Career-Advice Please

[Rainbow-Flame Mystic]

Hi. I was hoping someone here could
recommend career-advice for simple-living?

My strengths/interests are: math,
science-fiction, working with nature
and plants, plus music (I play the clarinet).

Right now, I'm a cashier and hoping
to secure something a little bit more
stable, yet not too demanding/stressful?

Thank You - Miguel Gonzalez

[Yppej]

I have a neighbor with two jobs - cashier at a music store and he gives guitar lessons at a community college. Maybe you can have several jobs, then you have more stability rather than relying on just one income source.

[Gardnr]

I fully understand that a college education is not a requirement in life. Do you have a degree in anything? It would be helpful in providing recommendations.

I encourage you to consider the parks departments? Exploring and using your love of nature and plants. Summer children's programs where you can share your love of music. National park work? So many programs.

If you have a degree, teaching math at the middle or high school level? Summers "off" for your love of nature and music exploration.

[Rogar]

I have know a couple of folks who have made a career working in greenhouses and doing floral arrangements. I doesn't seem to pay a lot, but I think they've generally enjoyed it and it's been stable over the years.

[Yppej]

If legal in your state marijuana farms are a growing business (pardon the pun).

[bae]

What would you really enjoy doing?

[Rainbow-Flame Mystic]

Thanks for so many fast responses. I do not have a
degree, but am open to going going back to college.

What I really enjoy doing is: working as a barista
in a coffee-shop, solving math-problems for kids,
playing music for others and tending flowers/plants.

[Tammy]

My thoughts are a little tangential to your question, but I’ve kept my career simple by:

1. Wearing scrubs even when my nurse management position would allow for business casual as an option. Uniforms are so easy and quick. No morning decisions, cheap to buy, easy to launder, etc. My authority comes from my knowledge and experience, not from my wardrobe.

2. Keep a clean separation between work and home. I don’t do social things with people I work with. When I go home, I’m done with work.

3. Make most of my work electronic in that I have almost no paper files. What I have in paper files is 1/8 inch think or less in a folder, and it travels with me and my laptop, I can work equally well in any of the 4 physical locations in our dept. (spread across the city - we’re a huge company)

4. Take my vacations. Every time I return, I have surprising new ideas about how to simplify my work. I wouldn’t see these opportunities for improvement if I didn’t leave the day grind on a regular basis. I love to increase efficiencies in our large bureaucracy.

[Rogar]

I'd have my eyes on the future and what might lead to a comfortable living situation financially and emotionally. Maybe that's college or maybe not. I have a friend who worked as a barista at Whole Foods and eventually worked into a better paying job with them (and more responsibility), just as an example. Another guy started doing volunteer work at the local natural history museum and now has a good job helping manage the exhibits. Maybe a teacher's assistant would lead to other jobs in education. You never know what doors might open where, but there are dead end jobs out there and you probably want something to build upon rather than doing the same thing forever.

[Gardnr]

A teacher’s aid is a paraprofessional who works under the supervision of a teacher and provides instruction to children who may need extra help applying concepts to an assignment. Other titles for a teacher’s aid include teaching assistant, paraprofessional or instructional aid, for instance.

This doesn't require a degree. It could be a good "trial" to see if teaching might be of interest. Key here is you would be working with kids who really need the help so your desire to help with math could be paramount.

On the side you could go with the barrista thing on weekend's (or the early morning rush) and do some gardening/greenhouse work in the summer.

The more variety of work you try will help you decide where you'd like to be and what income level will work to fill your desires for a happy life!

As a Registered Nurse, I will always steer folks there as it's a rewarding career and good $, but healthcare is not your expressed interest.

[SteveinMN]

Just a comment on a statement Miguel made earlier -- and similar ones I've seen in other on-line forums:


something a little bit more stable, yet not too demanding/stressful

The best jobs I've ever had were demanding and stressful. There were deadlines and figurative mountains to be moved. There was the (scientific) method involved in figuring out why something wasn't working, discussing as part of a team how best to fix it, and then testing that solution before it was sent out into the wild. Or changing the perception (and, therefore, the future) of a work group which had been neglected by its previous supervisor; that required a combination of technical ability, marketing, using business logic and psychology, and so on, to raise the profile of the group and confirm its value to the organization. At times both jobs were hectic enough to skip meals or cancel vacation or to require either staying late many nights in a row or working from home. Sometimes there were contentious debates about what to do and unreasonable pressure exercised by managers who had no idea what was involved in fixing the problem. People, being people, threw unpredictability into the mix, too.

I have a family friend who is an Emergency Department nurse. EDs sometimes get slammed and patients present seemingly-insurmountable issues on their own schedules. Our friend thrives on it.

What makes all of those jobs great is being part of a team with a common defined goal and the authority to do what needed to be done, and an eventual plateau or resting place (whether that was two days or two months in).

One of the jobs I listed above got to the point where lunch was eaten at my desk pretty much every day (selected at the cafeteria by picking the line that moved fastest that day) and staffing cuts systematically removed the help (not the task list, which kept getting longer, or the bureaucracy; just the help) and it became unsustainable. I burned out. Same job description -- but it became a never-ending grind without support -- my HSSJ.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting statements like Miguel's, but it seems like many people want the Dilbert-esque job with good pay and few deadlines or measurable deliverables. I feel the real challenges -- and the real pay and career possibilities and, indeed, the real opportunities for personal growth -- may not come in a job that requires a defined set of tasks for 40 hours a week, after which you go home, completely disengaged. Maybe "demanding" and "stressful" are not bad things -- as long as those attributes are not waterboarding you at your desk daily.

[Gardnr]

I concur Steve. The best work I had in my 39 year career was highly demanding and highly rewarding. 2001-2009. Best years of my life......
till retirement in July:cool:

[Rogar]

I think every bit of advice here is good, but it might at least be worth mentioning that there are simple living people who are non-traditional. Some live in tiny homes, boats, or mobile trailers to reduce housing costs or allow travel or to follow their bliss. There's even a guy in Utah who lives in a cave and doesn't believe in money and has a book written about him. I have a friend who has made money dumpster diving and selling reusable items on ebay or garage sales, and another who built a straw bale house in the country and does odd jobs for a small income.

The model for some of these folks came from the Scott and Helen Nearing books that were popular a couple of decades ago and focused on self sufficiency and a rewarding life without working traditional jobs. The inspiration for a lot of us here in the forums has been "Your Money or Your Life" by Vicki Robin which has been recently updated. Either might be interesting reading for you.