer term. You current job may have changed to the point that you hate it now as it bears little resemblance to the one you started. This could always be the case again with your new chosen career.

All I know is that I am a different person today than I was little over a year ago. I felt lost with little ambition in life and was in a position where I felt I was unable to do anything for fear of finacial meltdown. My thinking at the time was that I just had to do something. Something in my life had to change.

I used to sit at a comfy desk surrounded by lovely looking women, with fresh coffee and croissants on tap, and got to stay in some lovely hotels and was paid nicely in return.

Yesterday at work it was 6am,and I’d had about 3 hours sleep. It was -5 degrees and I was standing in a ditch up to my knees in freezing water cutting somebody out of a car with horrendous facial injuries. I was there for about 2 hours in total. We got her out and off to hospital.

Think I made the right choice.

Soup – we both sound like a recruitment leaflet for the Fire Service!!

You could be right! Bloody love my job.

sacked off a well paid job as a lawyer 4 years ago after 10 years of having to work with and be answerable to… basically… w@nkers and thinking i was getting an early finish if i got away before 8pm.

So there is a life beyond chargeable hours!

Smee – I know, its mrs_oab that needs the reassurance…

CaptainMainwaring – drop me an email, it may be that Kenmore or Aberfeldy are more appropriate / may actually have some houses to rent at the moment…
I am assuming that the riding is rather good….The commute to work is either 12.5k and 300m on road, or 10.5k and 400m off road.. 🙂

We used to live in/near Kirkcudbright, so have an idea what to expect….ended up in Sheffield so that mrs_oab could do a teacher training course for a year, 10 years later we are still here 😕

matt_outandabout AT hotmail.com

Been seriously considering dumping the cosy, secure, financially rewarding, but ultimately soul destroying IT world. Something to do with turning 45 and not seeing how I’ll be able to survive this crap for another 20 years! How serious I’ll turn out to be, is maybe another matter

/start honest and no offence intended mode/

How serious you are about changing is the point – everything else is just talk.

My meaning of “serious” is “committed”. Change tends to involve some uncomfortable situations, many by virtue of the newness of everything and lots unsubstantiated fear sloshing about. Being serious means not scurrying back to the familiar at the first sign of a little additional effort being required.

The payback is in the long term – looking back knowing that what you’re now doing actually means so much more.

TM

p.s. Soup – great post!

Spot on, TM.

Dez

Spot on, TM.

Thanks – I work as a Coach, helping people sort out what they want and how to get it. Work mostly in the corporate sector but happy to have a chat (for free!) if that’d help AND you’re serious. Email in profile.

TM

Can you use your IT skills to do something for yourself?

Can you relocate, but working for someone else in a nicer environment?

Could you live without the money?

IT moves swiftly so a few years break will close the doors if you decided to return to it. The competition out there is stiff!

I reckon a cosy job in IT sounds very appealing in the current economic climate, especially to those who have been out of work for sometime.

The saying “the grass is always greener” is not all it’s cracked up to be.

Don’t make the mistake I did and think something will come up. Look for a viable alternative and make a plan. It could take 5 years to make the transition.

Don’t make any hasty moves or you may regret it big time!