Can I , Should I..board the FIRE train

LV_426

Workerdrone said:

ajfielden said:

Albermarle said:

Thought experiment: Assuming you are in a secure job that you enjoy(ish), and are given the opportunity to have a 5-10yr PAID carrier break. When will you take it - 30's , 40's ,50's, 70's...or perhaps pass on the opportunity?

This might work with certain lower level jobs , where there is usually a shortage . Cleaners, agricultural workers, carers , drivers etc 

It also might work if you have a very specific skill that did not easily get outdated.

However I think for most office/manager jobs , it could well be a career ending move . By the time you returned , technology would have moved on , as would most of your previous colleagues .

Would almost certainly be a death sentence on my career. I find it extremely hard to stay up to date with technology as it is, and I've had no career break. Makes me laugh, I've worked through massive technology landscape changes. I can adapt, learn. 90% of the stuff I use now wasn't even invented when I graduated.
I really despair when recruiters reject me because I don't have experience with the latest web framework, or trendy programming language. 

I despair at most of todays youths approach to technology. Quite happy to smear the glass on a fondleslab watching Cardi B, but absolutely no interest or understanding in what's going on beneath the surface. It's a far stretch from typing in listings from C&VG magazine then either having to debug it yourself or wait until next weeks issue for the correction :-) Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the captains of industry of tomorrow. Sorry just in a curmudgeonly mood this morning. Got a shed full of servos, microcontrollers, components etc and a son whose only interest is worshipping those who kick an inflated pigs bladder around a field for employment.

After being on a recent project with a couple of kids fresh out of Uni, I concluded that the prevailing attitude is that if you can't Google the answer in 2 minutes, then it's not worth doing. This is the "TL;DR" generation. Yup, I had to look that one up too.
They actually laughed at me when I said I'd bought a book on the particular technology stack we were using on the project. Seems like reading an actual book is total anathema to them. And these were the same gobshites who were annoyed at me being paid more than they were.

michaels

ajfielden said:

Workerdrone said:

ajfielden said:

Albermarle said:

Thought experiment: Assuming you are in a secure job that you enjoy(ish), and are given the opportunity to have a 5-10yr PAID carrier break. When will you take it - 30's , 40's ,50's, 70's...or perhaps pass on the opportunity?

This might work with certain lower level jobs , where there is usually a shortage . Cleaners, agricultural workers, carers , drivers etc 

It also might work if you have a very specific skill that did not easily get outdated.

However I think for most office/manager jobs , it could well be a career ending move . By the time you returned , technology would have moved on , as would most of your previous colleagues .

Would almost certainly be a death sentence on my career. I find it extremely hard to stay up to date with technology as it is, and I've had no career break. Makes me laugh, I've worked through massive technology landscape changes. I can adapt, learn. 90% of the stuff I use now wasn't even invented when I graduated.
I really despair when recruiters reject me because I don't have experience with the latest web framework, or trendy programming language. 

I despair at most of todays youths approach to technology. Quite happy to smear the glass on a fondleslab watching Cardi B, but absolutely no interest or understanding in what's going on beneath the surface. It's a far stretch from typing in listings from C&VG magazine then either having to debug it yourself or wait until next weeks issue for the correction :-) Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the captains of industry of tomorrow. Sorry just in a curmudgeonly mood this morning. Got a shed full of servos, microcontrollers, components etc and a son whose only interest is worshipping those who kick an inflated pigs bladder around a field for employment.

After being on a recent project with a couple of kids fresh out of Uni, I concluded that the prevailing attitude is that if you can't Google the answer in 2 minutes, then it's not worth doing. This is the "TL;DR" generation. Yup, I had to look that one up too.
They actually laughed at me when I said I'd bought a book on the particular technology stack we were using on the project. Seems like reading an actual book is total anathema to them. And these were the same gobshites who were annoyed at me being paid more than they were.

They do have a point though - unless you are 'the expert' then it is probably quicker to find the correct method from an expert online than invest the time figuring it out for yourself.  I am not bad at excel though I say it myself but it I want to do something new then it is generally quicker to crib how someone else has done it than figure it out for myself - I could figure it out but it would just take longer.

LV_426

michaels said:

They do have a point though - unless you are 'the expert' then it is probably quicker to find the correct method from an expert online than invest the time figuring it out for yourself.  I am not bad at excel though I say it myself but it I want to do something new then it is generally quicker to crib how someone else has done it than figure it out for myself - I could figure it out but it would just take longer.

