Career change!

[styckx]

For just over two years I've been unemployed... Taking a break, doing some soul searching, and taking care of my late father.

After spending my entire career in retail management I needed a change (soul searching).. I never felt satisfied, I never felt I accomplished with anything, never happy, and more importantly I never financially got past "just barley making it" despite holding nice salary management positions. Last week I started my new career. I'm aiming to be an EMT and eventually full blown paramedic. I'm starting out doing non-emergency medical transport. Taking folks from nursing homes to the doctors and staying there to return them back. Taking discharged patients from hospitals back home, taking discharged patients to rehab facilities etc. I've always wanted a job where I can get paid to give my time to help someone else out for the better. etc.. I'm thrilled, it's something I always wanted to do and I got my foot in the door to do it. The EMT training is completely free (usually $1400 or so) and will take a few months or so to be training and certified.. After that it's two years of school to become a paramedic.

So there you have it.. A little insight into "Bills life" outside of randomly ranting about a train sim.

[cjbarnes5294]

Good on you, Bill, and all the best in your new future career helping to save and make other people's lives better.

Chris

[jjasloot]

Good news! A change is as good as a rest, and you made a change after a rest, so that should be double good (you might be able to tell I am a mathematician)

Recently I've been spending too much time in hospitals, and now I know for sure helping people is a very noble cause


Jaap

[VictoryWorks]

Congratulations mate and my best wishes. A very worthy career.
I spent 15 years in retail, the last 5 in management and I have an idea of how you may have felt. I quit it and retrained in software development, which I did for 7 years before changing to doing this full time for family reasons. I hope it works out as well for you.

[Nobkins]

Superb Bill. I had a complete career change recently. 15+ years in the IT industry and I had got fed up of it. I like a nice big PC to fix or server to run and the gadget trend just did not float my boat.

I never thought it would actually happen but I now work in the rail industry for one of the operators in the UK.

All the best and hope it is everything you want it to be.

[styckx]

Thanks all, much appreciated. Glad to see others have similar career changes for themselves.. It took a lot to decide to do it. At 37 I'm just young enough to get away with it but it's still a scary venture to wipe everything you knew experience wise away and start over.

[Nobkins]

I was 37 when I did my change. The perfect age for a career change

[Stone75]

Nice to hear Bill, best of luck !!

steve

[BigVern]

I never thought it would actually happen but I now work in the rail industry for one of the operators in the UK.

All the best and hope it is everything you want it to be.

Welcome to the "family" Jim - as you probably know I work for Network Rail as a Train Running Controller.

Although different to a few years ago and no longer maybe offering a "job for life", the railway is IMHO still one of the best places to work. In my case shifts can get a bit tedious especially nights and the nature of my job is that some days you go home feeling your head is going to explode, like Monday morning when the big signal blackout at Slough was going on. However you do get a sense of achievement after a shift like that, plus of course the money is good and at least for old hands like me still has a final salary pension - currently working on 4 more years contributions to get the full 40 years in the fund, then another year or so and (slightly) early retirement beckons!

[JamesLit]

Well done and good luck, Bill! Sounds like you really deserve this, and I'm glad it's looking so good.