Last job killed my love of IT, management beat it out of me. Wonderful company, demotivated by my manager from the first week. Couldn’t be a nicer guy, smartest tech I’ve ever met, Peter Principled his was into management.
Never been paid that much, took about every Friday off on PTO, total WFH, can’t say what my benefits cost but it wasn’t $100/mo. in total. My last job was half the pay and benefits, was so much happier. I think of that every time I read a comment about why companies need to pay more to satisfy us. Everyone should have a look at this. Had ALL that at my penultimate job, NONE at the most recent.
I feel so weird, especially at this time of life with a solid resume, interviewing for PT work at Lowe’s. Thinking I’ll be happier than a pig in shit spending 4 hours a day, just walking around helping people, doing what ever bullshit I’m asked to do. Looking to see how it goes, see if there are ways to work myself up to FT, better schedule, supervisor, whatever.
Thought about “retiring” to work in a hardware store to keep busy and fit, but not for a decade+. Excepting my credit card bills, and what my wife sends home to the Philippines, she makes enough to cover everything. Won’t take much to take the edge off.
I love hardware and tools and plants, about everything they sell. Hoping to learn a lot as well. Helping people is really satisfying to me, and I’m excellent at handling customers. LOL, I’m best with the angry ones, sometimes get them apologizing. :)
Need a sanity check, am I losing it!? Been through the worst depression of my life the past few years, hoping this will break me back into a normal state of mind.
EDIT: Got the job! Holy shit, the assistant manager is just like me! Dropped out of tech to take a minimum wage job at Lowe’s 8 years ago, now he’s at $90K. We’ve even done much of the same work in the IT space. “I did DSL for Bellsouth when it was new!” “Yep, did my time as a cable internet guy.”
Seems to be a lot of space and opportunity to move up. I’m going to knock this out the fucking park!
BONUS: Clerk at the shady gas station overhead me telling my neighbor about quitting IT and getting hired today. Guy ask me what I did in IT, gave him a run down. “Yeah. I was a web dev for 20-years, couldn’t take staring at a screen any more.”
You’ve got the right idea, that video is spot on. I quit software for “work” in 2010 and moved to a job working for myself (self directed) doing work that I felt mattered (purpose driven) and that was work that required constant self improvement, both mental and physical (mastery). I’m no longer behind a desk, I meet new people every day and I am much happier. I also write more software now than I ever did at “work,” because I write software with the express intent of supporting my self-employment endeavors - and not for anybody else.
Finally, someone watched the video, life changing. Yeah, I had none of that and I want it back.
My story is literally the opposite. Working at places like Lowes and the shitty coworkers and management was my drive to finish school and get a better job.
Every job can suck because of people who suck. Retail is definitely NOT better. I ain’t saying it’s worse, but it ain’t better.
Controversial but when it actually IS essentially just “for spending money” part time work, is retail that bad? You have the psychological benefits of seeing new people, having consistent relationships, helping others, physical activity, a routine, and anything else that working may bring to your social calendar. Oh and waaaay less responsibility and pressure.
Cause it is essentially working for mental health reasons instead of financial. It is a lot easier to walk away then as soon as mental health is compromised!
If you’re financially stable enough to actually throw hands with that one customer (who will show up in your life eventually), then yeah, I can understand that.
I think the people hating on retail haven’t developed people skills because they’re young or simply can’t. I can flip an angry customer around in a few minutes, have them eating out of my hand.
The secret sauce? Treat like as what they are, a human being coming to you for help, not pain-in-the-ass customer #43 for the day. Even the ones that start out angry quickly catch on that you’re on their side and doing your damnedest to help. If you’re fake, they can smell it.
People skills might be part of the equation, but that also applies to IT/dev work too - especially if you find yourself in any kind of lead (tech and/or managerial) position.
I think hesitancy you’re seeing comes down to earnings potential and the fact that our society tends to look down on “low skill” work, especially retail.
I’m glad you have that particular skill, but it absolutely has very little to do with irate customers. That’s more like what makes it a shitty day at the job vs having a shitty job.
Also idk how much variety of people you have had to meet in your career but I venture to guess they are all generally the same socioeconomic backgrounds, education, etc. When you work with the public it is different, the pool is larger and more random, you may learn new ways people can be fucking weird.
I had a similar arc, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t thinking about going back.
I worked retail for two years post highschool. Looking at my coworkers, some of whom were in their 40s/50s and still at pretty low level positions, made me go to community college and then a four year school.
