Human sexuality is the one thing in this world that's more interesting to me than computers, and while I'm grateful for my stable job and career that allow me to explore it as a hobby, I'm infinitely curious about what that other life would have looked like.
Back in college('97) a guy offered me a job as an elevator repair tech. I almost dropped out since the money was better than what I'd make as an engineer($50/hr plus OT). My first engineering job, doing embedded SW and some EE work for a large consumer electronics company was $37.5k/yr.
I mean this sincerely, this is a geniuinely impressive level of self-awareness. If everybody was better at recognizing things like this, I think the world would be a much better place. Cheers
The majority of my larger life decisions have turned out poorly. Fortunately the ones that worked out paid off well enough to make up for the ones that didn't.
My wife is an SLP at a hospital and she loves it. I couldn't handle the more medical parts, but I can see crossover there with assessment and problem-solving. She geeks out on it.
Both of us are definitely interested in work that benefits lives. (For me, a lot of that is driven by my desire to repent for working in online advertising for so many years.) If that's something that matters to you, and it sounds like it is, I definitely recommend pushing for that. But think outside the box, too--there are a lot of places in tech that benefit people and provide interaction.
Finally, watch out for the student loan-to-income ratio for things like SLP. Make sure you're balancing that.
Material costs were a little ridiculous, but since I'm only building for myself that wasn't a huge issue :-)
As an energy consultant friend explained to me: You want to control the ventilation rate, rather than relying on whatever you get accidentally (which may not be enough, especially on calm days).
I've considered it a lot when I went through a big burnout, perhaps I should've just thrown away the 20+ years of career in tech at that moment to start as a journeyman since now it just became much harder to let go off the comforts this career brings me...
After that two weeks I even did some market research to see if there was any way to make a remotely comparable living off of it (unfortunately there wasn't, at least until the kids are out of the house and expenses go way down). I also realized that my style was not well aligned with popular styles at the time (this was 2019), and that shipping costs basically meant I could only sell to local area (and even then delivery cost/time would require adding too much margin).
Someday hopefully life will be more compatible with our dream :-)
But more generally, I would like to commit my time to making the built world more beautiful and sustainable. I despise the obsolescent plastic slop that we all are forced to use, wear, live in, and just see and be around all the time. I find it such a degradation in our society -- the shift in taste and values away from an appreciation of well-made, durable, and well-designed physical objects.
What type of wood would you recommend? Do you have any favorite designs you would recommend using as a starting point?
It's typically not recommended to self-design, the physics gets technical and there are a lot of free working plans out there including by famous naval architects.
Most people start out with simpler designs using plywood and fiberglass but, due to my aforementioned disdain for a lot of modern approaches, I personally went with a traditional oak frame, cedar plank, copper rivet construction. It is very time consuming but I'm enjoying the journey. I chose a flat-bottomed sail boat design (dory) to make it a little easier on myself.
There are endless variations on the concept of a "wooden vessel that can be propelled through water" idea so it really depends on your interests and tastes. It's a "form follows function" situation too, so you also need to consider your use case -- engine, oar, sail; ocean, river, lake; etc.
I can see myself liking the process of construction:
* https://www.youtube.com/@PerkinsBuilderBrothers/videos
But I know it's hard on your body, and you have to do it regardless of weather, so I wouldn't enjoy those aspects as much (versus in a climate-controlled office / WFH).
If I didn't have to work in order to live I'd probably spend more time sailing, playing music, and being with my family.
But I'd still be programming. The kind of programming I'd do would be focused on my interests rather than the interests of businesses and shareholders that employ me though.
Why programmers like cooking: You peel the carrot, you chop the carrot, you put the carrot in the stew. You don’t suddenly find out that your peeler is several versions behind and they dropped support for carrots in 4.3
https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/agv5ol/why...
I enjoyed programming and computers as a hobby in high school, but had eventually decided it was not something I’d like to do as a career.
But my initial plans after high school fell through and I found myself needing to make a living. Naturally I reached for a software career, but I do hate it as much as I expected.
I didn’t really have anything else going for me skill wise. The idea of spending four more years in school didn’t appeal to me as a teenager (though I regret this greatly). I didn’t attend a community college for a few months, but dropped out as it felt like a waste of time and money.
So realistically, I’d probably have been stuck working unskilled near-minimum wage jobs I had been working before I started my career. Prior to that, I had a fascination with biology that competed with computer briefly. “Bioinformatics” was a word that came up often in career ideas while I was in high school, but that was such a small niche, I really had no concept at all as to what that career path would have looked like.
