Am I in the right career?

Scorpio33

ScorpiondeRooftrouser wrote: »

I didn't say they don't exist. I said they only exist if you have the relevant marketable skills. You clearly do, and are therefore already doing it. He doesn't, hence he's doing his job.

How do you know I don't have the relevant marketable skills?


Even if I did not, it would be good to know what kind of things I could eventually do that would be aligned to my personal goals. That would give me something to aim for and then get jobs as stepping stones towards that ultimate goal.


This comes back to my original question - should I be looking for something like the IT role long term? How do you know if you are in the right career?

makeyourdaddyproud

Scorpio33 wrote: »

That's the thing. I don't enjoy my job, but I don't hate it either.


I just feel like I should be spending my life doing something I enjoy, but don't know what that is. I feel like I have spent the last 30 odd years doing what I thought was right to make others happy, but never thought about myself and what I like. That makes it near impossible to discover what you enjoy.


I am married, have a mortgage and two kids. I want to give them the best life, so it currently feels as if I have to choose between a job that makes me unhappy, but gives my family the best life, to a job that may make me happy, but that may mean my family miss out on a good life due to lack of money.

It's common dilemma in the corporate diaspora where you can succeed and make oodles of lucre if and only if you put in long hours. Once the mere suggestion of less hours is broached, not only will that glass ceiling suddenly shoot up out of reach, you later hear through the grapevine you're cr4p at your job. This not just in finance, but in IT and media as well.

The only way to improve work life balance in this regard would be to either, 1) Start your own company, or 2), Take on a job outside of the corporate dimension that have time-worn examples of people doing part time hours.

But, this would inevitably mean the funeral of your cushy and predictably regular stipend. Can you afford to take the hit?

d70cw6

makeyourdaddyproud wrote: »

It's common dilemma in the corporate diaspora where you can succeed and make oodles of lucre if and only if you put in long hours. Once the mere suggestion of less hours is broached, not only will that glass ceiling suddenly shoot up out of reach, you later hear through the grapevine you're cr4p at your job. This not just in finance, but in IT and media as well.

The only way to improve work life balance in this regard would be to either, 1) Start your own company, or 2), Take on a job outside of the corporate dimension that have time-worn examples of people doing part time hours.

But, this would inevitably mean the funeral of your cushy and predictably regular stipend. Can you afford to take the hit?

....or just work for a large company where you can spend all your time faffing about and doing very little productive work and leave at a reasonable hours for a decent wage.

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

Scorpio33 wrote: »

How do you know I don't have the relevant marketable skills?

Because you'd have mentioned it if you had. Indeed, you wouldn't be asking the question; you'd know, and you'd be doing it.

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

makeyourdaddyproud wrote: »

It's common dilemma in the corporate diaspora where you can succeed and make oodles of lucre if and only if you put in long hours. Once the mere suggestion of less hours is broached, not only will that glass ceiling suddenly shoot up out of reach, you later hear through the grapevine you're cr4p at your job. This not just in finance, but in IT and media as well.

The only way to improve work life balance in this regard would be to either, 1) Start your own company, or 2), Take on a job outside of the corporate dimension that have time-worn examples of people doing part time hours.

But, this would inevitably mean the funeral of your cushy and predictably regular stipend. Can you afford to take the hit?

It wouldn't and doesn't mean the end of the "regular stipend" for a great many people. It merely halts it where it is. A lot of people are happy with that.

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

Scorpio33 wrote: »

Even if I did not, it would be good to know what kind of things I could eventually do that would be aligned to my personal goals. That would give me something to aim for and then get jobs as stepping stones towards that ultimate goal.


This comes back to my original question - should I be looking for something like the IT role long term? How do you know if you are in the right career?

As to the rest of this, yes, you probably could move to IT. but you'd have to train and build experience and it would be much less money to start with. You'd have to work your way up, which would quite possibly entail working longer hours and putting in more than the minimum you are paid for, as others would be doing so. Then when you got back to where you are now, you'd have the option of stopping and coasting, or trying to push further. In other words, things would be exactly the same.

Once again, how often do you absolutely have to work long hours in your current role? You seem strangely reluctant to answer this.

[Deleted User]

FYI - Working from home can drive you nuts and lead you to social isolation. Seeing your kids for a few hours a day doesn't seem to quite make up for it IMO

I've got 10 years experience in IT, and there's not really that many 'work from home jobs' for people with little experience

If I were you I'd be looking at where you can reapply your skills in other industries, or move firms to one that seems more aligned to what you want out of life.

Scorpio33

ScorpiondeRooftrouser wrote: »

As to the rest of this, yes, you probably could move to IT. but you'd have to train and build experience and it would be much less money to start with. You'd have to work your way up, which would quite possibly entail working longer hours and putting in more than the minimum you are paid for, as others would be doing so. Then when you got back to where you are now, you'd have the option of stopping and coasting, or trying to push further. In other words, things would be exactly the same.

Once again, how often do you absolutely have to work long hours in your current role? You seem strangely reluctant to answer this.

I seem reluctant to answer this as I don't think it is relevant. I am not questioning the amount of hours I have to work, I am questioning my reluctance to put in any more than the minimum. Quite frankly your "advice", however well meant it is, simply makes a bad situation worse. I am on here feeling pretty low, looking for a way - anyway - out of the situation and actually have a life I am happy in. Your advice seems to construct simply of "accept your lot, there is not a lot you can do about it". Even if that is true, it does not help me.




Thanks to the other posters and after much research, I think my approach to my career has changed and it may well be due to depression / anxiety / low mood. I doubt it has anything to do with my career as I would probably be in the same situation in any career. So what I intend to do is to speak to my GP about the situation and hope that things will improve eventually.

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

Scorpio33 wrote: »

I seem reluctant to answer this as I don't think it is relevant. I am not questioning the amount of hours I have to work, I am questioning my reluctance to put in any more than the minimum. Quite frankly your "advice", however well meant it is, simply makes a bad situation worse. I am on here feeling pretty low, looking for a way - anyway - out of the situation and actually have a life I am happy in. Your advice seems to construct simply of "accept your lot, there is not a lot you can do about it". Even if that is true, it does not help me.




Thanks to the other posters and after much research, I think my approach to my career has changed and it may well be due to depression / anxiety / low mood. I doubt it has anything to do with my career as I would probably be in the same situation in any career. So what I intend to do is to speak to my GP about the situation and hope that things will improve eventually.

My advice to you all along was not to accept your lot but simply stop working more than the minimum hours in the job you are in, so the question was clearly relevant because if you don't actually work long hours more than a couple of times a year (which all jobs call for) you can't do that. If you do, then you are still better simply stopping working long hours in a job in which you have a secure tenure than you would be starting a new job in which you have no experience and tenure and trying to do it in that.


It seems that despite the fact you feel that my advice was to accept your lot as not being worse than anyone else's and was unhelpful, that "after much research and thanks to other posters" you have come to exactly that conclusion.