Got my first real job off of Craigslist, first interview was in one office, the second was at a new location (they happened to be moving so gave em a pass) but when I got the job and started, my manager who interviewed me had been fired by time I started…
Dropped the 9 to 5 to start my own company 2 years ago. Has it paid off? In a sense. I’m not rich yet, but I’ve completely dropped the mindset of working for a wealthy company that’s never cared about me. That freedom is worth it in every sense.
Decided to trust my gut and walk away from a security job to return to retail. Covid hits and I’m instantly promoted and have my pay maxed out. Fast forward to today I make $20/hour to stock shelves, smoke weed in the back and help old ladies find their vitamins. Honestly I know most people equate retail to Hell but it’s worked out pretty well for me.
Taking a break from the workforce to finish school. No, it did not pay off it was the worst decision of my life and I’m still paying for it. It does not matter what you put in that gap people only see a gap. You will get nothing but bottom of the barrel jobs afterwards.
Before I did that, I was a sysadmin. I took a break, finished school, ended up not being able to get a job anywhere because of that resume gap, finally the first place that called advertised a sysadmin position, but with pretty low pay. I was desperate, took it, and ended up bait and switched into a helpdesk position. At that point I knew my IT career was dead, there’s no recovering from a massive demotion like that.
I then rebuilt my career and am now a senior software developer but I’m still stuck in a low paying shit job. I haven’t made a 6 figure salary since I took that break over 15 years ago.
Me and wifey left our well paying corp jobs to open a restaurant. 7 locations in 7 yrs & still not making the same amount of money as we did with corp jobs.
Currently experiencing it now. I graduated with a business degree and worked in a few different mortgage companies from 2017 to 2023. After quitting I moved back to my home state and went to trade school to become a Biomedical Technician.
When I finished school, I was struggling to find a job but a relative referred me to a job at a nursing school. I’m not working as a Biomedical Technician but the job is chill and pays better than any mortgage job I had.
Quit my job to attend a 1 year graduate program at a highly prestigious university. Worked out great and that degree has opened doors for me the past 25 years.
Turning down a permanent supervisory role for a temporary project leadership role in my organization.
It paid off in the sense that I spent two years in the most fulfilling, interesting, and well-paying job of my life.
It didn’t pay off in the sense that when my project was done, and someone was needed to continue the work permanently, I was deemed unqualified by a Director who didn’t like that I was paid overtime, per my collective agreement, for work I did after hours months prior. Now the guy who took my job has dismantled everything I did and reduced service levels by an order of magnitude, and I am back in my boring, unfulfilling, much lower paying desk job.
Left investment banking and a sure fire promotion to retrain to be a teacher. I now earn less but I have a better work life balance and actually enjoy my job
Quit my decent paying job with benefits and started my own niche auto business, so far it’s been wonderful aside from the setbacks of people i’ve tried to bring in to help me
Went from an hourly assistant manager to salaried general manager.
It was risky because they told me that I should be able to do the job by putting in around 45 hours a week, which would be about a $3 an hour pay raise (give or take)
Turned out to be a blatant lie. 55 to 60 hour weeks became the new normal. They wouldn’t give me the payroll to hire enough people so very often in show up for a shift and be the only employee so I didn’t even have time for the first 8 hours to do any of my ACTUAL job, and have to wait and stay over 3 or 4 hours when other people showed up.
I did payroll and most weeks, per hour, I was the lowest paid employee in the store.
Uprooted my wife & dogs & I’s entire existence and moved to a new state to buy a business with $400k worth of loans. Now that the 10 year loan is paid off I am making more than triple what I was making in California and only working 30 hours per week.
Left a job at a major IT SI after 17 years to pursue bid architecture as I had done it for a couple of years, enjoyed it and wanted to branch out at a smaller company because the SI was sucking my soul. Started well but they canned me after less than 6 months because they didn’t understand their direction (they sold up and the directors made a killing even though their books were very dry)
Was unemployed for 4 months and took a job that paid about £10k less than the average because they had me over a barrel.
