If you were given a "career mulligan," what would you choose?

[ziggy29]

Just something I've been thinking about this morning (and a lot recently, actually).

Assuming all else in your life would remain the same -- you'd still have the same spouse/SO, the same kids (if any), the same friends, and all that stuff -- if you had another chance to start your w*rking life, what would you choose to do? If you had that do over -- that "mulligan," as they say in golf parlance -- what would you do?

Or are you one of those fortunate creatures who got it right the first time and are actually doing what you love?

Would you pursue something with higher pay? Maybe something you find more satisfying? Something that let you live in a region/environment where you'd like to be? Something with more job security? Better retirement benefits?

Me? I was a Computer Science major in college and I'm a "senior systems analyst" now. The job's okay as far as jobs go, but it's uninspiring. Looking at how everything played out in the 20 years since my graduation, I'd go back and study conservation/wildlife biology instead and work in a natural park or wildlife refuge setting, preferably for state or federal government.

I love nature, I'm fascinated by the interplay among species in nature, and I love being out in the open, uncrowded outdoors. I love living in relatively rural areas. And of course, especially in THIS economic and market environment, I'd love the job security and top-notch retirement benefits of a public employee.

As much as I seek "early retirement," what I'd really prefer was a j*b that didn't drive me into *wanting* to retire as early as possible. I'm pretty sure, in retrospect, that this was my calling -- my career "fat pitch" -- and I missed it.

Anyone else?

 

[Own2Feet]

Ziggy 29 wrote: "Me? I was a Computer Science major in college and I'm a "senior systems analyst" now. The job's okay as far as jobs go, but it's uninspiring. Looking at how everything played out in the 20 years since my graduation, I'd go back and study conservation/wildlife biology instead and work in a natural park or wildlife refuge setting, preferably for state or federal government."

I went through a period of "if only" in my mid-40's and got over it. There's little point. For one thing, the grass is always greener--ALWAYS, and for another: if one really made a terrible move, one generally does something about it at the time. Not always, I know, but usually, we have our own best interests at heart, and they drive what we do in life. Even if it doesn't seem that way every minute of the day.

At least, don't kick yourself too much, that you didn't go to work for the Interior Department/Park Service or something similar in the Federal govt. It may well have been more fun than computer science, but to get to GS-13 or beyond (to earn a salary and pension that would seem reasonable to you, the computer scientist), you'd have had to get off the park ranger station and into an office, doing paperwork. Plus, many of the "real" (non-govt; in their view) wildlife biologists/conservationists would consider you more or less the Enemy, since you'd have to carry out the policies of the Administration even if you didn't agree with those policies.

Honestly, I envy CS's because I find them to be well compensated, respected in society, creative, hard working, and well able to stay employed.

 

[Walt34]

Also see this thread:

http://www.early-retirement.org/for...forum-folks-me-included-32025.html#post592268

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

Good question, Ziggy.

I would not change my career choice but, having made that choice, I would have handled my early finances differently. I could have borrowed less, stayed in the tiny house longer, driven my 11 year old car a few more years, etc. I had to borrow for my training since my folks were not wealthy, but I could have borrowed less. 6-figure debt til age 40 is not a good way to start your FIRE plan. Fortunately, I was never attracted to the country club/BMW/world cruise lifestyle.

But the content of what I do is pretty much everything I could have hoped for, and that made the long hours tolerable. I'm ready to cut back now, largely in proportion to my job becoming more managerial and less clinical. Probably will continue part-time clinical practice when I ESR.

 

[ziggy29]

I went through a period of "if only" in my mid-40's and got over it. There's little point. For one thing, the grass is always greener--ALWAYS, and for another: if one really made a terrible move, one generally does something about it at the time. Not always, I know, but usually, we have our own best interests at heart, and they drive what we do in life. Even if it doesn't seem that way every minute of the day.

I didn't really start this as a kick-myself thread for making a bad choice. It was, on balance, a good choice -- I've had more than 21 years in industry, the pay has been pretty good, and (knock on wood) I've had steady employment with no layoffs -- but time teaches you things, such as what really matters.

