Last job killed my love of IT, management beat it out of me. Wonderful company, demotivated by my manager from the first week. Couldn’t be a nicer guy, smartest tech I’ve ever met, Peter Principled his was into management.
Never been paid that much, took about every Friday off on PTO, total WFH, can’t say what my benefits cost but it wasn’t $100/mo. in total. My last job was half the pay and benefits, was so much happier. I think of that every time I read a comment about why companies need to pay more to satisfy us. Everyone should have a look at this. Had ALL that at my penultimate job, NONE at the most recent.
I feel so weird, especially at this time of life with a solid resume, interviewing for PT work at Lowe’s. Thinking I’ll be happier than a pig in shit spending 4 hours a day, just walking around helping people, doing what ever bullshit I’m asked to do. Looking to see how it goes, see if there are ways to work myself up to FT, better schedule, supervisor, whatever.
Thought about “retiring” to work in a hardware store to keep busy and fit, but not for a decade+. Excepting my credit card bills, and what my wife sends home to the Philippines, she makes enough to cover everything. Won’t take much to take the edge off.
I love hardware and tools and plants, about everything they sell. Hoping to learn a lot as well. Helping people is really satisfying to me, and I’m excellent at handling customers. LOL, I’m best with the angry ones, sometimes get them apologizing. :)
Need a sanity check, am I losing it!? Been through the worst depression of my life the past few years, hoping this will break me back into a normal state of mind.
EDIT: Got the job! Holy shit, the assistant manager is just like me! Dropped out of tech to take a minimum wage job at Lowe’s 8 years ago, now he’s at $90K. We’ve even done much of the same work in the IT space. “I did DSL for Bellsouth when it was new!” “Yep, did my time as a cable internet guy.”
Seems to be a lot of space and opportunity to move up. I’m going to knock this out the fucking park!
BONUS: Clerk at the shady gas station overhead me telling my neighbor about quitting IT and getting hired today. Guy ask me what I did in IT, gave him a run down. “Yeah. I was a web dev for 20-years, couldn’t take staring at a screen any more.”
If you thought demotivating management was associated with high pay and white collar work, Lowe’s will disabuse you of that notion.
High Tech Low Life… Gas Station Clerk Freelancing as Web Dev with 20 yrs of experience.
You’re not crazy. If you’re making enough to live on and you’re happy, then I’m not sure what else a person could ask for.
For my part, I have a decent job in healthcare, making a good salary by any measure, but it’s emotionally strenuous on the best of days and I dream of quitting to go start a flower farm. The bad days are utterly soul-sucking, so I absolutely cannot do this kind of work for another 18 years (when I’ll turn 54 too), so I fully intend to do similarly to you once I am financially secure enough. Definitely not retail for me though; I got enough of that in my college days. 😛
Nah, not crazy. In my view anyway. In 2020 I left nursing in CA making close to $100k and paid zero for actually amazing insurance… to work part time at a bakery for roughly $23/hr in Norway. I was 39.
Sometimes we just have enough and we don’t need to keep chasing the dollars in favor of a simpler, cozier life.
Are you a citizen in Norway? Asking because that sounds nice
Not yet, but we can test (language and civics) in about 3 years which we plan to do. We are currently “temporary residents” and renew every two years. My husband has a work visa to work in tech here, and I’m here tied to that visa through family reunification. We will apply for “permanent” residency (not citizenship yet) later this year.
How did you move to Norway? Afaik you can’t just show up to stay permanently.
You’re right, it is actually quite uncommon for Americans to live here without special circumstances. My husband is in tech, and managed to get hired on here, and so we are here on his work visa. We can test for citizenship after 7 years residency and testing language and civics, which we plan to do in about 3 years. We know that we are very lucky.
Norway has much nicer benefits and lower cost if living than California
Cost of living isn’t off by too terribly much haha. Our 2bd 1ba apartment is about half the cost that our 3bd 2ba duplex in Bay Area was. But we make substantially less. Also a hamburger, for reference, is routinely about $20 without fries, like for a Five Guys kind of burger. So we don’t eat out nearly as much. Healthier that way anyway. Lots of trade offs but ultimately it is the best and safest place I’ve ever lived.
Man my local bicycle shop is looking for mechanics, and I’m like…could I afford that instead of my current desk job?
I’m qualified; I’m pretty good mechanically, except for wrapping bar tape. I’m slowly getting better at it, but I’m definitely not to the professional standard a bike shop would want. But I’m sure they’d make me practice that.
There’s only one way to find out
Wayyyy ahead of you pal. Got into tech when I was a wee little lad, my dad would bring home computers from the work dumpster, hand me a screw driver and let me go at it.
When I was 11 I built a computer with my dad, and continued learning about tech and computers. I worked after school in middle school to help out the librarian, who had the job of looking after the laptops and computer carts.
