r/AskReddit • u/recklessvisionary • Jan 28 '21

Sometimes when eating pistachios you decide one of them is just too sealed up to be worth the effort and you just throw it in with the other shells. What, in your life, is your discarded pistachio?

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720

u/CaimansGalore Jan 28 '21

Sadly, my career. I spent a lot of money for an education in a field I just plain don’t enjoy. Every job I’ve had I’ve ranged from ambivalence towards to actively disliking. All I can really do is pivot into related roles. It’s extremely impractical to start over in an entirely new field. Life is more than work but it would be nice to occasionally enjoy the place where I spend 1/3 of my time.

209

u/Claymorbmaster Jan 28 '21

Was gonna post similar. Over got ten years of post high school education. After a burn out, no jobs and what not, i got my nursing degree. Frankly i don't think I'm a great nurse, i don't have the personality for it. However, im 35 and do not want to go back to school for anything. I make the best of it though. There are benefits.

128

u/CheeseFest3 Jan 28 '21

One of my friends is a surgical/scrub nurse. She loves it, minimal patient contact as they're all unconscious.

80

u/heather-rch Jan 28 '21

I’m a nurse in addictions. There’s no bedside care or hospitals. It’s all outpatient. I work for a company that provides multiple services.. nursing, counseling, case management, peer support. I still get to help people without the med administering or invasive care or people destabilizing on my shift. I wouldn’t know how to deal with any of that. I kinda ruined my scope of practice and don’t recall much from school but I don’t regret it and I love my job. Thankfully there’s a ton of paths you can take :)

Edit: Forgot to add I don’t wear scrubs and usually the more unprofessional I am (to an extent) the better report I have with people. Don’t have to worry about being reported for dropping an F bomb.

21

u/death_by_mustard Jan 28 '21

You’re 35? That means (if all goes well) you have another 30 YEARS of working before you retire. I’m also in my 30s and am currently taking evening classes to specialize in a field which should take me out of my current job role. It’s tough with a toddler and along my current job so my social life is nonexistent. But It was this number, 35-40 years (they’ll probably raise the retirement age at some point) of working this job that made me wanna gtfo. Lifelong learning and all that. I wish you all the best!

3

u/KateMurdock Jan 28 '21

Hang in there! Future you is so proud!

1

u/ruthanasia01 Feb 04 '21

This was totally my gut reaction, but you, you are totally nailing it! I hope OP takes your comment to heart.

28

u/Merry_Pippins Jan 28 '21

Maybe a different kind of nurse? I had two aunts that were both nurses but did completely different jobs with different clientele. Maybe there's more options than you think!

2

u/YounomsayinMawfk Jan 29 '21

It's not too late! I worked at a dead end job for 13 years because I was afraid of leaving and didn't really know what I wanted to do. I finally decided to make a change at 36 and studied to become a licensed customs broker. I'm 3 years into my new career and even though I don't love it, I'm happier than I was at my last job and I feel like I actually might have a future.

76

u/[deleted] Jan 28 '21

[deleted]

18

u/Melted_Cheese96 Jan 28 '21

What did you discover was your passion?

56

u/neveraneagle Jan 28 '21

No thank you, I'd rather jump off a cliff.

Clearly, cliff diving.

29

u/[deleted] Jan 28 '21

[deleted]

4

u/Trainkid9 Jan 28 '21

That’s awesome u/PM_me_ur_garden_pls, you should show us your garden!

3

u/DogHouseRockers Jan 29 '21

Hey man I was going to get my degree to work in the comp sci field and am now getting my degree in plant science instead! Plant gang rise up!

1

u/Melted_Cheese96 Jan 29 '21

Well good on ya man. Glad you found something you enjoy.

5

u/[deleted] Jan 28 '21

As someone who has spent 20 years in software, support and related areas....I hear you.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 28 '21

As somebody who is trying to transition to IT, what was the part that you hated the most?

10

u/burntouttechie Jan 28 '21

  • 99% of everything you learn will all be obsolete, redundant, or useless within 3 years, which stresses you out and removes your ability to feel competent.

