Change in career? What would you do?

[bonesxl1100]

I live in Allentown,PA. I know that Lucent/Agere shipping out the jobs really messed up our area. Felt like Bethlehem Steel closing all over again.
Luckily I have a pretty good gig going as a Firefighter-Paramedic. People keep doing stupid shit = job security for me.

Yeah most of my work is in the abe area.

[Guest]

It seems to me that the best option for you is to master a profession that can be learned quickly.

[Guest]

For example, when I lost my main job as a mechanic, I rented a small room in my village and sold things there that I bought at slightly lower prices.

[confab]

I have given serious, SERIOUS, thought to just selling everything I own and becoming an over the road truck driver.

All my stress comes from the the things I have. I could literally put a minor fortune in the bank and own nothing.. And just drive away without a stress or a care in the world.

My elderly father prevents further action on this. And I'm not sure I want to do it anyway.

The finality of it both frightens and excites me.

[Hoghead]

The UK is desperately short of Truck drivers, but it's too small a country to make trucking romantic. There's nowhere to stop and unwind either. Truckers here sleep in their cabs on lonely roadsides, piss in bottles and wash in the morning with packs of wet wipes. I still watch Convoy and dream.
Re stuff. Belongings can be a burden. I rent out my old marital home , and went in recently to check it out since the last tenants left. i was struck by the beauty of it's emptiness and space.
At sixty I can't contemplate starting over. BUT...If I won the Lotto i'd buy a plot of land and open the best Truck stop in the UK.

[ExplodingCoffinEmporium]

I have given serious, SERIOUS, thought to just selling everything I own and becoming an over the road truck driver.

All my stress comes from the the things I have. I could literally put a minor fortune in the bank and own nothing.. And just drive away without a stress or a care in the world.

My elderly father prevents further action on this. And I'm not sure I want to do it anyway.

The finality of it both frightens and excites me.

I spent a lot of my life rolling in semis. My father and grandfather both drove OTR, my dad just retired a few years ago driving team OTR with my stepmom. Naturally I considered it as a career but was vehemently warned by all of them not to. You can make good money in trucking but it requires that rig to constantly be moving, hence why team OTR pulls the big bucks, especially if your doing reefer(refrigerated) loads or hazmat as the truck is rarely idle. Everything is tracked these days, down to brake wear, it’s a system that is now riddled with micromanaging a drivers every turn, mile, and fart. Everything is recorded and analyzed to look for cost cuts. Cool scenery right, well not really, you can’t just pop off whenever the hell you feel like it, gotta make time and wheels not turning costs money, you don’t pick your stops and your reload or new trailer is likely in some shithole you don’t wanna hang anyhow, so it’s a constant window your stuck behind that must keep moving. You make good money if your moving and my family knows how to push those miles hard, 6 figure hard which is a feat in trucking, but that comes at the cost of 3 weeks on 1 week home. You get home and catch up all the shit ya missed out on, and then it’s back on pavement. My dad loved it in the 80’s and a little less in the 90’s, always said it made him feel like the last of the cowboys, but the last 20 years and a lot of technology has really changed the industry. He still loves the trucks, says driving that big machine is the only thing he was ever truly great at, but if he was starting out now, he’d do something else. We still romanticize about it sometimes, what it used to be and the freedom it used to offer, but those times are long gone and I’m not sure if they’ll ever come back.

[DustyDave]

If I was to change to sumptin other than retired I'd be a gynecologist that way alt least my head would be in the right place.
Dusty

[confab]

Yeah, I know some truckers from way back when it didn't pay anything. They did it for a variety of reasons. The freedom was one of the big ones for most of them. Because, back then? It sure wasn't the money. It was addictive. They loved it.

The bean counters have kinda damaged that aspect of it. A guy who drive for Walmart was talking about how they could tell he needed a wheel bearing from the office. I GUESS it has reluctors like an automobile with ABS, and it transmits this information to the office.. And they can tell by the pattern that it is failing? Because, how else would they know? They did it emergency style. Told him to stop at a particular shop and the parts were waiting and everything. Pretty amazing, but also kind like riding with your mother in law.

I dunno? My stuff is the source of all my stress. Sometimes, I think how great it would be to just own nothing..

Then again, NOTHING means no bike. No home. NO NOTHING.

It sounds alluring, but I bet it would get old.

I'd try it and see, but it is such a final decision.. It would take forever to implement and just as long to reverse if I didn't like it.

The Mrs. might not be too keen on it, either.. We've talked about team driving in the abstract. But she isn't real big on the NOTHING part.

[DoomBuggy]

My ex-father-in-law was an over the road driver. We lived in a small town outside of Chicago. Kids always had nice clothes and his wife always had a newish car. Came as a real shock to everyone when they found out he had a second family in California.

[rockman96]

If I was to change to sumptin other than retired I'd be a gynecologist that way alt least my head would be in the right place.
Dusty

I imagine that would change pretty quickly. Ya gotta take the bad with the good, unless your standards are just low... Then it don't matter.

[farmall]

I have truckerbros who love it but most are unmarried, widowed or divorced.

OTOH you can get a CDL and stick your toe in the water at no risk. No need to commit or liquidate to get the license which augments MANY other jobs local and OTR. Most of my happy truckerbros let the company take all the risk so they don't have to deal with the repair, maintenance and business aspects. Some of them are very good wrenches but business is about getting paid.