Went into highschool and got into a Comptia± honors class, as the only freshman and the only person to get As in that class.
Fresh after highschool and 6 months into a computer job, I quit at the age of 19. Instead I went to pursue woodworking.
I had a great boss, and I was great at my job, but I was in computer repair. A dying industry and I was getting paid minimum wage, despite a lot of skill (microsoldering, logic board rework, macbook repair, liquid damage repair, etc).
Skill and knowledge that I studied for a decade, and I was being paid minimum wage. There were probably better opportunities but I wasn’t interested anymore. The environment was just far too corporate, so I decided to start building my own business, woodworking, selling tools, and help teach.
Ive gone to tool events, tuned up a lot of tools, and given presentations and its 10x more fulfilling. Havent made a lot from the “business” but I’m happy.
IMAGINE SUCKING CORPO DICK THIS HARD
I’m a total loser, redefining my life to do what I want, taking a scary risk for a massive pay cut. Shoot me now.
Ha, imagine being a troll and having to read ‘Lowes’ as the takeaway to your post just to come up with something edgy.
When I’m at a screen I wanna work outside and when I’m working outside I desperately want to be back at my cushy screen time jobs.
83k?? I’ve been in IT for 2 years and I’m about making that much. Would more money help? Maybe job hop to a company that fits your vibe better?
More money just makes it harder to leave. It’s like testing your pain tolerance.
If you told people tomorrow that they could live without worrying about losing their place to live with a reasonable amount of food. Assuming they could buy the necessities of life with a few niceties… most people would stop caring about money and worrying so much.
What society is doing to people, turning them into monthly bill calculators is ridiculous and stress/fear inducing. These are imaginary bullshit systems we’re forcing people to become experts on.
A big chunk of it is to ensure that the top of ladder stays the top, so they distract distract distract.If I could survive comfortably and support my family while helping people fix and improve their living spaces at Lowe’s, that sounds like a wonderful way to live…
Find a place that doesn’t feel like torture with a management team who isn’t shitty. My first job in IT was for DXC, a massive MSP with 100k+ employees. I was applying for new jobs 3 months in because I saw it was unsustainable for me. Just before my 1 year I got an offer. I now work for a smaller ~250 person company with a management style that doesn’t make me anxious or stressed. I also do woodworking as a hobby and built myself a desk, coffee bar and bench. I firmly believe that the right job can let you have your cake and eat it too. It’s just a struggle and a job in itself to find the good cake in the first place.
I’m near my 40s, and have been working as software dev since finishing my masters. Few years back I started to go in the direction of more management less dev in a previous company. Saw it wasn’t for me and went to work somewhere else working as a simpler dev role. A few years after and I’m starting to feel the need to change further even. I do love coding but the whole layer of tech debt and management and meetings is wearing me out and has made me lose my love for tech. I am just lost as to what I’d do instead. Cannot work on retail with my autistic ass and since WFH was allowed and accepted I am not planning to go back to an office anyway. Maybe woodworker or something would be enjoyable for me, but there’s other constraints that won’t allow me to change right now, lots of bills to pay and my wife is an entrepreneur so we can’t really risk losing my stable position right now, with two small kids. Once they grow and get out of the house we’d likely move more country side, get some chicken to care for (we love animals) or something like that and maybe I can get space to do some wood work or whatever come to mind then.
So overall, no, you are not losing it, or maybe we are all losing it together. Same with depression, it’s such a tough shit to leave behind. I’m still fighting with it but doing better lately, the job doesn’t help at all…
Also a tech worker considering a major pivot. I have a fascination with electrical work so I’m wondering if taking on an apprenticeship might give me a chance to dip my toes in.
Not crazy at all, but just be forewarned that dealing with the public will make you long for the computer screen again!
When I worked at Lowe’s, dealing with the public was the only good part of the job.
This is my goal as well. Been in software for 27 years (holy shit) and want to retire by 55. Only open question for me is health insurance.
So glad to hear that you could qualify for a job in retail. I’m in tech and always a little worried that I wouldn’t get hired without any relevant experience in decades against younger workers who know what’s going on.
Its good to distress sometimes
Chewing your nails, pulling your hair, pacing; all great ways to distress
My uncle was a highly paid banker, and ran off to Australia to build his own farm. So it doesn’t seem weird to me.
However I’m a little surprised by your old wages. $83k in IT at 53 seems low, and before that you were even at $42k? I thought US American IT paid really well. Or is that specific to California only or to developers only?
I’m not that guy, but the term IT is extremely overloaded these days. People can say they are in IT working anything from a $20/hr help desk job to a $900k/yr AI engineer in big tech.
Industry, company, location can all have massive effects on salary.