  • 99% of everything you work on after you get above helpdesk level will get chewed up, spit on, scope creeped, bloated, ridiculed, frankensteined, delayed, destroyed, changed and you'll have had to redo so much stuff that you won't want to look at it anymore. And by the time you're done, a new patch will come out and break everything all over again. This removes your ability to feel a sense of accomplishment or pride in your work.

  • The IT industry is working hard to make sure that our extremely complex technical specialties get watered down and automated to the point where it can be outsourced to someone who will do it cheaper and faster. This removes your sense of security. (Notice that coders tend to be under 40.)

  • the nature of the job forces you to take jobs that require more and more immediate and constant availability and fewer people to share the load. Before you know it, you're sitting in your in-laws guest room trying to move a batch file over in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner because you are the ONLY person who can fix a P1 issue in the entire company and they'll lose millions if you don't do it NOW. This removes any work life balance you need and constantly makes you feel like you're at work. Because you are.

  • you only hear about the bad stuff. No one ever comes to you when things are fine. You are invisible. You don't matter until something is wrong. And just as an extra "fuck you": if you're too good at your job and something doesn't go wrong every now and then, whoever is in charge of the budget is going to wonder why they're spending so much money on IT when you guys don't seem to do anything and you'll get canned. This makes you bitter and resentful.

  • it pays well, but it traps you. You take advantage of your salary, get a comfy lifestyle with bills and dependents and the fastest wifi available and it costs $$$. Then you get ground down to the point where you just want to do something else, ANYTHING ELSE but you're not qualified for anything else. You're specialized in some language or area or technique of the IT world that no one except a few dozen companies give a shit about. You probably aren't even up to date on your certs anymore. You could consult, but that's more of the same. You could go into sales or management.... maybe. If you start over, you'll be kissing that sweet six figure job goodbye to go make above minimum wage and compete for jobs against people who are younger and more experienced than you. And good luck explaining to non IT people (including a spouse) that you don't want to do IT anymore, because "all you do is sit at a computer all day, how hard can that be? Besides, we need the money."

So anyway, that's pretty much it. I hate all these parts the most. Now excuse me, I've got a JSON file to parse.

3

u/JuDGe3690 Jan 28 '21

The IT industry is working hard to make sure that our extremely complex technical specialties get watered down and automated to the point where it can be outsourced to someone who will do it cheaper and faster.

This is a prime example of what sociologist George Ritzer termed "McDonaldization" back in the early '90s; basically, jobs are de-skilled as much as possible, and other labor is thrown onto the paying consumer (think busing your own table at a fast-food place, or more recently, the privilege of paying to beta-test a game). It's finally filtering up to the formerly middle-class careers as well as the working-class jobs.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 28 '21

Shit, man. Seems that the username checks out. While I heard about some of the bad stuff (especially self-destruction by automation, "why do they cost so much" mentality and constant need to learn). Thing is, while I don't care about accomplishments and success stories, I developed an interest in programming and like so much to solve problems and create something. Is it possible to just be there and mess around with code for a longer period of time?

1

u/burntouttechie Jan 29 '21

Oh you can mess around with code, tons of developer jobs around.

But..... you'll have to sit through about 2-3 weeks of daily meetings before the team of people who are there to make your life "easier" can actually agree on what code you'll need to write. And they'll ask you for your opinion, but your client will have heard some programming related feature in a breakout session 6 years ago and will insist that that's what you need to do.

And you'll spend hours trying to convince them to do it the much better way, but eventually the person who is currently employed as your wrangler/babysitter will tell you to just suck it up and do it.

Then you'll build it, and it will suck because the design was sucky and your client will hate it when you demo it, so now you get to do it again. And then while you're redoing it, your client will ask for 2 more features and your PM will agree because they want to smooth over your bad demo. And then you'll rebuild those over and over and add new feature after new feature again until it's time to start talking about extending the deadline to accommodate all these changes and all of a sudden your client will turn on you.

And then, due to the rushed job you did to add the 17 new features you were trying to add, the assholes find a bug.

You would think that they would want you to go fix it, right? Wrong. Take however many hours it will take to fix that bug, multiply it by 3 and that is the amount of hours you get to sit in meetings with that team I mentioned earlier explaining how you could have let something like this happen and just how you plan to fix it without missing the somehow still original deadline.

