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  3. How did you choose your occpuation for people who didn"t just follow thier passion

How did you choose your occpuation for people who didn"t just follow thier passion

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  • F [email protected]

    I wish I knew. Ideally I planned to build a set of skills that can be applied to solving multiple very different problems.

    It worked for a while. For a short time I had jobs whenre proving myself by doing was appreciated more than having formal credentials. But even then, my need for constant change was not understood. People even thought they were doing me a favor by giving me a long-term stable project as a reward.

    Everything since has been hell.
    In the corporate world the idea of transferable skills doesn't exist, actually it's actively looked down on. Unless you have the exact same job description in your previous job they won't even consider letting you do it, even though it's 80% the same.

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    [email protected]
    wrote last edited by
    #45

    to build a set of skills that can be applied to solving multiple very different problems.

    What was your set of skills?

    Is there some kind of definitive list of useful transferable skills that these can be found on? I'm starting out and something like this would be very useful bc I have no idea

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    • S This user is from outside of this forum
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      wrote last edited by [email protected]
      #46

      Hmm true. I was thinking of something artisian like being a cook/chef where even though you just use it as a plan B, you gain tangible skill the longer you do it to fill said gaps

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      • S [email protected]

        Hmm true. I was thinking of something artisian like being a cook/chef where even though you just use it as a plan B, you gain tangible skill the longer you do it to fill said gaps

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        wrote last edited by
        #47

        Brutal work though and very hard to break out

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        • S This user is from outside of this forum
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          wrote last edited by
          #48

          True. Idk any other ideas?

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          • S [email protected]

            to build a set of skills that can be applied to solving multiple very different problems.

            What was your set of skills?

            Is there some kind of definitive list of useful transferable skills that these can be found on? I'm starting out and something like this would be very useful bc I have no idea

            F This user is from outside of this forum
            F This user is from outside of this forum
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            wrote last edited by
            #49

            Well, my "narrow" specialty is software engineering. I'm putting narrow under quotes since it's a very wide field itself. There are many specializations within the field but having an interest in a specific domain is what's really important. It's quite easy to switch between specializations given the opportunity.

            Moving up on the abstraction ladder, software engineering is one manifestation of systems thinking. Meaning designing and modifying complex systems consisting of machines and humans. This mindset is applicable other areas, really anything that has a "network" in the description - cargo logistics, public transportation, electrical grids, telecommunications.
            Even law to some extent. I'm only half joking when I say programming made it easier for me to understand the legal system.

            Unfortunately I don't think anyone has a categorized list of possible options.
            Anecdotally some groupings I've noticed:

            • Manual service jobs (sure hairdresser and cook are very different jobs but somehow the jump between them is not so huge)
            • Caring about and improving other humans (teachers, therapists, nurses, coaches, both physical and mental)
            • Physical violence (military, police, mercenary, criminal. Ideally for protecting others, but the line is very thin be careful here)
            • Medicine (once you go there there's no going back, incl veterinarians)
            • Agriculture (raising cows and planting corn is very different, but due to cultural and practical grouping switching between the two is easier)
            • Art. Regardless of the preferred medium it's all very fluid. For example creating a sculpture after a few years of being a musician will surprise nobody.
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            • Z [email protected]

              Most people don't love their job.

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              wrote last edited by
              #50

              That was not the question, though.

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              • cactus_head@programming.devC [email protected]

                As some with ADHD, my interest fluantuats wildly. How does an average person choose a job thats suppose to be for life and not worry about loss of interest, let alone some with ADHD.

                J This user is from outside of this forum
                J This user is from outside of this forum
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                wrote last edited by
                #51

                ahdh, I work at a bank because it pays well for not having a degree

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                • cactus_head@programming.devC [email protected]

                  As some with ADHD, my interest fluantuats wildly. How does an average person choose a job thats suppose to be for life and not worry about loss of interest, let alone some with ADHD.

                  B This user is from outside of this forum
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                  wrote last edited by
                  #52

                  I studied physics in undergrad, and was planning to continue to graduate studies. Took me until my senior year to realize that I actually found most of the work in physics to be extremely boring, and I was actually just following the degree path out of an egoistic desire to prove how smart I was.

                  But now that I'd lost my path in life so close to graduating, I realized I needed to find another, fast. Luckily I'd been taking classes for a CS minor, so switched that to a major and graduated with both degrees with an additional 6 months of classes.

                  However, since I'd been banking on physics, I only had one summer to do a CS internship, got it at a no-name local company, and ended up in .Net development after graduation. Despite what Lemmy might say, .Net is actually not that bad - at least as a developer. The documentation is good, the tooling mostly makes sense, and corporate support is pretty responsive. But it doesn't lend itself to working on sexy, pro-social, world-changing tech. So I generally found my coworkers and company to be pretty boring and closed minded, and the work we did to be quite meaningless.

                  Due to the lack of social connection at the job and meaninglessness I felt about the work - in combination with the fact that I kind of felt I'd been forced into the occupation by circumstance - I suffered from a pretty consistent depression for about 5 years while working in software.

                  Luckily, my actual passion was the outdoors. During college, I'd taken 6 months off to hike the appalachian trail, spent my weekends going to the mountains with friends, and spent weekdays riding bicycles around town and dumpster diving - I was happy doing these things, and realized I didn't need much in the way of money or material posessions to make me happy.

                  So when I got my software job, I immediately started saving as much money as possible and putting it in investments. So after working for about 8 years, I was able to retire.

                  These days I work part time rigging concerts, do little diy projects around the house, and go rock climbing. So on the whole, I feel like it worked out well. Though now I have the itch to get back into software and prove that I could do the thing where I do something meaningful and enjoy it and make tons of money.

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                  • cactus_head@programming.devC [email protected]

                    As some with ADHD, my interest fluantuats wildly. How does an average person choose a job thats suppose to be for life and not worry about loss of interest, let alone some with ADHD.

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                    wrote last edited by
                    #53

                    Land Survey. I stumbled into it by accident and it is perfect for ADHD folks. It’s a combination of cartography, history, law, geometry, geography. You can be in an office, you can work outside. Best part is, you can get licensed with out a degree in a lot of states. And, even if you don’t get a license, you can make a decent living at it.

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                    • cactus_head@programming.devC [email protected]

                      As some with ADHD, my interest fluantuats wildly. How does an average person choose a job thats suppose to be for life and not worry about loss of interest, let alone some with ADHD.

                      H This user is from outside of this forum
                      H This user is from outside of this forum
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                      wrote last edited by
                      #54

                      Money and its ability to support my (future) family was the biggest deciding factor for choosing IT. The other factor was not wanting my passion (playing music) becoming a necessary burden to make ends meet, with the resulting stress killing my passion.

                      It's just a job. Some days it's good, some days it really fuckin' blows, but overall, it's tolerable.

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