JCC So I want to leave my industry.

I work on cars as a mechanic. I can do the job but the better at it I got I realized why I stayed in the business was because I loved to solve problems and diagnose. Not actually fix cars. I can do it but it doesn't do anything for me. I am more interested in solving problems. I realize I can look at situations and come up with ideas for stuff that hasn't been seen before. I seen the future of technology and how its used five years before. When we first started getting rear parking sensors in our vehicles I saw blind spot monitoring almost immediately. five years later we got the same thing in the new model. The designs were exactly as I saw. I love to solve problems. I love to read and learn new things. In turn I use that information to invent new ideas and new ways of doing things. I have shared a few ideas with some people here. I don't care where I have to move to or how long. I just to have an outlet for my ideas and such without being made fun of because of my appearance or lack of phd. I don't see the world the way normal people do. I see it differently. Any idea where I could go that would give me happiness.

Anyone here want to leave their industry for something better? Have you done it. How is it working out?

 

Retitle thread to: Man-opause.

 

My neighbor was a car mechanic for a fairly long time until he got laid off two years ago. After months of unemployment, he took two other mechanic jobs but was still making less than his original job (his new job was at a dealership and then moonlighting for a repair place). He eventually landed a job as a mechanic for our county, where he worked on fixing up the county's firetrucks. He started talking with the firemen, found out how much money they make, and decided to go back to school to become a fireman.

As for myself, I've been working in the restaurant industry since I was a freshman in college. I went to school for Marketing and Business and was able to get jobs in my studied field, but entry level pay just wasn't enough to afford my bills once I moved out of my parents place and into my own apartment. So I stuck with the restaurant industry (an industry which I was quickly starting to loathe) as I was making twice as much working there than in my field.

At some point, I got offered MIT (manager-in-training) positions at two different places but I was simultaneously being transferred/promoted in the restaurant industry and my income skyrocketed to a point where me leaving the industry for either of those management positions would have been financially silly.

So in the end, money kept me in my current industry despite my previous longing to leave it. But my transfer/promotion also took away some of my hatred for doing it.


EDIT:

Btw, while this decision essentially put my MBA to waste, I now only need to work three days a week and am making more money than I was when working 6-7 days a week over the past two years. I suppose, in my case, paying my dues in my industry actually paid off quite nicely, as I'm now home with my children for most of the week....which, admittedly, is sometimes kind of like another type of job industry all together

 

You might take a look at this article on Monster.Com.

 

You need to go back to school for anything nowadays involving technology, Beez. It's great that you have ambition and are good at those things but you need proper training like any other gifted butterfly.

 

What she said. It would be nice if you could just decide to make a career change and immediately transition into a new career. It doesn't work like that, though. You're going to have to go to school. You can do this while you work your present job... just cut your hours, or something. It can be done, but it's going to have to be a long-term plan, and you're going to have to work for it.

 

What are you thinking of doing besides being a mechanic Beez?

 

slightly_unhinged hai!

 

oh hai

 

What was your previous username SU?

 

I've had a few. Michaelangelo did his best work with carrera marble; the medium of my art is the unban request.

 

I changed from diplomacy and policy/capacity building to investment banking. However, I did a Cert IV level diploma in markets and had project management experience to assist.

Now I do risk and compliance, and can say "no" to things. It's marvellous.

 

ah saying "no" to things or people is amazing

 

Good call.

 

Ender Sai but you still cant say "no" to me

 

I built a good network of contacts in SE Asia though... when I transited through BKK on the way home from Rome last year one of them was running the airport immigration team and we caught up over coffee.

Must've been doing something right

 

I work as an assistant research and design physicist for a company that makes optical detectors. It's not what I want to be doing. I like AMO as much as the next guy but it's not my favorite. I'd much rather be working at a particle accelerator.

 

You just want an Outlook signature that misspells Hadron Colllider.

 

My outlook signature won't reflect what you and rogue do at night.

 

You will notice that I left the word "large" out; therefore, it was a given your signature couldn't replicate it.

 

What's happened to this place? The innuendo's gone all high brow

 

"Direct marketing? I thought of that. It turned out it already existed, but I arrived at it independently."

Seriously, do not leave your job because you think you are a car innovation genius based on your ability to say, "Wow, now that they can do that, they should invent a blind spot sensor!" Becoming an engineer or "inventor" or whatever is not as easy as telling the internet that you're good at figuring out that technology will lead to more technology, and at diagnosing faults in power window circuits. Quitting your job and going into debt to go to school so you can realize your special snowflake destiny as an innovator is about as bad an idea as asking a Star Wars messageboard how you can get a job being a special snowflake innovator, or trying to get a girlfriend by living with a lesbian.

 

I've been working in the same cinema job nearly eight years, it doesn't pay well and the hours aren't great but I do get to see movies for free which I guess does offset the average pay. The people are great and I am good at service and promoting the place, but it's still basic repetitive retail and I tire of it and what always starting late and finishing after midnight (and working every weekend) does to my social life.

Problem is, getting work in my degree field (Biodiversity & Conservation Science) is hard since work is often short-term. I graduated nearly 5 years ago and am yet to find full-time work in the field, I suppose I really should start looking to go abroad.

 

> but I do get to see movies for free which I guess does offset the average pay

By what metric does that even out?