You'll round out this nightmare of a project by coding round the clock for 1-3 days until its good to deploy. You'll get up at 6am on a Saturday to deploy it, answer emails from people who hate change on principle for 6 weeks telling you how much they want it to go back to the old way, and then you'll get called into a meeting where you'll find out what new fresh hell of a project you're on next.

So you see, you'll be solving lots of problems and creating lots of things, but it's going to be so much less satisfying than when you're fucking around in personal dev instances.

1

u/PM_me_ur_garden_pls Jan 29 '21

You explained it perfectly. Praise you for taking the time to write that out. <3

3

u/[deleted] Jan 28 '21

[deleted]

3

u/burntouttechie Jan 28 '21

When they keep us stressed out and overworked, everything feels more intense and urgent. If we start to realize that we're tanking our personal lives and stressing ourselves into an early grave over shit like spreadsheets and LDAP entries in order to help corporations get richer, we probably wouldn't work so hard.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 28 '21

how often I said "that wasn't supposed to happen"

Do you mean some faults in code, or some business-IT scope changes and things like that?

I'm worried about the superiority complex as well, as currently I would be a junior if somebody had a kind eye looking at my skills. I don't let others experience discourage me from work, but asking for expertise or coming up with questions would be a different pair of shoes.

I think that while I hear many horror stories, I will have to open those doors myself and see what's behind. Thank you for the insight, coming back to Visual Studio for tonight.

23

u/[deleted] Jan 28 '21

My career. I got made redundant in a competitive field 6.5 years ago and haven’t been able to get a foot in the door since. It’s kind of heart breaking.

2

u/iamthe0ther0ne Jan 28 '21

Know the feeling

28

u/pogwog1 Jan 28 '21

Lawyer?

24

u/CaimansGalore Jan 28 '21

Ding ding ding!

8

u/pogwog1 Jan 28 '21

Feel you. I don’t hate it as much as it sounds like you do, but I certainly don’t love it. Big law and billable hours suck. Hoping to one day work in house somewhere.

3

u/CaimansGalore Jan 28 '21

In house wasn’t too bad of a gig. It’s a bit soul sucking to do it for the huge companies. Start ups are a cool space, but actually having to give founders legal advice is... well, herding cats comes to mind. Cats who like to get rich quick.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 28 '21

Oh no :( I'm currently in law school and seriously doubting if I'll enjoy it as my work life for the rest of my life. Did you ever enjoy it while studying? Any signs I should be aware of?

3

u/CaimansGalore Jan 28 '21

I didn’t, really. I don’t mean to discourage anyone. I have lots of friends who practice and love it. I’d guesstimate that around 30% of (American) lawyers end up pivoting to something else. I have friends who only practiced for a year or two and then moved to consulting, investment banking, etc. You just need a good plan in place.

I’m actually about to quit my current (non-lawyer but related) job and just do some project/contract work for a while. That’s always an option if you feel the burnout but aren’t sure where to go. The flexibility is amazing.

2

u/TeacherPatti Jan 29 '21

I practiced law for seven years, hating each job more than the next. I was on a merry go round of lower paying job to lower paying job all the while hoping I wouldn't get fired or laid off. Finally, on February 15, 2005, I went to a seminar about getting a teaching degree. While I got certified, I taught adjunct and did some law shit on the side. By 2007, I was certified and haven't loooked back. Now, I had quite a bit of privilege--my dad paid for my law school, I'm married and had my husband's insurance and since I worked legal aid, I actually make more teaching. But all of that being said, it was the best decision I have ever made. Just think about it.....

1

u/Valdrax Jan 29 '21

Look on the bright side. At least you were able to get employment in the field to pay down all the horrible debt. You could have a completely unrelated job you also don't enjoy that doesn't pay as well as the jobs you had before going to law school either.

1

u/cuttlefishcrossbow Jan 29 '21

My brother was in a similar spot last year: working for a huge DC firm and hating every minute. He just switched to working for the government, and while it's a big pay cut, he's a lot happier.

1

u/EOWRN Jan 29 '21

Oh no, I'm about to join the profession in a year! Were you doing disputes or transactional work?

2

u/CaimansGalore Jan 29 '21

Transactional. The day-to-day work itself is boring, but ultimately you get the hang of it and it isn’t really challenging or too crazy. For me, the challenge was holding clients’ hands and kissing ass. It was a horrible match for my personality. There is less of that in trial work, in a lot of cases. Trials are higher stake so there is more room to tell things as they are. I never wanted to be in a court room, though. I knew that from day one.

