Did you stay the course on your career or work life path?

[TheLooks]

I was at one time a prototype machinest. Very much discontented, so always had side hustles. Then for the last 5years in that trade I had a garage shop that My customers billed as a design shop.

When NAFTA offered to bankrupt me, I changed gears and became a commercial electrician. The pay was so low in AZ, I started a handyman side hustle that consumed My time and became a full time gig.

Then went sailing and installed instrumentation as other sailors learned of My skillset. Now as I move around, I find people still bring me out of retirement with everything car/RV related small jobs.

Never had a real plan, but I have had a full life.

I like that last line, I never had a plan, perfect.....

 

[Underboss]

So, as I stated I started as a tool and diemaker. Got into the music business on the road and realized there is much more out there. Moved to LA worked on some videos, then movies. Started a construction company and a hobby of building hot rods. During the construction company I started a cabinet shop because the shops I was using tended to never be ready on time.
While those two were running with incredible employees, I decided to open a hot rod shop. I built show cars and street driven hot rods and bikes. I also started an online hot rod parts store.
Somewhere in the middle of it all I began writing tech articles, at first for magazines then online websites.
I decided to partially retire and move back to NYC. A friend had a privtae lab and building inspection company. He was having a hard time trying to get an inspector with a certain certification. So I took the test, passed and went to work doing inspections in Brooklyn and mostly in Manhattan high rises.
That is where I was made an offer I could not refuse and took over the construction superintendents position to finish a 62 story building.

 

[Alan_Hepburn]

Let's see: got out of the Army in 1973 and got a job repairing car stereo systems. Six months later heard of an opening for an electronic technician at a local semiconductor manufacturer (in Silicon Valley) - with absolutely no experience, or knowledge, of digital IC's I applied and surprisingly got hired. A little over 2 years later that company got bought out by a larger one, and a friend recommended me to another company in the Valley - National Semiconductor. Got hired as an electronics tech in their digital design group. Spent the next 30+ years there, advancing from electronics tech to senior software engineer in their CAD Support group - supporting the software we used to design integrated circuits. All that with only a high school diploma and a few college classes. Then 2008 came around and got caught up in the massive layoffs so we simply retired - I was 57 at the time and got an awesome package so it made sense. About 2 years later National got bought out by their largest competitor - I like to think they couldn't survive without me!