Well my point was, there seems to be no desire to learn something in depth, and the mentality these days is to have a shallow understanding of things. I suppose as long as you know a bit more than the next person then that's ok.
However I prefer to spend some time focusing on something to gain a deep understanding of it, and become an expert.
Having said that, I've often cut and pasted some code sample from StackOverflow to get a job done

cfw1994

Well, we are fresh back from a cracking Masters Graduation for my son, who completed a distinction in Speech & Language Processing in October....
Overall, I would say he is now a lot more technical than me (although I sometimes give him pointers on some broader topics!), is now with a tiny startup as their Data Scientist: hurrah!   
Google is a useful tool for solving problems, but I know the small community he works with also help each other on topics/code.   It isn't all bad!
I think the broad brushstroke being painted of 'youth in technology' is somewhat overstated.   Sure, the vast majority are mere users of tech, not coders and developers....but that is to be expected: how many 'apprenticeships' do we offer out early on to them!?
I say this often....the world is a different place, and the technology is far broader than when I learned BASIC for fun then COBOL for work 30-35 years ago!

LV_426

cfw1994 said:

Well, we are fresh back from a cracking Masters Graduation for my son, who completed a distinction in Speech & Language Processing in October....
Overall, I would say he is now a lot more technical than me (although I sometimes give him pointers on some broader topics!), is now with a tiny startup as their Data Scientist: hurrah!   
Google is a useful tool for solving problems, but I know the small community he works with also help each other on topics/code.   It isn't all bad!
I think the broad brushstroke being painted of 'youth in technology' is somewhat overstated.   Sure, the vast majority are mere users of tech, not coders and developers....but that is to be expected: how many 'apprenticeships' do we offer out early on to them!?
I say this often....the world is a different place, and the technology is far broader than when I learned BASIC for fun then COBOL for work 30-35 years ago!

It is indeed. I've seen immense changes in the technological landscape. It's gone from 'big iron' mainframes, to desktop computing, PCs, and everything now is in the cloud and networked. These changes require very different technology stacks.
However I still think some of the basic problems we are trying to solve are quite similar to 30 years ago. Just using different methods and tools.
Congratulations to your son on his graduation!

AlphaKappa

The follow-on question posed in relation to being too young to FIRE was just to tease out when one might decide to have a potentially long break if there was no material risk to career or finances.

I think around mid 40's is ideal, when you'd have had a good go at your career, but still have the energy and drive to pursue other things.

(Regarding the present vs older generation , I'll say humanity keeps evolving. Our ancestors would be amazed modern man can't hunt ! Maybe reading/books will become obsolete/consigned to the museum in a few hundred yrs from now).

LV_426

AlphaKappa said:

Maybe reading/books will become obsolete/consigned to the museum in a few hundred yrs from now).

I really hope not. Reading a physical book is still a pleasure, and let's face it, who wants to be glued to a computer monitor all the time?

Albermarle

I think around mid 40's is ideal, when you'd have had a good go at your career, but still have the energy and drive to pursue other things.

However going to pursue other things is not the same as  to have a potentially long break if there was no material risk to career or finances.

Leaving most good jobs at mid 40's, would mean great difficulty going back ten years later at the same level/salary . So you would have to hope the 'other things ' proved successful. 

DT2001

AlphaKappa said:

The follow-on question posed in relation to being too young to FIRE was just to tease out when one might decide to have a potentially long break if there was no material risk to career or finances.

I think around mid 40's is ideal, when you'd have had a good go at your career, but still have the energy and drive to pursue other things.

(Regarding the present vs older generation , I'll say humanity keeps evolving. Our ancestors would be amazed modern man can't hunt ! Maybe reading/books will become obsolete/consigned to the museum in a few hundred yrs from now).

I think you are in an excellent position to change from your existing career to other challenges. It isn’t really FIRE as, especially with children, the retirement early part doesn’t apply.

I changed to working, very p/t, when our youngest was born (I was 39) as my OH earned more and had more flexible working arrangements. During the last 20 years I’ve been involved with four businesses, all luckily, on my terms whilst our 4 children have grown up. Financially, for me, it has been more famine or feast as I’ve been remunerated at end of projects however overall I think our work life balance has been very good.

HCIMbtw

Get out the game, take a year or two, and work out what you want with your time.. no need to have a job, maybe you want one, maybe you don't. Congrats on having such fantastic savings, very envious.