Career advice, opinions, and castigations.

I might have hinted at this elsewhere. I'm mid-career, and I want to do something new. I NEED to do something new. I've always been a jack of all trades, do anything kind of person, and I feel like that I should really be plying this towards my own entrepreneurship. But right now, I'm feeling kind of... stuck. I could use advice from all walks of life.

Here is where I'm at now.

• I work in a lab. Geology degreed, lots of analytical and instrumental chemistry under my belt.
  
• It's a well paying, very cushy salary job. Like, low six figures and I'm barely working 40 hours.
  
• Its also a very specialized position. Too specialized, thanks to the degree/task mismatch. Maybe once every few years there's a job somewhere in the country that matches both my qualifications and desired pay.
  
• I'm extremely unhappy. There's some interpersonal stuff, but also, I've hit my ceiling and I don't see the next steps for growth. I don't see myself being here for another month.

Here is what I want.

• The next career needs to have a much wider demand. Something where a skilled person could drop into any town and find work.
• Here's the ugly part. Retraining for the new career can't produce an extended drop in income. I can take a bit of a drop, but I still have a mortgage.
  
• Ideally, I want this to be something that I can use as a launchpad to go into business for myself.

Here is what I thought of

• Field geologist -
  • No. Sure on paper it pays well and its something I could do in my sleep, but not when you consider that you are spending 20 days on/1 week off on a stinky ass well with 20 other unwashed dudes, and the long term prospects are slim and hard fought for. Once you start calculating dollars per hour on the job, its pretty sad.
• Truck Driver
  • Seems easy to get into. I do like driving. It will probably require a year or two of OTR driving and being poor, but with experience there are business opportunities there, and maybe even opportunity to earn income AND be at home every night?
• Trades
  • Not easy to sustain income during apprenticeship. I'm middle aged and not sure how much attic crawling I want to be doing. But I'm mechanical as hell, and love splitting my knuckles over tools.
• Home repair/install
  • There is potential there, like say in garage door install. Income requires pushing sales on people that could have gotten away with a simple repair.
• radiology tech
  
  • Probably will need a two year retrain. Can't afford that. Also, I wouldn't be happy watching people excrete on my machinery.

What have you gone into? Are you happy? What other places should I be considering?

 

Mid life career changes suck. I'm in IT management and have seen a parade of guys leaving the trades because they just can't do it anymore. Their stories sound just like yours. Unless you live someplace expensive 6 figures isn't a reasonable expectation starting out. But IT is definitely a place where there is always work and you can go pretty much everywhere and find a job. (My first degree is like yours with limited employer options. I soon discovered that I hated my employer and had zero options to go anywhere else. I vowed my next career would never leave me caught like that again.) Getting into IT isn't hard, I hire guys all the time with just an A+ cert. The ambitious ones keep getting certs while working for me and are gone to better pay in 12 to 18 months. IT isn't so much a physical job, much more mental. And the rate of change isn't for some people, but it's done ok for me.

 

I had a forced mid-life career change. Back in Oct 2019, after 25 years with a fortune 500 company, I received the "Your position is being eliminated" letter. I had just turned 50. My background had been Project Management, Business Analysis, IT software testing and IT relationship management (working with IT vendors, suppliers, etc).

I immediately knew I was done with corporate, that was a fact. I was fortunate enough to have received 6 months severance pay. My plan was to simply take 6 months off to just decompress. Then the Big C hit and 6 months turned into nearly a year.

I was also fortunate enough to have already paid my house off, no wife or kids and a comfortable retirement portfolio, including a full pension. I really just needed to make it to 59 1/2.

I had been doing carpentry and odd jobs for friends and family my entire adult life. My neighbor is a professional painter with a sizeable customer base and hooked me up with my first few jobs. We both now refer work to one another. I've established a nice customer base as well. I don't advertise or have social media. I want as low maintenance as possible. I probably make 1/2 of what I made, but I'm totally OK with that as I probably don't even work full time and I'm as busy as I want to be. I control the shots. There's an indescribable freedom associated with it.

It can be stressful, but at least I'm in complete control of that stress, versus that big corporate stress bubble that we have no control over.

Hope this helps some.

 

Thanks. This does help. I have a bonus check coming up that will knock out some things, but even then I am calculating a between 40-50k operating cost of my house., which means it needs a pre-tax minimum of about 70, between two people.

Its not the worst spot to be in. But it means both of us will have to change careers.

 

You know me, I welcome all smart-assery.

Serious answer is that I found myself in an unexpected bad spot and don't have time to dip my toe into the side business. This is a full on oh shit, change is a comin' that I am mainly doing for my own sanity.