Nowadays, there’s many more things I’m interested in, but they’re all inaccessible as careers at this point.
Over the years, I’ve been inspired by things like RF engineering, physics, PLC programming, and even various natural sciences, but lacked the education/intelligence/cash to go back to school. Certainly for as long as I’d have to for those careers. AI will likely reduce the number of people needed in the sort of fields anyway.
I'm still doing software work related to activism, but I haven't been looking for paid work because the pickings are incredibly slim for work aligned with my values. I'm planning to get into rope access work in a few months.
I'm not going to stop working on software as long as I'm able to provide value beyond what AI tooling can do, but I'm not hopeful for a return to the industry when I'm so misaligned with Big Tech™.
I also have ideas for creating such spaces and just the other day I fantasized about a building I saw rent.
Fwiw, if you earn USD, the "developing world" also needs these spaces and it's significantly cheaper to try and take a chance at some of these spaces.
It is my dream to do some of it in the developing world too, if I were to visit someplace often to help out more. A church I used to attend was big on surfing and would take trips to a small town in Mexico. They build an orphanage, some living spaces for single mothers, drastically improved some schools amongst other things and I think that was an awesome way to do charity. There were a couple run-ins with smalltime cartel-ish activity (as they saw it as a power grab) but because everything was from church to church, most donations came in the form of infrastructure and supplies (no money to take), and the pastor was a bit crazy (he visits prisons often and can deal with the thug mindset) they allowed it continue.
BUT ... to be 100% honest there's nothing I am really any good at other than tech. I guess I could try my hand at teaching. Would that be a good enough loop hole? I could maybe teach Econ 101 at a junior college probably. It'd be a huge pay cut but it'd be better than being jobless.
Nowadays, probably something in finances, I realized I could have enjoyed accounting or some work related to business finances, but this is something I learned while working, not before.
When I was 45, I did briefly consider making the switch
I became an electrician, instead, with stints IBEW and self-employed residential. Lots of money-making opportunities, but lots of unlicensed competition from handymen that "know just enough to be dangerous" — most customers only care if the light turns on, not that it's long-term safe.
>Are you self-employed now?
Yes, but I choose not to work regularly.
Fortunately, I have enough savings to not be too worried — presuming the economy picks up within the next few years (I can outlast this presidency, doing nothing).
Can't seem to escape from the tech gods.
Unfortunately blue collar labor takes its toll on bodies — probably best-left to hobby grunt work (and not full-time) unless you like back/knee/hip pain =D
I'm currently attempting to transition back into white collar tech (early 40s) but we all know how that's going (in this economy). Fortunately twisting wires together for decades has allowed me to stack enough savings that I'm not in a rush / desperate for re-training/employment.
I absolutely knew even when I left school ("school" school) that none of these would pay, so I assume your question has an implicit "if money was no concern". Because money/job was the reason I picked engineering and CS in college. While I did quite well (academically and professionally), I never loved it. Maybe I liked it here and there. Then I knew this would happen; that's the reason I was at least prudent enough to never do that CS MS (with multiple options for full scholarships in Europe around a decade ago). But not prudent enough to explore masters in many of the non-STEM fields that were there for the taking pretty much. Some of those might have paired well with this STEM bachelors in some way or the other.
I'm still building it out. Going for my Repair Station license next year and hoping to add pitot-static and transponder calibration to my services menu. I wrench on my own plane, but the liability exposure is insane, so I won't sign work for others.
It's really odd, but I think when I disclose this to my tech masters, there is something of a novelty value, and they appreciate that I can sling code... and also other things. That old "well rounded" trope I guess.
Of particular interest was some interesting types of feedback that came from the Tesla coils. Basically we modulated the frequency we drove the coils to produce sound, but the coils would interfere with one another because that’s how electromagnetism works. We had to tune them to different resonant frequencies to play sound. But the interference itself could sound unique and eerie, sometimes like an old-timey radio. It’s similar in principle to a theremin but a very different sound.
Or I could just get a soul sucking job and do this in early retirement. Shrug.
Love the work but hate the pay and toll it took on my body.
Carpentry is fun too but metal is better.
Labor Rate at dealerships around me are over $200/h. Granted the mechanic doesn't get 100% of that but 200 * 52 * 8 is nearly 600k. It seems like you could go somewhere else and get the same amount of money as Ford (or more) and don't need to worry about future salary increases not occurring.
If the answer is yes, I'll stick with software.
When I was in college I did residential landscaping in the summers, and in retrospect it was a good time.
Some of the gears I helped make will still be in use in a century. I find great comfort in that for some reason. The job was rewarding, and interesting, but the pay and commute really sucked.