I think of this hindsight (in some sense) like seeing former classmates at a 20-year high school reunion. What mattered to you back then in terms of the people you dated and considered "marriage material" is likely a lot different at age 38 than at age 18. At 38, you've been around the block a few times; you've been enraptured by people with attributes important to 18-year-olds, you've been hurt by pretty faces, you begin to realize the more "superficial" things that seemed like must-haves at 18 aren't all that important at 38, and that "boring" qualities like being nice, trustworthy, dependable and responsible are very important -- which is a quality that many of the "rejected" crowd in high school possess two decades later.

What's done is done, obviously, but I thought it would be interesting to see how what we *thought* we wanted as a 20-year-old has diverged from what living life has taught us to value today.

Like I said -- not really dwelling, but a mildly wistful wondering. I am happy with how things turned out, but I sometimes dream of liking my job well enough to not WANT to retire early. I suppose at some point when we're financially independent I can leave my current job and pursue something where I don't need to be motivated by the pay, but that's several years away (and a lot farther away now than it seemed a year ago).

 

[CuppaJoe]

Oh, Ziggy! When I was very young, I spent four years working with Zoology grad. students. Most of them had their research studies published in “The National Geographic.” One had a movie made of his rhesus monkeys, last time I checked he was a prof at that same univ. Another became director of the Charles Darwin Institute. I trained a prof. to bring his drafts to me; he had been a post-doc. for Leakey and was writing about comparative hip structure of ancient humans.

It was so much fun and hard work, my job was a state job. I did get a small pension lump sum when I left after four years. They would send me their crumpled up receipts from field trips, sometimes they were out there for months. I got to turn the receipts into expense reports, “campsite along rte. xx to camp site near village x to campsite x, total mileage xx.” One image I remember well was the “California Condor guy” who always look his coffee break in our office, he’d have his feet up on a chair, leaning back, reading the stock tables. It was the early ‘70s and we speculated that he was rich, who else would have money in the market?

I'm still thinking about your question, a good one.

 

[socca]

My opinion: engineering (in general) sucks as a career if you're an employee (in either the private or public sector). Engineering is great as a hobby or entrepreneur if you're mentally wired 'that way'.

There are plenty of people who spend the first part of their lives making great sacrifices (either doing what they hate, or doing what they like in a setting that makes the work much less fun) in order to make enough money to do what they truly love later in life.

Could I have made more money faster by doing something different? Offhand, I don't see how with the same risk of failure. So, I think I made the right career choice early on.

 

[unclemick]

Hmmm - as long as we are wishing - instead of a desk jockey a do over would have me be an astronaut.

Might as well go for broke.

heh heh heh - Interestingly - I decided early that private flying was too expensive.

 

[Kwirk]

Medicine (sorry, can't be more specific about specialty and maintain some degree of anonymity) has been very good to me. I sometimes think I should have tried for dermatology or, maybe, radiology but I'm not sure that I would have been happier.

I'd like to know if I could have succeeded in a more entrepreneurial career (probably computer or engineering related ) but I'm really not wired for the stress.

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

Medicine (sorry, can't be more specific about specialty and maintain some degree of anonymity) has been very good to me. I sometimes think I should have tried for dermatology or, maybe, radiology but I'm not sure that I would have been happier.

I'm an academic internist and my lifetime income would have doubled in the specialties you refer to above.

But no Mulligan on that one - no way I could have spent the last 33 years doing either one. Made enough, enjoyed it, and it was a good fit.

 

[Janet H]

Great question - I would have chosen a different path had I truly understood what I was really good at doing. Unfortunately, it took 20 years of w*rking before I had that important piece of info. On the other hand, I trained for and chose to do something that I loved and have gotten great personal satisfaction out of its pursuit.

Tricky thing - deciding which path to take....

 

[NW-Bound]

I always wanted to be a electrical engineer, already playing with and building vacuum tube circuits since the age of 12. I spent my teenage years drooling over Allied Electronics catalogs. I was also good in math, particularly the more abstract areas that make applied math for engineers looks like child play.

