I'm Signing Off 1

[BigCatMCS]

Hey everybody:

For the past five years I've been trying to get into programming - it's hard to do whenever you don't have experience and you try to get into the field just for the money and not for the passion.

Currently, I'm a supervisor in a mainframe operations shop in which I truly hate my job. I think that working weekends and holidays is part of the reason. I will continue to stay there until God Himself finds me another job.

I've come to the conclusion that IT is not for me and I'm going to be sliding more into Politics & History. The money is good at where I work, but I'll be studying the Civil War and creating a small web site about politics on my free time. For years I wanted to study more about the Civil War but instead I've studied VB, SQL, HTML, Javascript, ADO, databases, and the list goes on and on and all I got out of it was a stupid Cert in Crystal Reports. My desire is not programming or networking (hey, I studied that too), but something else. I'm tired of forcing myself to learn new things when I don't have that "fire" for it like I once did in the late '90s. For the past 5 - 7 years, I knew what I wanted to study, but neglected to do it, because I thought if I studied IT junk, I could get a high paying job. It didn't happen and I'm signing off.

I want to thank all of you for helping me w/ career and other questions I had. Again, I'm not quitting my job as Supervisor in mainframe operations, but during my free time, I won't be studying JAVA or Business Objects or whatever. That is not my passion.

I guess this is my "IT Suicide Note" for those who care to read this. Let this be a lesson for all of you out there. Follow your passion and talents that God has given you. Don't waste your time pursuing a career that pays great money but isn't your "cup of tea". You'll be unhappy...at least for the most part. Sure, there are smart people out there that are developers making the big bucks but their main strengths are something else - and they are OK w/ this. That's fine. But, I do see a lot of people in fields that they do not like and one of the main reasons they are there is because of the money.

Right now, I'm pretty much pigeon-holed. I made just under $70,000 last year - and let me tell you something, I can't find another job like that in mainframe operations. It's basically impossible. So I have to stay unless something else turns up, but in the mean time, I'll be writing articles and sending them to magazines (military mags) and creating a political web site.

Thanks again for your help in the past - I do appreciate it. I'm officially signing off of IT. God bless.

 

[cjjn]

Good for you for following your passion.

Best of luck!

 

[KenCunningham]

Good luck in following your dreams, hope it works out for you! As someone with an interest in the Civil War, I'd be interested to hear of any articles you manage to get published either in hard-copy or on the web. Anyone remember the old Civil War gum cards? (WARNING - some of these are rather gory!!):

http://www.tradercracks.com/gallery/non-sports/Civil_War_News/

 

[arnoldmram]

Hi BigCatMCS,

its very nice to see you take up something that you really love. I must appreciate you for that. Very few people actually follow their passion either for money or for the fear of "what somebody else will say?". Its truly heartning to see somebody follow their passion.

Good luck in your venture!

Arnold

 

[DTSMAN]

You are not alone. I put myself through school for a computer science degree building home additions and now want to do that again except work for myself. I got my contractors license and insurance, done a few small jobs, but am scared to death to jump in with both feet.
I too, wished that I was more programmer oriented, but I am more of a hardware tech who works with software other people have created. And as a hardware person I can not seem to find a job that pays over 40k a year. I like this forum, because it lets me be aware that I am not the only person who wants something different than he did 10 years ago.

Good luck to you.

 

[sha76]

Congrats on finding your passion, sometimes that can be the hardest part! When you're building contacts doing something you love they can be a lot more useful than those you've made from a sense of duty, maybe this will lead you to your new job.

"Your rock is eroding wrong." -Dogbert

 

[screwloose]

I have posted before on my own dilemma of getting out of IT – or staying in the field. It is great to see that others are pursuing their interests. My feeling of boredom has not receded, but it seems to grow daily. Having been in IT for 10 years and strictly a Unix admin for over 5 years has become a grind.

Money isn’t everything, yet, since I was on the downsized end and have taken a 20% pay cut, I would find it hard to accept another job that would incur a 50% pay cut that would come (most likely) with changing career fields. If I could find a job in another field that I enjoyed I could accept another 20% pay cut, and still be making pretty good money, but am unsure if that is possible.

I find no interest in management and the associated politics (I have a coworker that I have complained about here before, and I think I will get her kneepads for her birthday ). So I am certain that anything having to do with management is outside of my interests. Besides, life is too short to have to deal with the stresses of arguments and turf battles.

I have a master’s degree in education, but secondary teaching, I am afraid would be out of the question because of the restrictions and other problems. My aunt got out of teaching many, many years ago because the problems were increasing, and I can imagine now they are exponentially greater. Teaching in a college would be my ideal choice for employment, but without a terminal degree there isn’t much of an option. Even with a doctoral degree there is a lot of competition for the jobs available, yet I wonder when the baby-boomers begin retiring, if more positions would open, which I would expect. Working as a curriculum developer/course designer would be nice, but am unsure of the pay, but since it requires an advanced degree and education, it should be fairly well.

Anyway, just rambling on in my rut.