Good job. I won a league each of the past three years...and will be reading your column regularly if I ever manage to convince this dude in my league to finally give me Duncan for Barry and Divac .
I've read the same book and it help me open my eyes a whole bunch to what I can do and be happy. Also, to Manny Ramirez, Reading about your town has shed a good bit of light on your other posts about females. Now I think I understand, maybe.
Thanks for your advice . I think I'll start looking soon...will probably get some headhunters involved as well, although I know they have more jobhunters than employers looking for people right now. My goal from May to September is to learn Spanish (in Barcelona), improve my Korean, and learn surfing . I think these three things will be so valuable to me in the long term that it will be ok to not work for that time .
dimsie, Expect nothing? No way, with your mental abilities, you'd have to have some pretty damn tough competition to get beat out. I've always liked to think of it as a matching process, not a job interview. Unless they're jackasses , the questions should go both ways to help determine whether the 'match' will work. This approach always kept me pretty calm and confident during interviews... GOOD LUCK!
All rhetorical questions: * Do you enjoy your industry, and/or what you do in your industry? * Do you know what you want to do, and in which industry? * Are you prepared at all for the new type of job? Skills, training, degree, relevant experience? * Is it a good time to move into the new career path/industry? * How old are you? Although it's good to get experiences from others, I think by far the most salient issues are specific to your circumstance.
Hey, that matching process thing really helps. Thank you. I've never been in the running for a job important enough for the employers to spend $500 just to talk to me for an hour. It's weird. See, who says history doesn't pay? (Well, it's not actually a particularly important job in the grand scheme of things. But it's full time writing and researching! It's so neat! I really want it!) Must. Quell. Panic.
Weird, I was about to start a thread like this, too. I always wanted to see how diverse/drastic a change people made in careers. I honestly would like to work in a hospital again... even as a lowly tech like I once did. I wouldn't be making much of anything salary-wise, but hey, it was fun talking to all kinds of people and driving nurses crazy. I'm kind of sick of sitting with geeks that make the same mistakes repeatedly, but damn, the salary is hard to give up especially when you know that it's going to help you retire faster so you can maybe go be a pharmacy tech or something again.
Ok here is my story. I was working in Houston and had just broken $100,000 for the first time in my life. I still wanted to get into video games, so after much bickering with my wife, I took a job making $36,000 a year, but doing what I loved. I worked hard, learned the biz inside and out and now own my own video game company, which I am about to sell to a bigger developer which will more then make up for all the lost income over the last 7+ years. If you are doing it to do something you love, then go for it, there is nothing greater then loving what you do. I get up in the morning and know that I have the privelidge of going to work and doing something I love. If that is what you are going for then do it. Realize, of course, that you may fail. However it is better to try and fail then to not try at all. DaDakota
You name it, I did it. I spent 10 years working for Kroger, starting as a cashier and ending as a department manager. In between I did stocking, receiving, frozen foods, file coordinator, customer service manager, and just about anything else. I left there to work in route sales for 3 years, selling mostly to grocery stores (surprise). I couldn't take it anymore. To this day I simply loathe walking into a grocery store. Getting away from retail was the best thing I could have done.
Thanks for the feedback fellas.... DaDakota, I am not really chasing a dream here. I just feel ready for a change. I think it's going to be a long process.....providing I don't get laid off or something to that effect. I have so far survived 6 rounds of staff cutbacks, but who know what will happen in round 7 (and there most assuredly will be). Perhaps I am suffering from a bit of burnout. I'd love to be a Vet. But is it feasible to go back to school for umpteen years and still afford my mortgage, my new truck, and support my lifestyle? Maybe, but it would be hard. Thanks though. That's a great accomplishment for you to have done it so successfully, even though you took a step back in salary (ok, more like 5 steps), you were able to leap forwardand beyond that. Inspirational! Hell, I am going to try out for the Mavs next season!
DaDa...What are you going to do after selling the company?? Retiring at age 38 sounds like a pretty sweet deal. what's M&A?
Mergers & Aquisitions. Good luck HOOP-T and congratulations for having survived the cutbacks thus far.
I'm not big on career changes unless they come from your outside hobbies. Work is pretty much work no matter what you are doing. The grass isn't usually greener on the other side. But I also believe that you can do whatever you want to do if you put your mind to it. So if you go for it just go full throttle and enjoy it. I believe the best dreams are done outside of your 9-5 job. You have a lot more ownership and freedom in that type of situation.