I chose to be an engineer over becoming a mathematician, figuring that even if I could be equally good in both above fields, an engineering job pays more. Sure, it does. When I was at lower levels, I just stuck my nose to the grindstone, and learned the trade. It was only when I got to a staff position (before the age of 40), that I started to see the dirty politics. It was always there, but it was not that bad in the 80s, when I started work. I double-checked that with older coworkers to be sure that it wasn't just my perception, being a peon back then.

I did not want to spend the rest of my life climbing that corporate ladder. So, I dropped out and joined like-minded groups of friends to start our own businesses. After working hard for 10 years with long hours, with reduced, then no pay, never 401k matching, here I am now.

I still do not regret not taking the other career choice in math. Financially, it is likely to be worse. Job satisfaction wise, unlikely to be any better. So, I would not know what else I would do differently than becoming an engineer.

I often wonder if I should have stayed at a megacorp to enventually retire with a fat 401k and a pension to boot. But then, I would always ponder if I could become a successful entrepreneur and be in control of my own destiny. Of course, I now know that is not so easy and simple.

So, I try to be content with who I am, and what I have done. My only regret was that when I was younger, did not take time off from my work and extra-curricular work-related research to study investing. They say you can become a master in something after spending 10,000 hrs. I spent 10 years in my somewhat specialized field (actually not part of electrical engineering at all) at megacorps, which means more than 20,000 hrs.

Ironically, if I were more financially inclined, and less technically successful in my work for megacorps, I would not attempt to wean myself off them, and yet end up better financially. Some of the people I knew back then have done very well.

 

[Nords]

I would have chosen the same challenging occupation, but I might have left it a lot sooner.

No complaints. I did all my nasty overtime & overseas deployments up front before I became a parent. If I'd pulled a ripcord for the Reserves then today I'd be doing nasty overtime & overseas deployments at the end of my career, and as a parent.

 

[Khan]

I really don't know.

Most of my life I drifted into (and out of) relationships, jobs, et al based on other people's ideas/actions.

Only when I was 40 or so did I try to actually set paths to results.

 

[Meadbh]

I often wonder how lfe would have turned out had I pursued the career ideas I seriously considered along the way (dentist, architect, engineer, surgeon). One thing is certain: I would probably be living somewhere else.

 

[freebird5825]

Plan A : Geophysicist/GeoEngineering
Plan B: Computer Programmer => Computer System Manager => Engineer
the shortest distance between 2 points is a straight line.
but only on paper.
i've had a lot of fun being a chameleon for 25 years in the technogeek world. i would never change that. i learned an awful lot by not allowing myself to be pidgeon-holed in one narrow area. change is good.
i w*rked in both private sector and fed civil service. i'm glad i did both, and very glad i did private sector first, then govt j*b last.
the only change i would make is where, geographically, i ended up w*rking. the number and variety of opportunities were very limited.
i would have liked to have been be able to change agencies for diversity and advancement. oh well...maybe in the next life.

 

[chinaco]

Good question. Difficult to answer.

 

[Rambler]

I didn't know what I was getting into when I started but it turned into better and better opportunities all along the way. Up to this point, I would not change anything. The career has had its stresses, but not to the point of being insurmountable. It has also had its benefits, good pay, a chance to see something of the world (and especially to see the insides of jumbo jets), and the opportunity in a couple years (fingers crossed here) to ER. There have been tradeoffs. For example, I like gardening, the outdoors, hiking and biking, etc, but there is little space or time to do them in my career and location. I guess I decided I liked the idea of retiring early, with a larger asset pile, than I liked those other things.

So no, I would not have done anything differently, with the exception as others have said, that I would have learned about investing earlier (I saved, but I did not invest, in my earlier years).

R

 

[redmcclain]

I really enjoy the j*b I currently have (although I don't think ANY career would be enjoyable enough to eliminate my desire to ER) but I didn't discover this as a possibility until I was in my late 20's and then after graduate school and a detour here and there wasn't able to actually start my career until I was in my mid 30's. If I had a career mulligan, I would have taken a year off after college to backpack through Europe and/or Asia and then straight into graduate school and an enjoyable career. Although I suppose it could be argued that I wouldn't appreciate my current position if I hadn't been given the opportunity to work for crappy employers doing work I loathed.