Left one of the most secure telecom jobs i ever had. Was a shitty work environment, but i knee i was safe.
Left for a different telecom job, $30k raise, work from home. This position was my stepping stone out of telecom as it was focused more on project management. 4 years later, without the chance to earn a PM certificate, i got laid off.
I’ve been spinning in the wind running on fumes both financially and mentally. Working for one shitty company after another…
Endless cycle of shit. Tough to go thru in my late 40’s with a young family
I left my industry and have kinda been struggling to find a new one. I eventually just decided to start my own business and have seen some results that supplements my income but not enough.
After 9/11 happened, I left my job as a grocery store manager to join the Army. I was in Iraq for the ground invasion.
Never once did I miss the grind of working in retail. I made a career out of the Army and retired three years ago. I now shop at the same grocery store that I used to work for.
I switched from working in banking to working in tech sales.
Then in my first tech sales job I was working as a (lowly paid) sales consultant. One of my clients had an opening to work for them directly. I schemed to convince them to hire me and offer my company money to allow me to work for them as my contract didn’t allow me to work for clients after leaving. It was a rough month with management as that all went down, but it paid off and i increased my income from around 40k to over 140k a year later.
I was managing restaurants and doing very well, setting company records. The issue is that I wanted to marry and have kids with my now wife and didn’t want to be working nights and weekends because I’d never see them. I went into residential and then commercial AV and have been managing projects for almost 14 years now. I work from home so see my sons when they get home from school. I eat lunch with my wife who works from home 3 days a week. I make considerably more money and have better benefits. It has worked out well.
Switched to the trades at 30… it was a hard and awkward move and took A LOT of searching and taking small weird handyman jobs (while looking up YouTube videos to do them) to finally find a contractor who needed a helper and preferred a stable 30 year old to a potentially unpredictable 19 year old or, honestly, addicts that come and go through construction all the time. My goal was to learn enough to build my own house. I didn’t build my own house (yet) but by a strange turn of fate I ended up moving in to a house that I renovated from the ground up. And I definitely know enough to build my own house now!
My career before that? Ministry. I was a minister in training and a “spiritual practitioner” for an omnifaith church locally. Ministry and my own spirituality are still a big part of my life but it was impossible to raise 3 kids in the part of the country I live in on a minister salary. I was also the communications director for the church, on the board, etc. ton of work, very little money.
Today, I work for myself. 2 of my 3 sons now work for me and I’m training my eldest to take over my client base. I’m living and working on a small homestead and ready to let go of the grind of finding, bidding, doing projects for other peoples homes and now I’m focusing on doing them on my own property. In the summer months all 3 of my boys work for me on our property and it’s an unbelievable, inexplicable, incredible feeling that I can’t even try and describe.
I still do ministry and public speaking/activism and in our community here we are building a small eco-village where we have about 14 people, small orchards, gardens, community houses – and lots of community activities, etc. all of the things I learned in ministry I use every single day while building a community- trying to get 14 people to do anything while also living with each other is probably one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done. But in these times… it’s a dream come true. We have good people, good culture, good food, good space, and shared values.
So yes, I’d say it worked out better than I ever could have imagined. By the way – I just turned 42 🙂
I quit a job a month before probation ended (Would have been a permanent position) to accept an offer somewhere else. Worked out really well and making twice as much now.
Peak COVID I quit my job, fit what I could into my car, and drove from the Midwest to PNW without anything lined up. I felt that chapter of my life had closed and knew the time was never going to be “right” to leave. Figured if I wasn’t happy I might as well be an environment I enjoyed.
Juggled a few retail and food service jobs for a couple months before landing full time work in my field of study. I recognize how fortunate I am that things worked out how they did and am very thankful.
4 years ago I was with a great company. They sold my area to a company that was other than great. Not terrible, but just not great. I moved to another, much smaller company doibg the same job. Now the market is dropping fast. Old company people are working under 32 hours and company I am with is increasing market share in a down turning market.