If you own stuff consider what your REAL burden is. Does your stuff own you? Is your stuff not empowering? Would SELECTIVE liquidation unburden you? My tools and shops and homes are very little work (I mechanize as I'm nearly a cripple) even with a destroyed back but make my life vastly cheaper and more convenient than not having them. I find solving those problems fun. What SPECIFIC stuff is a stressor? Too many toys? Wrong kind? Expensive useless home? (I grew up in a beautiful expensive suburb and couldn't wait to escape. Now I chill on my six acres unfucked with and content.)

The right stuff is no burden. The wrong stuff owns you and is best relinquished.

Everything I own fits my happily planned life and could either sell easily if needed or make me money wrenching but I greatly fucking enjoy retirement and only fixing what I like. (I just sorted out a trike for an elderly Nam vet Marine who was deeply touched because his other "mechanics" were useless shitbags who ripped him off. I charged what it was worth to me and he saved buckets of cash and got a professional result. I got more toy money.)

Jobs can be fun if they're what you enjoy. I've been a gearhead since childhood every job I've had was technical by choice. What do YOU consider fun sufficient that you won't (greatly) mind either bosses or (barf, I hate retail) customers? I like fixing used cars for my bro because we had fun but piss on ever doing retail wrenching though it can be profitable.

Used car lots run wisely can make stoopid cash buying at Copart auctions, building/fixing cars from donors, selling cats (a cash business) then scrapping hulks. (Don't sell to the public and you're not a salvage yard with all the waste stream BS that entails and don't fix cars for the public so you aren't in that business, and don't give credit so you're not "financing". The lot I worked at took payments against the total principal but there was no interest and no gain from early payoff unless they felt like it. The first couple payments cleared their purchase price so the rest was profit. If ya go that route I can do a thread on it because it's interesting stuff few people discuss in public though it's flawlessly legal.)

Motorcycle salvages can make bank and the parts are lighter. No vehicle to build or have come back when something breaks, the waste stream is modest and they take far less space than auto salvages. They can be all online via the internet to avoid retail customers and paying for expensive retail space.

Mechatronics is one field I'd train for if I needed a job I'm not already qualified for. It's fun, and the field cannot be outsourced overseas. It's technically demanding enough to chase away idiots/incompetents. I built trainers for our local Mechatronics lab as a volunteer after I retired while I was taking welding and machine shop courses and have an avionics and industrial maintenance background. Control and robot techs will have jobs that cannot be effectively robotized due to their nature. (Maybe in several decades but that's enough for a life career.) I enjoyed industrial maintenance because there was something new every day and if I had everything running well I could chill doing inspections (fucking off productively).

If you can teach working at local community colleges can be a wonderful gig. Chronic pain killed my sleep schedule or I'd be a part-timer like many for the fun, extra money and CNC shop access. My local school has enough ex-USAF instructors to staff a small aircraft maintenance unit and it's very cool.

Retirement is magnificent. I would do NOTHING to jeopardize it. A market crash won't take my paid-off property, homes, tools or many vehicles. My stuff lets me live on a modest income (retired E7 at sixty percent disability) with such low overhead if I want to drop a few grand on a bike it's utterly painless. If your current gig has you close to that glorious freedom, embrace the suck then eject and be free!

Effective wealth is not having to work at all. Set that up before you're old and crippled (age is a motherfucker) then quit the rat race or dial down to a comfy working level.

I would never want to be a gynecologist. Working on nothing but rotting poontang would turn me celibate. Picture the average obese dumbass American female, then add poor hygeine, STD(s) and drama. Oh hell no!

[confab]

ACTUALLY.. It would kind of be to make retirement better and safer, as much as to reduce stress.

If I dumped all assets? I could put quite a bit in the market till that time and do very well.

But, I dunno if it is worth it? I mean, with everything that can (and does) go wrong? I may never get to enjoy it anyway.. And there's a question of what "enjoying it" would look like at that point?

[confab]

Being old and broke is a terrifying prospect.

But waiting so long that you're physically broken to the point you couldn't enjoy yourself, regardless of the money, isn't inviting either.

I'm not sure how old I want to get, anyway. You see some people in a nursing home and it makes you think a bike crash might not be such a bad way to go after all?

[Hoghead]

Being old and broke is a terrifying prospect.

But waiting so long that you're physically broken to the point you couldn't enjoy yourself, regardless of the money, isn't inviting either.

I'm not sure how old I want to get, anyway. You see some people in a nursing home and it makes you think a bike crash might not be such a bad way to go after all?

This is why it's important to make the most of 'now' ....I've had similar thoughts thoughout my life, and still don't know any more than this.

[farmall]

If ya have a bunch of stuff ya can liquidate profitably at current inflated prices that's toys or excess tools/equipment you will never need this could be a nice time to cash out then roll it into investments.

If you have toys when you die it's no skin off your ass and the estate sale makes short work of them. If ya get gimped ya can always liquidate to suit your level of debility.
If your stuff is stressing you AND is of no economic benefit in retirement that's a great reason to cash out since both stuff and stress are useless but money is wonderful.

What is your specific retirement goal? It should probably include a cheap comfy place to live you own outright which destroys overhead. That way all ya do is pay taxes, maintenance and utilities for overhead. If I rented I'd be fucked but property taxes are only ~800/year on my main property, it's painless to look after and I plan my last "overhaul" (paint, roofing etc) to finish about when I'm seventy so it lasts until I croak. Everything is very simple so I can pay a laborer if needed if I get gimped but opt not to self-terminate at that time.

The more choices ya have (from a choice set you WANT ) the better for you. The sooner you can completely quit working the better even if you like to work because being job-optional is insanely nice. Many old folks have to work for the medical benefits which is horrible.