I think part of it was multiple personality disorder, but the rest was just good timing.
“You’re studying what?!” was the usual response I received from peers of a similar age. That’s a pretty fair question. And some data seems to back up his initial thoughts.
The age range of a person starting an IT career is 19-25 years old. (Posts from www.reddit.com, so accuracy is certainly not guaranteed)
The average age of an IT college graduate is 25.4. (www.haroldextra.com)
The average age of an IT Support Technician is 40.3 years. (www.datausa.io)
I found that last age figure somewhat reassuring. I’m only about ten years from the mark.
And that means people in the IT business stay there for a long time.
Let’s face it: career changes are scary. Especially as you get older.
However, there is an advantage to taking a leap.
I think it’s like skydiving. After the first, the second is more fun and less scary. You are also more aware of what is going on around you.
You will need some background information to put my desire for a career change in perspective.
When I decided to leave my professional career of more than 20 years for a new one, I had a part-time income from an independent consulting business. So all he needed from an employer was just a little extra income and affordable health insurance.
My wife and I were lucky. We had very little debt. Just a car payment. And we had gotten rid of the house. Watch the 1980 movie “The Money Pit” and you’ll know what that joy of ownership was like. I never want to have a house again.
Searching for jobs online felt very strange. He had always used word of mouth to find a new job. Turns out the online application was actually too easy.
I guess that’s why so many poor HR people are complaining about hundreds of unqualified applicants. It takes the applicant 90 seconds to have their web browser automatically fill out a form, then cut and paste a cover letter and attach a preloaded resume into the job posting site’s system. It takes the HR person much longer to review it. I feel bad for them. Hence the current use of Applicant Tracking Systems, I suppose.
I applied as a teller at a small local credit union. Yes. Say. It was the first ad on the front page of Indeed.com in the metro area where I live. This is the reason I applied. The “sound” of the ad copy was like a friend talking to you. He totally resonated with me. I researched the institution online and it seemed solid. So I applied online. No resume required. It felt quite strange.
Two days and two interviews later I had a job and super cheap health insurance. Please understand that I hadn’t made less money per hour since high school, but I accepted the offer anyway.
I was able to take a low-paying job because, as mentioned above, I could “reduce” my income and still maintain our same quality of life. And learning a new industry would be fun. When was the last time you had fun at work?
So, taking the first professional leap, we moved to a nice apartment in a new city. My wife got a job Monday through Friday for a non-profit organization at the Senior Center. We finally had a “normal” life and marriage. We both live within a mile of our employers and there are shopping malls and restaurants all around us. I could probably even get rid of the car. I’m too attached to my trusty Honda.
Now, four years later, I still enjoy my employer at a credit union. And it seems that his small staff has a similar mindset. The verbiage of the “Help Wanted” ad really communicated a lot about the company culture. It’s a great place to work.
Since my hire, I’ve moved up the ladder a bit. I now work and helped create what amounts to a “virtual” branch. We offer members electronic access and transactions. Online loan application and remote closings. And we solve all the problems of the final user and the internal client. I know how to talk to people from my previous career, so I earn nearly three times as much incentive as my peers. Transfer of soft skills from any industry.
Going from the teller to the member help center to virtual banking required a lot of learning about financial applications. The most exciting part for me was implementing a new internet banking provider to meet the growing demands. Being part of the pre- and post-deployment process, as well as the pre-tests before, during and after (monthly updates), was and continues to be a great learning experience.
Last week, the system administrator asked me a question that my co-workers called him about. I wasn’t available to help her at the time, but I did hear her call him about 30 minutes earlier. Our cubicles are close to each other and I use a standing desk, so I can almost hear almost all of my co-workers. I smiled inside knowing more than the professional. And it had happened before. And from.
You are now getting a hint of some of my motivations for a third career change in the industry.
Another motivation for a career change at 50 is my beautiful 13-month-old granddaughter. Long story short, my stepdaughter was not and is not capable of taking care of her. We found out when she was one year old that the little munchkin had jumped between three other familiar families in a different county since her birth.
My wife and I had heard enough.
We request and receive permanent guardianship.
So now we are “instant parents” to a beautiful, “back to normal” 19 month old. Besides my wife, this little girl is the love of my life. She is the youngest of three siblings. She was the most careless. She started out with the most handicaps. And I will be dangerous if she is not going to be the happiest, the smartest and the most stable of the group. Nonetheless. That’s my goal.
So he was “instant father”. However, do some math on the age difference for a minute. That means I will see her graduate from college when she is in her 70s.
Well. With 20 years of working life ahead of him, “what now? What’s next?”
I really enjoyed working with our new Internet Banking Application Provider and all the other providers who made our new system run smoothly for the end user.
And launch day was incredibly busy but fun. I’ve watched vendor support experts on the site resolve issues with just a few clicks. Or write a script on the fly to fix a bug that no one caught.
He knew what he wanted to do after that.
Be one of them.