14 years later working on software (dev, highly engaged/invested PO, now PM) and I either have a more clear-eyed worldview or a my company is starting to fall apart. I’m very over our command and control leadership that’s been touting the next new framework only to continue to command and control in that framework and then claim “that framework was actually bad, this new framework is good”. The battling between teams building basically the same things, but for their niches of the world, “how I want it” coming every which was as opposed to thinking about what we should be solving, everything being the top priority, actions mattering more than results, etc. Layer in process debt that goes back to the 1950s and technical debt going back to the 1980s. I know younger companies don’t have the later two problems, but from lurking in dev related communities for years everything else seems pretty common.
At my retail job the worst I had to deal with was the occasional grouchy customer, which just meant calling a manager to deal with it if I couldn’t. We’re doing the best we can to stash away money. We’ve started doing math to say, “we might have to work longer in total, but if we were to take lower paying jobs at <age> this is what our finances would look like”.
That’s literally the plot of Stardew Valley. Leaving the world of digital work in favor of something more tangible is a dream come true for many of us.
In the words of another man who left IT for manual labor:
At my last two jobs people will always leave to become farmers or carpenters.
You have no idea how much more sane that made me feel.
Left IT to become a machinist… Best decision of my life (38).
Best decision of your life, so far.
You are correct :)
Huh, I did the opposite. We all have different needs but I admit I recently chose to go down salary by $20k because of stress.
Word of caution.
I’ve gone down this route and discovered the phrase “you’re overqualified”, which is bandied around when you describe your previous experience.
Don’t let this dissuade you, just keep it in mind.
Good luck with the job interview!
That’s my only worry. Not sure how to downplay that or express that this really sounds like what I want (I think), even at the massive pay cut.
Quality of Life, Life Balance, something like that?
Quality of Life working from retail?
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahabahahahahahaha
No no no sorry …hahahahahahahahahahahah HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Some people actually enjoy that kind of work. I did it for a few years and I loved every minute of it. I enjoyed helping people and talking and organizing shelves/racks whatnot. If it paid better I’d probably still be doing it.
Where’d you work though? This guy is going to work for Walmart equivalent of home improvement stores. After working at Walmart myself as a first job, I quickly grew to detest the place and quit twice before actually leaving (they talked me into staying the first time with a transfer and raise). It’s a soul sucking environment without the high pay and benefits that OP is walking away from. I hope it works out but the phrase “the grass is greener on the other side” exists for a reason.
A place called Tuesday Morning. Kind of a old lady type place. They sold a bit of everything from clothes to knick knacks and home deco, but for like old people lol. Def no Lowe’s but I enjoyed it. Maybe OP should look for somewhere like Ace hardware instead?
Ace would be recommended. They hire people who want to help, Lowes hires people who have to pretend to want to help.
as an ex-IT currently working at Lowes, they don’t really give a shit about your qualifications, and probably won’t even ask. passing the drug test and background check is about the only qualifications that matter to them.
But Dunkin, man. Dunkin always finds out.
“Overqualified” just means they’re afraid you know your rights and can’t be exploited like someone fresh out of school.
But if they’re already entertaining the idea of hiring someone in their 50’s I doubt you’ll hear it very often if at all.
No, it means you might run off at any moment when a higher paying job presents itself.
I got the job! Going to hang in there, see where it leads. I was astounded at the mobility, up and lateral, that I can probably score.
I did retail a while ago. It wasn’t hard to climb if you’re moderately competent and not a d-bag. There is a somewhat low ceiling from what I recall. At my store at least, most of the people that reached upper level store managerial roles tended to do so by opening a new location.
gratz.
god damn I keep typing out advice … Enjoy yourself. \o/
Theres a reason behind the “retire and herd goats” joke for IT. Burnout sucks. Sounds like your needs will be met financially, enjoy it!
“Heaven in hardware” has been my retirement goal for quite a while. Chase your dream!
I had what should have been my dream job. I absolutely hated it and everything about it broke me and made me suicidally depressed. I took a lower paying job without all the responsibilities and long commute. I was surprisingly happy there.
For a while, I felt bad that I’d “demoted” myself. Then I reshaped my thinking to the following: I don’t have to prove anything to anyone. I can do whatever the hell I want. Never cared again.