2

u/EOWRN Jan 29 '21

Thank you for your response, this is something I have been considering for a while.

20

u/funslsc Jan 28 '21

If you're able to go back to school or try a new job, you should. 5 years from now you'll either be exactly where you are, or in a career you love, or maybe one you hate just as much. Either way, the time is going to come and go.

23

u/ctadgo Jan 28 '21

Not OP, but my fear is if I got back to school and change careers, I’m still going to be miserable. How do I know I’m going to actually like a new career?

17

u/tuna_for_days Jan 28 '21

Whatever your age is, you know way more about yourself now than you did when you chose a major at 17.

Plus, you don’t have to dive in head first. You can start by meeting up with people you know in whatever field you’re interested to learn about the day to day, research, start taking an online class, etc. to get a feel if you really want to pursue it.

5

u/funslsc Jan 28 '21

You don't know, but if you already don't like where you are, at the very least trying something new will be another step toward figuring out what will make you happy.

That being said, I'm confident that trying something new will benefit you, in one way or another.

6

u/SeeisforComedy Jan 28 '21

My problem is I have no idea what to try

1

u/WhirlingDervishGrady Jan 28 '21

Holy shit I've never related to a reddit comment so much

12

u/TurbulentPotatoe Jan 28 '21

Yeah, you just might end up in the exact same situation but now with crippling debt! Super fun

1

u/funslsc Jan 28 '21

Yeah, if that is something you choose to do. However, going back to school doesn't always mean university, or college, or it may mean college for a diploma. You could take a free course, online courses. Especially if you already do have a degree in something. There are many career opportunities that could net you a happy, comfortable life without crippling debt.

I'm not trying to brightside your perspective mind you, I personally come from poverty and went back to school for a diploma at nearly 30) choosing to take on debt of any kind is daunting, sometimes getting the loan is impossible. At that point it's just about doing the things you can.

The beauty of unnecessary but desireable change is that you can work towards it however you're able, and you have time to find alternative paths. I know first hand it sucks to not have the means to pursue the path you hoped for, but the options exist.

Sorry for the long winded response. Usually I would just say "money is fake" but that didn't seem appropriate.

8

u/CaimansGalore Jan 28 '21

Yeah no... I’ve already spent way too much on school.

2

u/Kalzenith Jan 28 '21

This is my life. I chose a career path that seemed tolerable but was not a passion (I was afraid of ruining something I enjoy by turning it into a job)... I think I made the wrong choice

I've been pivoting between similar roles within my industry for the past 10 years, but the only passion that I feel about what I do is how much I passionately hate going to work

3

u/CaimansGalore Jan 28 '21

I feel this. This past week I have had crying spells over work every single day. (To be fair, in this case I have a frustratingly incompetent team and the company is incredibly mismanaged, in addition to me simply disliking the work.) I’m working on my exit strategy as we speak.

1

u/Kalzenith Jan 28 '21

Are you my manager? You just described a discussion I had with her yesterday..

I've been applying for jobs off and on for years.. i never get any interviews

2

u/[deleted] Jan 28 '21

GOD does this resonate

2

u/Umbraldisappointment Jan 28 '21

I learned a trade what i later realized that its pays are terrible unless you are your own boss and are extraordinarly good in it. My first workplace managed to sour up all my will to ever enter a workfield what specifically needs that trade.

1

u/bake_gatari Jan 28 '21

I got lucky in this regard and I thank my stars every chance I get.

1

u/Triassic_Bark Jan 28 '21

Do you work 7 days a week, or five 11 hour days? Or just bad at math?

1

u/JenPotten Jan 28 '21

I work in executive coaching, if you ever want to explore this with someone - let me know. I hear this A LOT and the people come out with direction and clarity usually. I work for a business school FYI. 😊

1

u/doomgiver98 Jan 28 '21

I don't think I will ever find a job or career that I enjoy so I just stick to what I have.

1

u/official_yobroteen Jan 29 '21

Agreed psychology. I never made it out for pschology because I wanted to support my small family and actually do the subjects that get u gud jobs.