Questioning my life choices

[Boomstick]

So with a lot of both recent, not so recent and just old events, I've really been questioning my life choices a lot lately. Now before I get into this, I know you're all thinking "well you're almost 40 go out and buy a Ferrari and be done with it", I guess that isn't too far off only if I could afford a Ferrari, I'd own a really nice bass boat.

 

Basically, I've worked the same job since I graduated college, sending marketing emails to people. Now I've known for a while the company's days might be limited, but with recent events I suspect that timeline is moving into the short term. One of the reasons I haven't left is because I've been there so long, I get a lot of vacation time and tend to take at least three weeks of fishing and camping time in the summer plus time for my kids hockey tournaments, out of town appointments and so forth and two weeks would be a drag.

 

But more than that, I realized the other day if I was to introduce a bug that stopped sending emails for three months, people would probably thank me. The way that people are so focused on every little detail, you would think we are designing nuclear missiles or something a bit more critical. I can't help thinking it would be nice to do something that maybe I believe in that maybe puts smiles on people's faces or brings people some sort of joy. My fiancée has said for a while now that her retirement plan has been to open a cat cafe and honestly that sounds like a good change of pace, but I would probably have to move to the eastern side of the state (higher population) to succeed. Massachusetts does not even have one to boot (we did, but from what I understand the lady who ran it was a little crazy and tried to put the cats in an unheated, unventilated empty basement, so that didn't last long). One in DC was quite successful. Or maybe I'll stick with software engineering but find something interesting. Anything related to fishing perhaps? I wonder if Garmin or Hummingbird is hiring...

[Tennessee Boy]

I have to ask.  Does a Cat Cafe serve food to cats or serve cats as food?

[Choporoz]

I'd developed the impression that most everyone under 40 changed jobs every 2 to 5 years.  Unless you are well into earning a solid retirement package, I think there's no reason not to do something you enjoy.  Any reason to think you couldn't land in a more satisfying job environment for comparable pay / benefits?

 

[TnRiver46]

I make less than most McDonalds employees but it is nice doing exactly what people want me to do for a living 

 

I’ve also had the same 2 jobs since I got out of college in 2007, but I’ve added a couple more in the last two years

 

doing something you don’t enjoy everyday is a drag 

[J Francho]

You have some negotiating leverage right now and could always add more vacation time to sweeten the package.  Many employers are willing to do so.  That leverage is going to disappear once this pandemic situation tapers, so start looking now. My queen just landed a dream job (for her, lol) after searching for six months.  I say if you want a change, make that change.

 

Unrelated, just curious...do you guys use something like AWS SES (Simple Email Service) for mass emails?  I mean most email providers ding you for mass emails, and mark you as spam.  Just wondering, because we ran into an issue with Multi Factor Authentication using email as a second factor as an alternative to SMS or QR codes.  We predicted we'd get dinged after three emails, lol.

[Boomstick]

1 hour ago, Tennessee Boy said:

I have to ask.  Does a Cat Cafe serve food to cats or serve cats as food?

Neither, exactly. Basically you have a cafe with cats and people can pay to visit the cats and drink coffee or use it as a shared work space (with cats!). It's often big with people who can't have cats (like college students), but this way they can spend some time with cats.

 

And of course you adopt out your cats too and relieve space issues at local shelters as well.

 

1 hour ago, Choporoz said:

Any reason to think you couldn't land in a more satisfying job environment for comparable pay / benefits?

Not really. I've passed up many because I'm getting a little too old for a 90 minute one-way commute and my fiancée doesn't want to move. But with more and more places let you work remotely these days, I should be able to find something else remote. And given the pandemic, the number of remote positions has increased even more, although a lot of them may expect me to go into an office at some point.

 

I wouldn't be opposed to moving myself, but the rest of the family might object.

1 hour ago, Choporoz said:

I'd developed the impression that most everyone under 40 changed jobs every 2 to 5 years.

A lot of it revolves around the area I live in. There used to be a handful of startups, most didn't pay very well and a couple of larger employers and that's it.

 

Well I'm remote full time now (they closed our office) so at this point I might as well be considering other remote opportunities.

