Trapped in my profession

**Darren** · **01-08-07, 04:37 PM**

Ok, I know that nobody is ever really trapped in their profession but I feel that way. I'm in the tech industry, I work in computers/programming and have lost my enthusiasm for my job. My wife is in the same situation with her job so it is doubly hard on us. We continue in our jobs because leaving them would mean big setbacks in our retirement goals etc... I know, $$ isn't everything... I've started over two times so far and I'm 36. I'm now in a job that is most peoples dream job...it was for me but now I've lost my desire to remain competetive in this industry. I may get it back but I fear I won't.

I'm sure this is a common happening for people. Why can't I just be happy with my job? Because I think I have bigger and better things I can do but I have no idea what they are. I dabble in realestate and have done well there but the market is stagnant and I am still fairly inexperienced in the field. I can't seem to figure out where my passion lies professionally. Neither can my wife.

So, because of my current income level I feel trapped! Most jobs that sound fun are less than half my current pay... been there and done that. I could handle losing a bit of my current salary but at this point in my life 50% would be devistating.

Ah, priorities... always a jumbled mess. Poor me right? I'm a blue collar guy trapped in the white collar world I guess.

Thanks for listening.

Darren

**Josuah** · **01-08-07, 06:01 PM**

Maybe you just need to change the company you work for. It might not necessarily be the job that you feel unhappy about, but rather the people you have to work with, the project you're working on, or the company you work for. Maybe switching to a new technology would be interesting for you.

**Sonnie** · **01-08-07, 06:07 PM**

Yeah... it sounds like you are successful, so maybe there are other companies out there that you can sell your qualities to. Or maybe you can go out on your own. I wasn't happy until I got out of Corporate America and went out on my own. So far it's been a blessing.

**Darren** · **01-08-07, 07:40 PM**

Hard to tell if it is the company or the type of work. The company is very fast paced and if you aren't climbing the ladder then you aren't working hard enough. I'm in a good spot there though and feel that the work/life balance is decent. Maybe I'm burnt out, maybe it's a small mid-life crisis... a tad early too

. I don't know. I do know when I'm flipping houses I don't have a care in the world... I find that strange because I have a lot of $$ on the line when doing so. I'd love to work for myself but it is a bit freightening. I've done it in the past when I was young and failed due to a bad partnership. It was fun while it lasted though.

You work your whole life to get where you are and when you get there, sometimes it isn't what it is cracked up to be. I really like the people I work with, my benefits are fantastic... I just feel inadequate and THAT is what wears on me I think.

**01-08-07, 09:35 PM**

Something that helped me in the workplace was to forget about the place as soon as the day ended. Now you're on your own time, it's like a weekend. You have a wife that loves you at home and some projects on the go. To us, our home is our palace, workshop, theater, day spa and entertainment factory all in one. At home we are in paradise. That feeling puts you in a great frame of mind each day.
But it sounds like you've lost your "mojo". That is something none of us can help with. I lost mine a while ago. My solution was to set high but attainable standards for myself at work. work to live, don't live to work. Forget about other peoples standards, yours are higher .Forget what others think, be true to yourself and your family. And dont forget, you are married to a pillar of strength that won't let you down. Changing jobs may work in the short term, but wherever you go, there you are. You will still be you. When you can appreciate yourself and the things you do, you can move forward. I would stay at the job you're in but change my reason for being there. Your work influences the way millions of us interact with new technology. Never mind the boss, you're helping us. Now get off your arse and finish that subwoofer project. We want to see how it turns out. Tell us if things improve.
regards, Buddha

**Darren** · **01-08-07, 09:42 PM**

Yeah, losing my mojo kind of sums it up in a simple term. Me and the wife also view our home as our paradise. We love the home and our neighborhood. Part of my fear is that if I left for a lower paying job is giving up the home we've worked so hard for.

I guess I need to really take a look at myself and see what it is I want. I'd love to stay where I am, maybe that will be how it turns out. I too am very concerned that changing jobs would only be a temporary fix. I think that could very well be the case if I were to leave, then I'd really regret my decision as I cannot work for a better company than I do now.

Oh, the subwoofer has been done for a while...

Love to shake the house.

