Posted by johnathandos 2 days ago
Ask HN: What would you do if you didn't work in tech?
Human sexuality is the one thing in this world that's more interesting to me than computers, and while I'm grateful for my stable job and career that allow me to explore it as a hobby, I'm infinitely curious about what that other life would have looked like.
Back in college('97) a guy offered me a job as an elevator repair tech. I almost dropped out since the money was better than what I'd make as an engineer($50/hr plus OT). My first engineering job, doing embedded SW and some EE work for a large consumer electronics company was $37.5k/yr.
I mean this sincerely, this is a geniuinely impressive level of self-awareness. If everybody was better at recognizing things like this, I think the world would be a much better place. Cheers
The majority of my larger life decisions have turned out poorly. Fortunately the ones that worked out paid off well enough to make up for the ones that didn't.
My wife is an SLP at a hospital and she loves it. I couldn't handle the more medical parts, but I can see crossover there with assessment and problem-solving. She geeks out on it.
Both of us are definitely interested in work that benefits lives. (For me, a lot of that is driven by my desire to repent for working in online advertising for so many years.) If that's something that matters to you, and it sounds like it is, I definitely recommend pushing for that. But think outside the box, too--there are a lot of places in tech that benefit people and provide interaction.
Finally, watch out for the student loan-to-income ratio for things like SLP. Make sure you're balancing that.
I've considered it a lot when I went through a big burnout, perhaps I should've just thrown away the 20+ years of career in tech at that moment to start as a journeyman since now it just became much harder to let go off the comforts this career brings me...
After that two weeks I even did some market research to see if there was any way to make a remotely comparable living off of it (unfortunately there wasn't, at least until the kids are out of the house and expenses go way down). I also realized that my style was not well aligned with popular styles at the time (this was 2019), and that shipping costs basically meant I could only sell to local area (and even then delivery cost/time would require adding too much margin).
Someday hopefully life will be more compatible with our dream :-)
Material costs were a little ridiculous, but since I'm only building for myself that wasn't a huge issue :-)
As an energy consultant friend explained to me: You want to control the ventilation rate, rather than relying on whatever you get accidentally (which may not be enough, especially on calm days).
I can see myself liking the process of construction:
* https://www.youtube.com/@PerkinsBuilderBrothers/videos
But I know it's hard on your body, and you have to do it regardless of weather, so I wouldn't enjoy those aspects as much (versus in a climate-controlled office / WFH).
But more generally, I would like to commit my time to making the built world more beautiful and sustainable. I despise the obsolescent plastic slop that we all are forced to use, wear, live in, and just see and be around all the time. I find it such a degradation in our society -- the shift in taste and values away from an appreciation of well-made, durable, and well-designed physical objects.
What type of wood would you recommend? Do you have any favorite designs you would recommend using as a starting point?
It's typically not recommended to self-design, the physics gets technical and there are a lot of free working plans out there including by famous naval architects.
Most people start out with simpler designs using plywood and fiberglass but, due to my aforementioned disdain for a lot of modern approaches, I personally went with a traditional oak frame, cedar plank, copper rivet construction. It is very time consuming but I'm enjoying the journey. I chose a flat-bottomed sail boat design (dory) to make it a little easier on myself.
There are endless variations on the concept of a "wooden vessel that can be propelled through water" idea so it really depends on your interests and tastes. It's a "form follows function" situation too, so you also need to consider your use case -- engine, oar, sail; ocean, river, lake; etc.
Some of the gears I helped make will still be in use in a century. I find great comfort in that for some reason. The job was rewarding, and interesting, but the pay and commute really sucked.
As for helping others, there were a handful of us in the job shop before it was bought by a bigger machine shop. It's a fairly solitary job.