I'm a software dev and i've been working corporate america for a decade and i hate it. i hate every second of every day. i've tried applying for non profits and government jobs and the entire job market is total balls. i've been trying to find something else for half a year and 100+ job applications.
I want to do something menial like project management. Something sitting at a desk. Something that isn't very mentally straining like the software engineering I'm doing now.
I want to work with cool people.
I want to work in an environment where I don't have to justify breathing the oxygen in their office.
I want to have a nice boss.
I don't care if the pay is shit.
How can i find something like this? How does one approach a job search if what you care about most is cool coworkers and doesn't care at all what the job is (aside from it being a desk job) or how much it pays?
Applying for jobs is miserable and my heart goes out to you.
Most organizations, and especially nonprofit orgs, want to fill positions with people they know. These jobs end up being de facto internal positions and get filled by friends and old co-workers.
If you can temp, contract, or volunteer somewhere that seems cool to you, you are going to be in a way better position to find out about jobs and ultimately get them. I found my current job by picking up a menial temp work and then being a reliable and nice person. A couple years later I have a rewarding position and work with cool people.
Ultimately this gives you a chance to determine whether these people are cool too. You can't really know anything about a work culture until you're in it. I once worked at a plant nursery which was staffed by nihilist drunks.
Honestly, donate your time anywhere you want. Just meet as many people as you can until somebody wants and is able to help you. Meeting people will payoff quicker than sending in applications and has the added benefit of potentially enriching the soul while you wait.
It's funny because as soon as I posted this, I did exactly that - I applied for a volunteer position at a non-profit with a cool mission I identify with a lot. The contact responded immediately and I'm interviewing with her next week. They're looking for someone pretty project management oriented which I've done plenty of, but it's not exactly my strong point - but maybe because it's building a web platform I'll be a good resource because I've done it for a decade. Maybe I'll have the opportunity to help one way or another.
Thanks for the compassion. I recognize that networking is such a huge part of this, but between covid and getting banned from linkedin (they thought I was a bot for some reason) it's pretty difficult to do. I've applied to non-profits for volunteer positions in the past and even interviewed at one, but they just ghosted on me.
Badass! Best of luck with that. Might be cool to test your boundaries and discover new skills.
Unfortunately, throughout this process people will routinely treat you like you don't matter. But don't forget that you really do.
As someone who did project management and now does product management it's not as menial as you think. The work isn't hard but it boils down to a line of people at your desk all day with dumb questions. You have to context switch every 5 minutes and when you do actually have shit to do the only way to do it is to hide or pretend you're in a meeting so people don't ask you the same dumb questions they ask you every single week.
The grass isn't always greener, trust me. I've done most jobs folks do in tech and it's the same shit in a different context. Finding chill people is the important thing, the job you do is less so
Im ADD as hell so I am good at context switching. I like dumb questions, they're usually easy to answer and you get to feel helpful. I've done PM stuff in my engineering roles and I always thought it was cool and chill and easy.
I'm jelly that you're a product manager. That's really where I want to be but it's pretty impossible to get those roles unless you're working your way towards them internally at an org you've been with for a while. And I've never worked anywhere that had/needed them.
Yeah I worked my way to product specifically. Took a couple of big risks and a big pay cut / career change at a real shitty company to do it but it paid off. Product is tough to get in to since there isn't like one set of skills required for it. I'm very lucky to be where I am. The key is to find your way to a small place that talks about career growth, telling them you want to move into product, and then hoping they keep their end of the bargain.
Hopefully you find a better way in than that hell though
I feel like most product managers get there through a mixture of shit work and luck. I wish I identified it's what I wanted earlier in my life and avoided a decade of shit I don't care about
I got a union job working for the state processing pensions. It’s entirely work from home and it rules
I've heard state jobs are cool. Federal jobs too. But the application process is brutal. I've frequently heard stories of people trying for several years and literally more than a thousand applications. One dude took twelve years for his first interview
I was laid off at the beginning of the quarantine and couldn’t find any work in the private sector at all. The only place hiring where I am is the state.
Was this at a Plaid? This sounds like every worker’s experience there.
Working hospitality you usually work with cool people. But the customers and the job itself are hell on earth.
That sounds great but I'm sort of an autist around children so I'd be awful at it
Public sector sounds great but the job application process is impossible and masochism
Public sector, but people might also be kinda useless, it's not a huge deal though
Have you thought about ops or sysadmin? You work on hard stuff occasionally but otherwise it's mostly pretty rote, and is an easy shift from software engineering. Ymmv based on the company itself but an infra job at a chill company can be very chill 90% of the time
I have actually. I've heard stories of people just playing WoW 90% of the time and fixing shit and answering tickets the other 10%. My problem with that is it's extremely certification based which I loathe, and the bottom bracket of work and pay is absolute garbage. I hate the idea of making minimum wage with some 18 year old installing updates on laptops for 9 hours a day.
I would suggest looking into digital marketing at a small agency. You could probably still make 40-60k and get to work with chill people. If you take a Udemy class or two and learn the basics of PPC/SEO/Facebook Ads I bet your programming experience will get your foot in the door for an interview. The agency that I work at does marketing for small businesses like restaurants, plumbers, HVAC technicians etc. so I never quite feel like I am contributing to ghoulish corporate shit bags' wallets. It is a fun industry and not as soul crushing as dev work (for me at least). Plus you can take what you learn and create leftist propaganda when the revolution comes.
I would say it it's a grey area depending on what it is used for. Putting up an ad for Bloomberg and putting up an ad for a non-profit women's shelter are two very different things.
My problem with it is that in both cases you're mostly just funneling money to advertisers which are overwhelmingly insanely shitty companies. Facebook, google, microsoft, and the television media networks
You are absolutely right. It's the problem of monopolizing message distribution and those companies need to be nationalized. There is no other platform to reach the masses without buying into the game. All we have for now.
edit: Hail Satan
No ethical marketing under capitalism? Maybe that's where it stands. Still gotta market the positive stuff, kinda like we still gotta consume - but doing so as ethically as possible is more better.
Love the username 🙏🙏
I think it mostly comes down to trial/error and also expanding/reaching out to your network via conferences/meetups/volunteering etc and then getting referrals from them.
Also, the company I work at has a project management role open (not sure how chill the folks are there in that office though) that I can DM/refer you to if you're interested.
I hear ya. I just want a job without an abusive boss and I've been told that's asking too much.
Probably a pretty challenging job, but you can get a foot in the door in conservation by doing seasonal work for the national park service and the forest service. I'm thinking of going into fire
This thought crossed my mind too. Something with the parks. But I've heard these jobs are very competitive and in my brief glance at them they wanted degrees and experience in forestry and no fucking way that's happening for me
I'm in pretty much the same position, I was looking into changing companies cause the one I work for is not ideal but I get so overwhelmed with thinking about my future that it's hard to know what to do. Plus I've developed pretty much no skills in my time at my company so I'm not a very attractive hire. But if I was hired then idk how I'd like the job and if I'd like any of the people around me. I'm just thinking I should avoid tech entirely because it seems to be made up of so many freaks.