[roadwarrior]

Lots of opportunities right now if you just make the effort to put yourself out there.

The best companies are the most active searching for talent in today's tight labor

market. Talk with a professional placement company.  They can help you refine 

your options and target your search.

 

 

[Boomstick]

35 minutes ago, J Francho said:

You have some negotiating leverage right now and could always add more vacation time to sweeten the package.  Many employers are willing to do so.  That leverage is going to disappear once this pandemic situation tapers, so start looking now. My queen just landed a dream job (for her, lol) after searching for six months.  I say if you want a change, make that change.

That's probably true. Regardless, I spent half of my day browsing opportunities (day off) and there's a couple that sound promising. Some directly in my area (.NET, full stack) and some in other areas I have experience in (ruby on rails, PHP) and another with a cloud based audio streaming service that looks very interesting - and that claims to value building proof of concept apps and giving developers time to complete projects to their satisfaction before releasing it which from what I'm used to is hard to believe.

 

40 minutes ago, J Francho said:

Unrelated, just curious...do you guys use something like AWS SES (Simple Email Service) for mass emails?  I mean most email providers ding you for mass emails, and mark you as spam.  Just wondering, because we ran into an issue with Multi Factor Authentication using email as a second factor as an alternative to SMS or QR codes.  We predicted we'd get dinged after three emails, lol.

When we rebuilt our email system a few years ago, we looked at using SendGrid, which is often generally recommended as an email provider especially with Azure hosted applications and they offer some good functionality as well. However, our product team scoffed at the idea of sending email through someone else. As they put it, "if we don't send emails ourselves, then what do we do?".

 

So we made an in house service to handle sending mail which handles bounces, open and click tracking, unsubscribes and feedback loop tracking and so forth. This would be the second time I created a system like this (did one for another product some years back on Ruby on Rails). We even added a built in throttling system that throttles how often we had an email address and can be by domain as well if we have issues with a particular domain, and limit it to one email per day per email address. It took a little while from launch, but we were able to get our domain reputation maxed I believe about a year ago and every now and then it takes a dip, but it's becoming more rare.

[Way2slow]

Can't help in your situation.  While growing up, I had so many skills, I never had a problem with employment. At 28, I got tired of working for a living and spent the next 22 years in the Air Force. 

I will say, I would hate to know I had your current job.

[A-Jay]

@Boomstick

Good Luck on your new employment quest. 

I am not really in a position to offer too much advice on the above, except that a fresh start and relocation often go hand in hand.

And will also say . . .

Stop dragging your feet and Marry that Lady before someone else does !

A-Jay

[TnRiver46]

35 minutes ago, Way2slow said:

. At 28, I got tired of working for a living and spent the next 22 years in the Air Force. 

 

Ok that’s pretty funny 

[Way2slow]

What other company is going to furnish you a place to live and pay you to see a lot of the US and Europe.  Granted, being in the special duty assignments I spent most of my carrier in, I sometimes got to see more of it than I really wanted to.  It was a nice vacation until the last couple of years, when the government first started on their massive cutbacks.  I was going to 26 years, but the fun meter pegged out at 22 years and 4 months.  

[Boomstick]

3 hours ago, A-Jay said:

Stop dragging your feet and Marry that Lady before someone else does !

We have a date set. We didn't do  it this year because we didn't know if we'd be able to have people at a reception.

[Way2slow]

Just have a JP do it and have the formal wedding if and when all this crap gets under control.

[Boomstick]

3 minutes ago, Way2slow said:

Just have a JP do it and have the formal wedding if and when all this crap gets under control.

We'll survive, it's only next May

[Tennessee Boy]

11 hours ago, Boomstick said:

We have a date set. We didn't do  it this year because we didn't know if we'd be able to have people at a reception.

We had people at our reception.  All they did was eat our food.  They even ate our wedding cake!   When the cake was gone they got mad and threw rice at us.  