I went the other way around, I was a central heating engineer and plumber in my youth and even if I liked the work a lot I hated the winters, it’s so cold in a building without heating. So I switched to factory work, the payment was better and it was always a comfortable temperature, but it was so extramly boring. And I just couldn’t do it and resigned after 3 years.
So I switched careers again, went to school and eventually to university at 30 years old and then gör a job in a small startup working a lot with open source and the colleagues were all very smart and nice. The startup got bought up by a big company and it got a bit worse, but more stable when it comes to projects. After 10 years I still work at this company even though I moved to a different continent, etc.
I have been working from home since covid and people trust me to do my job so they don’t bother me, it’s very nice.
17 years in tech. Made it to director level. Decided I hated ladder climbing. Transitioned to software engineering full time and spent the last 5 years doing that. The work life balance was a lot better but the corporate BS was not. I’ve decided corporate jobs may not be for me.
Currently working on a software project of my own. If that works out, great. If not, I may get out of the business instead of going to another corporate job. I’ve got enough experience to do just about anything I want to but I honestly don’t know what that would be.
Are you me? Currently at the director level debating a switch back to dev. Prior director in my role did the same. I actually love my boss and when I’m empowered to run my org, the work is great. But too much of my job is trying to insulate my teams from the BS and it’s burning me out. But I’m not sure I’d want to give up being able to fight the BS and would eventually get frustrated by it again as a dev.
So here I am, riding it out. I know at some point politics will get me and my style of insulating my engineers will cost me my job, even though by doing so we have great productivity metrics. And being real - I think the hardest part is that by shielding my teams from the BS, I become the face for the shit that does get through so the people I fight so hard to protect often blame me for their very real complaints.
I’m not sure what’s next for me, but I save everything I can because I assume that the change might not be my choice.
I know at some point politics will get me and my style of insulating my engineers will cost me my job, even though by doing so we have great productivity metrics.
Mine ultimately did cost me my job. Or at least it was a contributing factor. I was so sick of the relentless conflict and the toxicity. When I eventually got fired, I missed my team but I was also relieved. It was like a huge weight being lifted. Knowing what I know now, I would never have taken the job to begin with. On the other hand, I do think it helped me grow personally and figure out what my values are. I decided I was ready to put my career on the line if I had to choose between keeping my job and doing the right thing. I did the best I could and my conscience is clear.
As a religious studies researcher both sysadmin and hard labor give me joy because they’re solvable problems and working with my hands
I went from being a highly technical CIO/CTO for most of my career, to becoming a bartender. I adore it, couldn’t be happier, and now am studying to become a sommelier. I still do occasional cybersecurity and tech compliance consulting when a project piques my interest, but very rarely. I absolutely loved IT, but getting out when I did (~2 years ago) saved my sanity and health. Now I do a lot of home automation programming for myself to scratch the tech itch. Best of luck!
Thank you for sharing this! I was a software engineer for over 10 years and was let go with most of my department in June. I’ve been coasting on SUB payments, enjoying the temporary freedom, and learning sooo much about myself. I’ve been applying to similar jobs, but the longer I’ve been away from that world, the less I want to go back to it. So much of me wants to run to a job I always wanted growing up - a barista, and restart my photography business which I had to drop as it was too much to balance with a full-time job. I’ve been mentally stuck the last few months trying to figure out what I want to do… it’s nice to read something from someone in a slightly similar situation who is also considering a completely different path. I wish you the best of luck on your new journey, and I hope you find happiness in whatever work you decide on!
I used to have a white-collar job and now work in retail. You know what I love? 1) If there’s a problem, it’s my manager’s problem. I am entry level by choice, and have as little responsibility as possible. 2) Work stays at work. The second I clock out, I stop giving a damn about that place. 3) On the rare occasion I get a call from work, I always screen it. If some jackass didn’t show up, and I don’t few like going in, I simply don’t call back.
I like my job. I like the people I work with. I’m pleasant and helpful to our customers. Maintaining boundaries helps keep it that way.
The best job to have is the one that you don’t need. I was fortunate enough to retire early from a high stress job. I didn’t hate the job. I just had enough. After 3 months I was bored. Got myself a part time job. And as was mentioned in an earlier comment, if the place burns down I couldn’t care less. I’m always on time, never sick, and good at my mickey mouse part time job because it’s a joke compared to the real job I had. It is fascinating to observe my fellow workers who are all very nice people because for them THIS is their career and for me it’s just a throw away to get out of the house.