Darren

**terry j** · **01-08-07, 10:24 PM**

I like the couple of little insights in the last few post's, yours Darren re maybe what was getting to you was your own perceived inadequacy, and Maurice, you made a few salient points as well.

The reason those couple appealed to me was that, well basically, WE make our lives. Unless you are totally asleep at the wheel and life is doing the making for you, for the most part what we get - the good AND the bad is our own creation.

The point??

Well, as Maurice said, it is very possible in changing jobs you will end up at exactly the same point again. Why?? Cause it's where you're at at this moment in your life.

So, my only suggestion, as purile as it may sound at first, try to re-create the job for yourself. Re- discover what it was about it that first appealed to you, and get that back. Make a game of it, life is meant to be fun and a game, all too often it becomes ' serious' and we lose our enjoyment of it and the same applies to our work.

Just prattled on a bit and then came to my senses and deleted it.

Good luck Darren, hope it works out for you.

**drf** · **01-09-07, 05:03 AM**

my humble thoughts: Maybe you are feeling this way becaue your work isn't taking you out of your comfort zone, leading to the same results day in day out? A tunnel vision of confinment can develope from repeatitive or predictable activities. Maybe this is why you feel in control and free when dabling in realestate where although the stakes are high, your ability to cope under pressure gets to stretch its legs and thus you take control of your life.

If this is not the case, at least know you are in my thoughts and prayers

**Steve Williamson** · **01-09-07, 06:23 AM**

I agree with Dr F, you need to find a way out of your normal life cycle, real estate may be high stakes, but you have joined a HT forum, can't you find a part time self employed vocation to enritch your life and take away the monetomy of your existence? I was the same as you, 32 years old and working for a large multinational IT company, left that and set up as a partnership as our own IT company (good saying: the worst ship to sail in is a partnership) met a few people in the industry and now do home theatre installs and home automation. Sounds like you and your partner would be the best couple to expand into this area. Hope you all the best in your endevours.

**lcaillo** · **01-09-07, 08:29 AM**

drf may have something. There is a great book that might put it in perspective, called Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, by Mihaly Csikszentmihaly ( apologies if I mispelled that...it is tougher than even mine), who did research on thousands of highly effective and satisfied people in many fields. Possibly the most important book I have ever read. One of the factors identified is the balance between ability and challenge. I have found that management often makes the mistake of providing too much challenge in terms of production speed and not enough in terms of qualtiy of work. The former is often a problem because employees are not given the resources to succeed (therefore the ability is lacking compared to the challenge). The latter is a problem because the ability exceeds the degree of performance that is allowed by the job, causing frustration and bordom, even in a fast paced environment. The nature of the challenge is all wrong in terms of promoting excellence.

**Darren** · **01-09-07, 10:12 AM**

You guys all make a lot of sense, give me a lot to think about. I'll go through and re-read the posts and do a little thinking on my own. Sometimes I feel a career change would really help but then other times I'm utterly confused about what I want.

I am not sure if I am overly challenged or not challenged enough. Seems like it would be an easy question to answer but I truly cannot make the distinction right now. I do know I feel intimidated by my peers in this job, most are the cream of the crop, top notch in this industry and I'm a lowly developer

. I desperately need to become motivated if I am to remain in my current job.

**lcaillo** · **01-11-07, 08:31 AM**

I hope you figure it out and find a way to be satisfied.

Be well. Be in touch.

**redfury** · **11-28-08, 12:27 AM**

Bringing back a dead post, but I'm curious if Darren found what he was looking for.

I'm at that point in my life. I finish hardwood floors. Been doing it for almost 12 years now. I make good money, my hours are relatively stable ( in the construction field, that's a blessing ), and I have some perks.

However, my body isn't going to take this forever, there's no ladder to climb and I'm probably not going to be making much more money in my position working at the same place.

However, how do you leave something that is guaranteed? It's the risk factor and comfort factors. I'm comfortable with knowing where my paycheck is coming from and don't want to risk losing my stability.

Uncertainty of where I would go next, or what I would do keeps me put. I want a change, but I want a change that keeps me safe. Most of the time, that just isn't going to happen. Taking that step out into the wild, a leap of faith so-to-speak, is really hard when you have a lot of things you don't want to risk on the line.