 

[FIRE'd@51]

I guess I'm someone who actually had a career mulligan, and fortunately, I was able to get my mulligan into the fairway. I was trained as a physicist and taught physics at the college level for four years. At that time (in the mid to late 70's) I watched people more qualified than myself (and in many cases more qualified than those currently with tenure) get turned down for tenure. I knew enough about finance to put risk on one axis and return the other, and the curve went in the wrong direction; that is, the more risk one took by hanging around, the lower the expected return. Needless to say, I jumped at an opportunity to go to work on Wall Street, and I've never regretted it one bit. I was fortunate to work at one of the best Wall Street firms at the time, with some of the best people, many with PhD's. The work was extremely stimulating, as well as financially rewarding. As much as I had thought I wanted an academic career, there is no way I would choose one over the Wall Street career I ended up having.

 

[donheff]

As much as I seek "early retirement," what I'd really prefer was a j*b that didn't drive me into *wanting* to retire as early as possible. I'm pretty sure, in retrospect, that this was my calling -- my career "fat pitch" -- and I missed it.

Anyone else?

I envy people who love their work so much that they wake up eager to go in on Monday morning. No real reason to ER in that case. But they are few and far between. Often the things that most appeal to you would get old fast if turned into a job. For example, I did a lot of SCUBA diving in my 20s. I thought about turning that into a career but realized that I wouldn't like it -- work in a shop, ugh; teach and lead dives, sure but for how long? Late in my career when I switched to IT I discovered I "love" the techie aspects of IT. But I suck at it. I don't really have the patience to excel so a techie career would have been a disaster. Various evaluative "inventories" and tests during my career always showed I had the right set of "people" skills and ADHD driven mile wide/inch deep expertise needed to do what I did -- senior management. And all the feedback I got told me I was good at it. The problem was I never really liked it very much -- thus ER.

Now that I am FIREd (four years in) I find that I do love that. Still, it would have been great to align a passion with employment so I could have been as happy with the 35 years or so I worked as I am with ER.

 

[Ronstar]

Started out as a land surveyor / civil engineering tech. Then came an opportunity to become a nuclear power plant operator. I didnt take the job and I'm glad I didn't, although the engineering / surveying world is a little shaky now. The power plant job probably would have been repititious and boring, and not allow the semi-re situation that I enjoy now.

 

[Eagle43]

Do over? Could I be the second baseman for the Boston Red Sox? I still could retire about age 35 or so. After that career was over, I'd do 5 years in broadcasting, then retire again and move to a warm island. Why didn't I think of this in the first place?

 

[Rustic23]

First, this is a flawed question! You may have the same wife, as you might have met her before career started, you most like would have the same kids, if you had the same wife. Probability you would not have the same friends, live in the same place, have the same standard of living, job stability, or any of a thousand other thing that would be different.

Sure, how about Tiger Woods, or maybe Lottery winner, or name any other fancy fun filled thing you could think of. I will wager that with the exception of famous sports personality there is some representation on this board, and, everyone of us/them would do something different. Maybe not the entire career but something within the career. Studied harder, worked harder, worked less, not moved somewhere. There is always a negative to get away from.

Now having said that. I would not have changed career choices. Jet Pilot, Appraiser, Computer Programmer, Manager. Might have done some of these differently but would still have done each, as each led me to where I am. RETIRED.

 

[Nords]

I am happy with how things turned out, but I sometimes dream of liking my job well enough to not WANT to retire early. I suppose at some point when we're financially independent I can leave my current job and pursue something where I don't need to be motivated by the pay, but that's several years away (and a lot farther away now than it seemed a year ago).

Upon further reflection, I wonder which comes first. Are we born programmed for ER, or do we settle on ER as the alternative after deciding that our career options suck?

I think most people sleep better at night by ensuring against unemployment. Then one day they realize that they've ensured against lifetime unemployment and, as Dory says, shortly after that epiphany the BS bucket always fills to overflowing.

The avocation crowd never even dreams that they could end up unemployed (or at least lack for spending money) and so they never even plan for ER... I saw Magic Johnson on Charlie Rose the other night and he was so enthusiastic about his non-profit avocation that I was almost jealous.

Me-- I think that ER is my avocation. I just have to make sure that I don't work too hard at it and burn out...