[TOXIC]

Good luck on your decision.  My wife and I were having a conversation about staffing and work ethic just the other day. Since I’m now retired, I spend a little more time on the internet and I get to see a lot of what the younger generation(s) do and how they think.  You are over the age of most of these “kids” that I am talking about.  I find it amazing that the attitudes towards working have gone so opposite of what I did.  I see all of the young people choosing to live in modified vans, school buses, tiny houses, etc.  Some have IT jobs or other types of work that they can do remotely but some live off their blogging income documenting their travels and lifestyle.  While I don’t align politically with comedian Bill Maher on much, I like how he shoots straight most of the time.  He said basically that the trend of living like nomads is supposed to be for old retired people who have been longtime contributors to society, not those just getting started.?  My big concern with this trend is what are they going to do when they are my age (64) with no retirement, no savings and no way to support themselves because they “lived for life’s experiences” when they were young?  

[slonezp]

If you ain't happy, work becomes too much like work. You're young and as stated above, you have leveraging power right now.

[schplurg]

If you're only 40 then you have plenty of time! I made my first commercial video game at about 40 and made a lot of money. After that I went back and managed a strip club I'd worked at before. Did that for a year. My brother owned it or I would have never searched for a job like that!

 

Now I do graphic design for a pot dispensary. I don't work in the store but it's an interesting place to work. I have no problem working in the pot industry, after all I used to sell alcohol to people and let me tell you, the drinkers cause all the problems in the bar. Every time.

 

That's 3 unusual yet pretty cool jobs all since I was 40. You got a lot of life still to go. Heck I just started fishing 4 years ago and I'm 54 tomorrow.

 

Edit to add: try and do what you love. Making games, working in the bar and the pot club....it's been enjoyable to me. As I age my motto is "I will fit work around my leisure/fishing time from now on, not the other way around."

[Boomstick]

4 hours ago, schplurg said:

That's 3 unusual yet pretty cool jobs all since I was 40. You got a lot of life still to go. Heck I just started fishing 4 years ago and I'm 54 tomorrow.

I really started fishing in 2017. My youngest son was always like "should we bring the fishing rods" when we went camping, and we always had the car packed literally up to the roof as it was. Finally, I got a bigger car and I went out and got us some better fishing supplies, and I suddenly had a second hobby (music/guitar and fishing)

[king fisher]

Work takes up a large portion of your life.  If you don't enjoy your work, than you don't enjoy most of your life.  Find something you enjoy doing for work and do it.  Money can't make you happy but being happy with your job can.  Nothing like waking up in the morning and you can't wait to get to work.  What ever you do for work, make sure you have plenty of time to fish, because as you age the time spent fishing doesn't count against you.

[Koz]

On 11/6/2021 at 10:57 PM, king fisher said:

Find something you enjoy doing for work and do it.  

I lean more towards making money so you can afford to do the things that you enjoy. That doesn't mean to gut out a job where you're miserable, but sometimes you have to cope with some crud at the office.

 

If you still enjoy coding, neural networks and AI are where both the fun and money are these days.

[Captain Phil]

Reevaluating your life choices is a good thing. It seems many people are going through that now.  Perhaps this will help you?   I'm retired, but I worked for over 55 years.  I've been an office machine repairman, computer programmer, salesman, business owner, web designer, fishing guide, Realtor, copy writer and consultant.  I've had many chances to do what you are thinking about now.   You don't need a job, you need an opportunity.  Find something you enjoy doing that pays enough money to live on.  Be your own boss.  This means you will work harder than you will as an employee.  You may have to work for someone until you find your own path to success. You won't mind because you will love what you do. Your personal relationships are important. It's a lot easier to be successful when you have encouragement and support.  Don't be afraid to make a mistake.  At 40, you have time to get it right.  Stay optimistic.  You don't know what's ahead of you, you only know where you have been so far.

[BayouSlide]

3 hours ago, Captain Phil said:

  Don't be afraid to make a mistake.  At 40, you have time to get it right. 

 

Some words of wisdom right there.

 

We all have to find our path, but to do so we have to live bravely.

[Darth-Baiter]

at 40 with a family, with kids.  dang...it isn't all about ME at that point.

 

I would proceed carefully.  I was a late bloomer so I kinda know the feeling.  I went back to school, which was an easy decision since I was bascially solo at that point.