I took a job working for a political campaign three months before the election. I did it on the assumption that I would essentially be handed a permanent job afterwards, but it turns out, that’s not how it works in the real world. Especially if you’re not good at networking and that part of the job. Long story short, I was unemployed for months after the election and had to switch industries to finally get a job. Still a cool experience, but I wouldn’t have done it if I had known.
In the political industry, it’s very normal for people to jump from campaign to campaign, city to city in search of employment. I was one of the few local people on the staff, and pretty much the only person who came from a “normal” job.
Stuck around too long on a decrepit software stack and got laid off. It worked out though. I negotiated to stay on for another month and a half to wrap up loose ends, found a job before my current gig finished, and basically just left one job on a Friday and a new job for 30% more on the following Monday. Turned down 4 more offers because that one seemed the most interesting. Those were the days (2018).
I’m a developer who used to be a tech recruiter, tho. I know how to work my way through an interview.
Quit my job at a family owned jewelry business under duress (harassment by the company owner) without a job lined up. Took four months but I was able to regain my self respect and rebuild my mental health.
Moved to LA from Mexico when I was 27 with no prospects or job opportunity, crashed at a mothers friends couch for $500 a month, no money saved up, bought a crappy $1,500 Honda Civic and 6 months later had to bring over my fiancee and my pitbull dog which is banned from most renters insurance so finding somewhere to house us was a task.
3-4 years later, work in Government as an IT Analyst, making just over $100k a year, wife has a great job, just bought my dream car, went to Japan a month ago for vacations, saving up for a house, and dog is healthy; not much more I can ask for.
It’s been working out for us. Money management is key!
Quit a stable, well paying job that I was excelling and getting promoted in, for a better job at a company I was personally interested in, but has been doing poorly significantly since the pandemic.
They had multiple layoffs and I was part of it. However, I do leave with a good job title and a good package.
Coming into a manager position of a company I had no experience in. Was definitely a challenge but ultimately I ended up leaving because the responsibilities kept growing but my paycheck looked exactly the same.
I quit my 9-5 job to start freelancing full-time in something I’d only been doing on the side, writing and content stuff. No clients lined up, no big savings, just a strong coffee addiction and this weird confidence that somehow I’d figure it out. The first couple months were rough. But then things slowly started clicking. I got a few small gigs, then some bigger ones, and eventually I was making more than I did at that comfy desk job. And best part is no one breathing down my neck about timesheets.
Leaving everything knew and going to a foreign country to work and live. It did not work out BUT I would do it all over again. I found out what I was and what I could take – and it was a lot, from racism to violence to being rejected because I was not a certain color. That which does not kill you makes you stronger.
I changed industries several times throughout my career in Mechanical Design Engineering. It’s usually a risk to leave a full-time job for another one. You have to be pretty confident and have a positive outlook to make the move. You’d be surprised how many fear the unknown.
I quit a job paying $150k to do a PhD which paid about 30k, with the intention to use it as a break from work and focus on life rather than getting into research.
I left my career as a butcher/department manager after 15 years and went into industrial mechanics. I advanced to master mechanic, to electrician, then technician. Then was promoted to manager of special projects. So it worked out well.
Comments
Got my first real job off of Craigslist, first interview was in one office, the second was at a new location (they happened to be moving so gave em a pass) but when I got the job and started, my manager who interviewed me had been fired by time I started…
14 years later and I’m still there doing great
Starting my own business. Stuck to what I knew and nearly 18 years in now, so aye, I’d say so.
Dropped the 9 to 5 to start my own company 2 years ago. Has it paid off? In a sense. I’m not rich yet, but I’ve completely dropped the mindset of working for a wealthy company that’s never cared about me. That freedom is worth it in every sense.
Telling my boss that I wouldn’t write code to create false sales reports to give to a supplier.