As for helping others, there were a handful of us in the job shop before it was bought by a bigger machine shop. It's a fairly solitary job.
Maybe a janitor/security job or a bus driver job suits me well. Neither requires a huge amount of training, and neither requires a lot of brain activity so I can preserve my brain cells for hobby programming. Both have a non-trivial number of job openings too, especially for janitors/securities.
I would build sound systems. Huge ones, bigger than what's in my garage. Bone-shaking, yet clear as the pure blue sky
I would open a video store / computer lab / hangout for skaters, nerds and misfits
I would curate a library, with a point of view -- the most interesting ones are where the signal has been extricated from the noise and somebody wants you to see the world how they see the world
I would make a lot of things, physical and digital -- from 3D prints to woodworking to PCBs to strange websites and curious software
I would get a giant pizza oven and a huge cauldron and fuck around making pies and stews LOL
I would just do cool shit with my friends!
I basically do a lot of these things already in measured doses, in between begging, scraping, seeking, asking for, grabbing money; that whole pursuit is a great stick and carrot that keeps the human moving through life, but it's also kind of corrosive to the soul, and unavoidable if you want to participate in society.
Funny how when I re-read what I'm about to post (as a middle aged man), it sounds like the pipe dream of a 12 year old boy, some old loser who refuses to grow up lol
I know it is an highly physical demanding and also very risky job. Now that a second child arives, obviously, life changing again, i just cant do it, i need to feed two kinds soon and these kind of jobs are not well payed.
So ill stick to doing my own firewood once a year, a couple of days outside in the woods and keep dreaming about it.
Live goes by too fast.
And once I had gotten over the anxiety and low self-esteem that I'd develop by engaging in these activities, probably become some kind of tech artist or simply be creativity for the sack of creating something.
No insta, no facebook, no twitter, more a reflection of what these technologies are doing to our "societies" or rather our "individualised groups of humans collectively doom-scrolling into global disaster of one kind or another".
In the last two years I've become a semi-pro photographer. I guess I am also an "activist" now but approach it as personal change [1] instead of interpersonal conflict.
[1] a kind of global "daoism" that embraces all kinds of human development
Sadly, I’m not wealthy enough to afford to reset like that, I’ll never be able to retire.
If it were just for my own care-free leisure and benefit, I would probably go to school again and try some other academic path in math, physics or history. Or rekindle my CS study and do a phd - so many different interesting topics.
In the real world, as a parent with a huge mortgage? Pretty much anything. Janitorial work, insurance agent, landscaping, whatever.
The LSAT doesn't feel too difficult, especially the sections based around logical reasoning. So if I went back in time and tech somehow wasn't an option, law is probably where I'd be
When I’m retired I plan to get a part-time job as an usher at a theater, arena, concert hall, or stadium.
Another good option is to get a really low-stress job at a tropical resort. I can imagine running a little stand that rents out umbrellas and chairs on a beach. Or maybe walking around the beach selling ice cream out of a cart.
I also could end up being happy in condensed matter physics, astrophysics, robotics, materials science, nano tech, optics, or RF. Some combination of engineering and science.
I love teaching and building things to help people. So there are a bunch of areas that would fit the bill here. I gravitate towards any tech that feels like magic.
I could and I do daytrade options, which however is more tech than tech itself, whether by hand or by a bot.
I would however like to be a consulting speaker, but the research for it can't really be done without a steady and heavy dose of tech.
If I had to pivot in 2025, I’d probably go for psychology. I’m interested in that, I enjoy the idea of more directly helping people and have myself been tremendously helped by psychologists the past years.
For the former, a repair/handyman. Hanging shelves, assembling ikea furniture, etc.
The latter is harder to answer, but probably something within the legal profession.
I specifically went away from it due to moral reasons but seems this society has no morals and never will. May as well just plunder the poor.
If you've ever worked land, you'll know your boss is the weather and the seasons, and time.
It's good.
Ideal answer: go back to school and become a horticulture scientist
- Music producer
- Video director
- Astronomer/Physicist/Biologist
I just hate the direction the software industry has gone (and is going), and once I buy a house and get some savings I want to get out.
I'm a linux user, but I hate that majority of MacOS apps/tools are Paid, and I want to change that
If money was not an issue, and I had all the time in this world, I'd start giving it all to Open-source software.
Starting with rewriting all the paid/subscription apps created for macOS.
For example, I'll create an exact replica of: - Alfred, Raycast, Bartender, BetterDisplayTool etc, but completely FOSS