**Darren** · **11-28-08, 03:17 PM**

I'm still in the same profession but took an opportunity that was presented. I'm now working on a high profile project with lots more responsibility, I still have some of the same issues but things are looking better. I'm getting more satisfaction with the added responsibility. I'm in a better place but would still prefer to win the lottery

It's a hard thing to give up a good, stable, reliable job to try something different. I still haven't made a leap like that.

Darren

**tonyvdb** · **11-28-08, 04:23 PM**

I'm 39 now and been in the same field since I got out of high school (Building Operator) HVAC and other related maintenance items in large buildings. I changed jobs about every three years until my current workplace (been here since 1999). The grass is always greener on the other side no matter how hard you look until your at that so called greener place and then you become used to it and things sometimes start to look bleak or get boring.
Fortunately with my current workplace I have a great boss and I pretty much do what I want when I want and the perks come with being at a place a long time one being more holidays and another being knowledge of how the building works so you can anticipate problems before they happen.
What I am trying to say is count your blessings as things can be so much worse and we live in such a prosperous place compared to some and we really need to remember what is important, Family and in my family's case the Lord whom we thank for all the great opportunities that come our way but also even in the times where we think nothing is going right.

The years go by so fast now and it wont be long before we look back and ask ourselves if we made the right choices in life and count ourselves blessed that we have our loved ones with us because thats really what is important.

**redfury** · **11-28-08, 06:40 PM**

I think the biggest issue I have with my workplace is that they supposedly want to find ways to make our company better, but when you bring up something that NEEDS to be addressed, they poo-poo it and say "we already know about that, we are working on it". Working on it? We've had the same problem since I started working here 12 years ago! By golly, when they get done working on it, it's going to be so revolutionary, it'll change the way we do business I bet!

What's the point of having knowledgeable employees and asking them for their opinion if it goes in one ear and out the other?

I fought with that for quite a while and got so sick and tired of it, I became a "drone" worker. Came in, punched the clock, did my job, collected my check every week for 2 years. I didn't "care" about the quality of my work, I just did it. And I was miserable. A good friend came back to work there and helped me change my attitude about the job. It was about making the customers happy, not my boss. Making my customers happy made me happy again, and that's all that matters to me now. Now I go out and I do the "right" thing for all my jobs. I hold my shop accountable, whether they like it or not. I'm amazed I get away with it sometimes, but then again...you work in the system long enough, you figure out how to get things done. Learning to roll with the punches has helped a lot in recent years. I can continue doing this job mentally for as long as I want now, it's the physical side that's getting me worried. Of course, if I hated my job completely, it would make transitioning out into something else much easier, but it's hard to leave a job that you can find some satisfaction in.

**brandonnash** · **06-25-09, 11:50 AM**

Not trying to hijack your thead, but I too am in the same position that others in this thread are in. I have been in the same job for nearly ten years and for the past 5 or so I have felt completely trapped. Some of you may know that I work for a 911 dispatch in Nashville which believe it or not is the largest consolidated (taking police, fire, and medical calls) in the nation. Collectively as a center we process between 2 and 3 million calls a year. That's a good amount, but to give you an idea of how individually busy we are there are only 120 of us that work here taking calls when we are fully staffed. To top it all of 8 of the years I have been working there I have been training people to do the job which makes an already difficult job even harder. Any kind of bad horrible sickening situation you can think of I have taken a call about it and talk to usually the victim first while whatever happened is still fresh on their minds.

I would leave in a second given the opportunity and equal pay, but I only have a couple years of college and with three kids and a wife to provide for I have to make at least the same at a new place. I have lost my passion for the job. All the other places I have looked at that I am qualified for make usually a lot less than what I do now.

My real passion for work is barbecue. I have sold barbecue at a couple football games and loved it. I have been making barbecue and other foods like this since I was 15. The first time we sold bbq was in Knoxville at a friend's frat during a UT game. The work was long and difficult. I was awake working on transporting, prepping, cooking, serving, etc for over 48 hours straight with no sleep. It was great. That by itself made me want to open a bbq restaurant. I have done a lot of research on it and believe that I could be successful with the concept I have for it, but the thought of taking a loan as large as needed for the idea I have scares me to death. I may take the jump sometime, but until then I am stuck.
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