Decided to trust my gut and walk away from a security job to return to retail. Covid hits and I’m instantly promoted and have my pay maxed out. Fast forward to today I make $20/hour to stock shelves, smoke weed in the back and help old ladies find their vitamins. Honestly I know most people equate retail to Hell but it’s worked out pretty well for me.
Currently in the middle of it. Quit my job of 17 years a little over a week ago with no solid plan other than “find a new job”. It’s been liberating.
Taking a break from the workforce to finish school. No, it did not pay off it was the worst decision of my life and I’m still paying for it. It does not matter what you put in that gap people only see a gap. You will get nothing but bottom of the barrel jobs afterwards.
Before I did that, I was a sysadmin. I took a break, finished school, ended up not being able to get a job anywhere because of that resume gap, finally the first place that called advertised a sysadmin position, but with pretty low pay. I was desperate, took it, and ended up bait and switched into a helpdesk position. At that point I knew my IT career was dead, there’s no recovering from a massive demotion like that.
I then rebuilt my career and am now a senior software developer but I’m still stuck in a low paying shit job. I haven’t made a 6 figure salary since I took that break over 15 years ago.
Lied on my resume
Me and wifey left our well paying corp jobs to open a restaurant. 7 locations in 7 yrs & still not making the same amount of money as we did with corp jobs.
Hopefully one day that will come
Currently experiencing it now. I graduated with a business degree and worked in a few different mortgage companies from 2017 to 2023. After quitting I moved back to my home state and went to trade school to become a Biomedical Technician.
When I finished school, I was struggling to find a job but a relative referred me to a job at a nursing school. I’m not working as a Biomedical Technician but the job is chill and pays better than any mortgage job I had.
Quit my job to attend a 1 year graduate program at a highly prestigious university. Worked out great and that degree has opened doors for me the past 25 years.
Just took a job with the federal government lol
Turning down a permanent supervisory role for a temporary project leadership role in my organization.
It paid off in the sense that I spent two years in the most fulfilling, interesting, and well-paying job of my life.
It didn’t pay off in the sense that when my project was done, and someone was needed to continue the work permanently, I was deemed unqualified by a Director who didn’t like that I was paid overtime, per my collective agreement, for work I did after hours months prior. Now the guy who took my job has dismantled everything I did and reduced service levels by an order of magnitude, and I am back in my boring, unfulfilling, much lower paying desk job.
Left investment banking and a sure fire promotion to retrain to be a teacher. I now earn less but I have a better work life balance and actually enjoy my job
Getting out of the military 6 months before Covid
Quit my decent paying job with benefits and started my own niche auto business, so far it’s been wonderful aside from the setbacks of people i’ve tried to bring in to help me
Went from an hourly assistant manager to salaried general manager.
It was risky because they told me that I should be able to do the job by putting in around 45 hours a week, which would be about a $3 an hour pay raise (give or take)
Turned out to be a blatant lie. 55 to 60 hour weeks became the new normal. They wouldn’t give me the payroll to hire enough people so very often in show up for a shift and be the only employee so I didn’t even have time for the first 8 hours to do any of my ACTUAL job, and have to wait and stay over 3 or 4 hours when other people showed up.
I did payroll and most weeks, per hour, I was the lowest paid employee in the store.
Uprooted my wife & dogs & I’s entire existence and moved to a new state to buy a business with $400k worth of loans. Now that the 10 year loan is paid off I am making more than triple what I was making in California and only working 30 hours per week.
Left a job at a major IT SI after 17 years to pursue bid architecture as I had done it for a couple of years, enjoyed it and wanted to branch out at a smaller company because the SI was sucking my soul. Started well but they canned me after less than 6 months because they didn’t understand their direction (they sold up and the directors made a killing even though their books were very dry)
Was unemployed for 4 months and took a job that paid about £10k less than the average because they had me over a barrel.
0/10 would never do that again
Left one of the most secure telecom jobs i ever had. Was a shitty work environment, but i knee i was safe.