I really enjoy many of the projects I have done. They were all funky, off the wall business development or process troubleshooting projects, almost all of which are under my NDA. Lets just say that the shot you are drinking, one of my more recent method developments had a hand in. Geology is a difficult degree if one doesn't have a master's. I would enjoy transitioning to a real geo role, but the various disciplines are highly specialized and they only take in fresh (re: willing to be underpaid) grads.

Really though, I like tinkering. I'm a tinkerer. I like troubleshooting, I like fixing things, I like figuring things out. Much of my lab experience is because I sat down in front of an analytical instrument, thumbed through the manual and a textbook or two, turned the machine on, and taught myself how to generate good data out of it. I'm currently having a hard think on how to translate that skill to my resume, because that's what I'm good at.

 

I started oil/gas, am currently in the mining sector.

I'll take a good look at power generation. Thanks.

 

Power gen

Energy Control (power company lingo for grid operation in some cases)

Power meters. Either at utility or vendor.

Meterman building meter configurations for large applications.

Just a few nuggets from one industry I spent many years in. The industry will morph, but never disappear in our lifetimes.

Don't work for an EV developer. The future is very niche there.

 

That sounds a lot like IT. "My -fill in the blank- isn't working, I don't know how to make it work, Is brand new tech and nobody know how to work it, please help." Or my favorite (really) "Vendors A, B, and C say the problem is caused by the other guy, please figure it out and get it working again." When I was a coder I thought about the project as a bunch of gears and levers. And, when I was the network guy there was a fair bit of physical labor pulling cables.

As for translating your experience into something on your resume, that paragraph above is a very good start. It's not "traditional resume" but at the start of my IT career I got one of my best gigs because I wasn't a traditional IT guy.

 

Any geotech/geohazards experience? I'm about 15 years in on that career path (without a masters), and I feel it's been pretty good to me so far. If you don't have one already (I'm presuming you don't because you mentioned being in mining), a PG goes a long way.

 

Honestly I'd love to get into geotech. How does it work in your state? (I know that CA is one of the few that is not reciprocal with other states on public licensure, probably for good reason).

I'm my state one has to be a GIT and mentored under a PG for a number of years before sitting the exam.

 

When you mentioned truck driver but wanting to be home, I immediately thought Walmart, which was mentioned. I have no idea how easy or difficult it is to get on as a driver, though. They are pretty proud of their safety record.

Other thoughts based on your background were government environmental agencies, utilities, and energy as already mentioned. Government isn't likely to get you 6 figures, though. Being able to drop into any town and find work is a tough one. People always need food, shelter, utilities, and healthcare. And any services that are related to these.

I don't have any knowledge in these sectors. But, I understand where you are at mentally. I am in tech and get frustrated daily and would love to do something different after 25 years -- but I have a couple of daughters still on the launch pad, not enough retirement saved up, and some golden handcuffs making it difficult to make a change. I have come to accept the fact that I am trapped for a bit longer and just need to grind through another 8-10 years max, hopefully only 6. At that point I can go do whatever and not worry too much about pay. I just don't know if I can last that long . . .

 

You can take the FG (GIT) and PG pretty much whenever, but I don't think you can take the CSE (California Specific Exam) until you've got your experience quals (5 years for BS, 3 years for MS). Experience doesn't have to be in-state, but does need to be signed off by a PG and/or PE. I want to say you need two of them? Maybe three? If you get your PG elsewhere, I believe that you can use that to bypass the other recs, and just have to take the CSE exam? Info should be on the CA BPELSG website somewhere.

 

So I’m a careered graphic designer for 14+ years and accidentally fell into operations. I’m an operations and quality manager for a niche business, but it’s been so rewarding and I’m still in the early career stage. Each day is never the same and I get to make my own projects and make company building decisions.

Maybe look into Operation Management?

 

There is a legit teacher shortage (not that you want to go into that field) ... but a lot of programs for career switchers.

 

Shit, I forgot this thread existed. My life has been crazy this previous month.

I found work as a chemist at a cement plant. It's still a lab job, but it's a way different kind of lab. It's dirty and let's just say it's far removed from the corporate way of thinking, but the people seem to be down to earth and there's a lot of opportunity to move up on the production side of things.

And that's exactly what I want.

What I didn't want is the 40 mile commute.


It's all good. Thanks anyway for the well thought out advice and encouragement. It's much appreciated.

 

@Rock Lobster how's the new gig? Is that Miata the new commuter or had it all along? Did you take a pay cut or lateral there?