Left for a different telecom job, $30k raise, work from home. This position was my stepping stone out of telecom as it was focused more on project management. 4 years later, without the chance to earn a PM certificate, i got laid off.
I’ve been spinning in the wind running on fumes both financially and mentally. Working for one shitty company after another…
Endless cycle of shit. Tough to go thru in my late 40’s with a young family
I left my industry and have kinda been struggling to find a new one. I eventually just decided to start my own business and have seen some results that supplements my income but not enough.
Went from blue collar cable guy to Fortune 500 web developer. The change in my day to day went from monotonous to living on the edge.
After 9/11 happened, I left my job as a grocery store manager to join the Army. I was in Iraq for the ground invasion.
Never once did I miss the grind of working in retail. I made a career out of the Army and retired three years ago. I now shop at the same grocery store that I used to work for.
Quit my state job to go work in quarries on a blasting crew. Some days it’s amazing and others…. Well least I’m above ground and outside all day.
I switched from working in banking to working in tech sales.
Then in my first tech sales job I was working as a (lowly paid) sales consultant. One of my clients had an opening to work for them directly. I schemed to convince them to hire me and offer my company money to allow me to work for them as my contract didn’t allow me to work for clients after leaving. It was a rough month with management as that all went down, but it paid off and i increased my income from around 40k to over 140k a year later.
I was managing restaurants and doing very well, setting company records. The issue is that I wanted to marry and have kids with my now wife and didn’t want to be working nights and weekends because I’d never see them. I went into residential and then commercial AV and have been managing projects for almost 14 years now. I work from home so see my sons when they get home from school. I eat lunch with my wife who works from home 3 days a week. I make considerably more money and have better benefits. It has worked out well.
Switched to the trades at 30… it was a hard and awkward move and took A LOT of searching and taking small weird handyman jobs (while looking up YouTube videos to do them) to finally find a contractor who needed a helper and preferred a stable 30 year old to a potentially unpredictable 19 year old or, honestly, addicts that come and go through construction all the time. My goal was to learn enough to build my own house. I didn’t build my own house (yet) but by a strange turn of fate I ended up moving in to a house that I renovated from the ground up. And I definitely know enough to build my own house now!
My career before that? Ministry. I was a minister in training and a “spiritual practitioner” for an omnifaith church locally. Ministry and my own spirituality are still a big part of my life but it was impossible to raise 3 kids in the part of the country I live in on a minister salary. I was also the communications director for the church, on the board, etc. ton of work, very little money.
Today, I work for myself. 2 of my 3 sons now work for me and I’m training my eldest to take over my client base. I’m living and working on a small homestead and ready to let go of the grind of finding, bidding, doing projects for other peoples homes and now I’m focusing on doing them on my own property. In the summer months all 3 of my boys work for me on our property and it’s an unbelievable, inexplicable, incredible feeling that I can’t even try and describe.
I still do ministry and public speaking/activism and in our community here we are building a small eco-village where we have about 14 people, small orchards, gardens, community houses – and lots of community activities, etc. all of the things I learned in ministry I use every single day while building a community- trying to get 14 people to do anything while also living with each other is probably one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done. But in these times… it’s a dream come true. We have good people, good culture, good food, good space, and shared values.
So yes, I’d say it worked out better than I ever could have imagined. By the way – I just turned 42 🙂
Dropped a cake off with my resume at a start up to get an interview. Pretended to be a delivery guy and all.
That company went on to be on shark tank and my career has blossomed ever since.
I quit a job a month before probation ended (Would have been a permanent position) to accept an offer somewhere else. Worked out really well and making twice as much now.
Taking a leap from being a design engineer into sales.
Definitely paid off, and opened 10x as many career doors that wouldn’t have opened otherwise.
Peak COVID I quit my job, fit what I could into my car, and drove from the Midwest to PNW without anything lined up. I felt that chapter of my life had closed and knew the time was never going to be “right” to leave. Figured if I wasn’t happy I might as well be an environment I enjoyed.
Juggled a few retail and food service jobs for a couple months before landing full time work in my field of study. I recognize how fortunate I am that things worked out how they did and am very thankful.
4 years ago I was with a great company. They sold my area to a company that was other than great. Not terrible, but just not great. I moved to another, much smaller company doibg the same job. Now the market is dropping fast. Old company people are working under 32 hours and company I am with is increasing market share in a down turning market.
I took a job working for a political campaign three months before the election. I did it on the assumption that I would essentially be handed a permanent job afterwards, but it turns out, that’s not how it works in the real world. Especially if you’re not good at networking and that part of the job. Long story short, I was unemployed for months after the election and had to switch industries to finally get a job. Still a cool experience, but I wouldn’t have done it if I had known.
In the political industry, it’s very normal for people to jump from campaign to campaign, city to city in search of employment. I was one of the few local people on the staff, and pretty much the only person who came from a “normal” job.
Stuck around too long on a decrepit software stack and got laid off. It worked out though. I negotiated to stay on for another month and a half to wrap up loose ends, found a job before my current gig finished, and basically just left one job on a Friday and a new job for 30% more on the following Monday. Turned down 4 more offers because that one seemed the most interesting. Those were the days (2018).
I’m a developer who used to be a tech recruiter, tho. I know how to work my way through an interview.
Marriage
Quit my job at a family owned jewelry business under duress (harassment by the company owner) without a job lined up. Took four months but I was able to regain my self respect and rebuild my mental health.
Quit my job as a waiter/bartender took out my retirement early, and focused on passing the Florida Bar. Yep. It worked out for me.
Moved to LA from Mexico when I was 27 with no prospects or job opportunity, crashed at a mothers friends couch for $500 a month, no money saved up, bought a crappy $1,500 Honda Civic and 6 months later had to bring over my fiancee and my pitbull dog which is banned from most renters insurance so finding somewhere to house us was a task.
3-4 years later, work in Government as an IT Analyst, making just over $100k a year, wife has a great job, just bought my dream car, went to Japan a month ago for vacations, saving up for a house, and dog is healthy; not much more I can ask for.
It’s been working out for us. Money management is key!
I purchased a house that I couldn’t afford on the wages I was making. Applied for a new job and luckily got it.
Quit a stable, well paying job that I was excelling and getting promoted in, for a better job at a company I was personally interested in, but has been doing poorly significantly since the pandemic.
They had multiple layoffs and I was part of it. However, I do leave with a good job title and a good package.
Coming into a manager position of a company I had no experience in. Was definitely a challenge but ultimately I ended up leaving because the responsibilities kept growing but my paycheck looked exactly the same.
I quit my 9-5 job to start freelancing full-time in something I’d only been doing on the side, writing and content stuff. No clients lined up, no big savings, just a strong coffee addiction and this weird confidence that somehow I’d figure it out. The first couple months were rough. But then things slowly started clicking. I got a few small gigs, then some bigger ones, and eventually I was making more than I did at that comfy desk job. And best part is no one breathing down my neck about timesheets.
quit finance making over 100k to become a high school teacher. best and potentially worst decision i have ever made. happiness > money.
Leaving everything knew and going to a foreign country to work and live. It did not work out BUT I would do it all over again. I found out what I was and what I could take – and it was a lot, from racism to violence to being rejected because I was not a certain color. That which does not kill you makes you stronger.
I changed industries several times throughout my career in Mechanical Design Engineering. It’s usually a risk to leave a full-time job for another one. You have to be pretty confident and have a positive outlook to make the move. You’d be surprised how many fear the unknown.
I quit a job paying $150k to do a PhD which paid about 30k, with the intention to use it as a break from work and focus on life rather than getting into research.
6 years on and I have a PhD and make over 400k
I left my career as a butcher/department manager after 15 years and went into industrial mechanics. I advanced to master mechanic, to electrician, then technician. Then was promoted to manager of special projects. So it worked out well.