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Skilled trades, unused degrees, & my personal career mess

YoungGuns

Member
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Today 9:41 AM
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Aug 14, 2011
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71
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Yay, another INTP career dilemma thread/rant.


So I’m a married 28 year old male in Tennessee who graduated with a BS degree in Economics in 2018. Most of my actual work life is low skilled stuff like a warehouse and, currently, machine operator work, both industries of which tend to be very long hours and usually very boring.

I met a guy at a job right before I graduated who was this older big-time business deal making guy. Super EXTJ. Think a toned-down version of Adam Sandler’s character in Uncut Jewel’s if any of you have watched that. I was poised to be his well-paid manager/handler guy once a large corporate contract came through. Well, 1.5 years later, it still hasn’t even though he has insisted the entire time it’s about to. For about the past 6 months, I have been just trying to figure out a career and assume he’ll never come through. If he does come through, then nothing matters anyway.


I am typically a very hard worker while at a job, but I have serious trouble emotionally knowing what I even want for a career. The height of my career was being a warehouse floor trainer, in which I got to spend a lot of time with a diverse set of individuals. It was almost like having a Joe Rogan style podcast, just under tiring conditions. It was either really enjoyable or really not… I eventually burned out.

I’ve had various probably depressive episodes off and on and never really networked or got any professional experience during school, though I was working full time in the warehouse as a laborer/trainer and graduated with a 3.7 GPA. I was poised to enter some sort of insurance career (which I very technically did but I’m not getting into that), but it seems most are either sales or high-pressure customer service at the entry-level, which both sound terrible. I was poised to likely start as an underwriter assistant until corona delayed indefinitely the hiring, but the pay would be less than I made doing warehouse work and it’s basically glorified customer service to agents. It seems that path would mainly lead to what are actually more veiled customer service and sales focused careers, and the insurance agent personality is typically middle to upper middle-class golfer type…my socioeconomic background is reclusive factory workers.

I don’t really try to develop the typical programming/data analysis type skills that would be expected of someone with my degree because I know from years and years of past history that I would just stop before I could get to a level high enough for employment.

Years ago, I worked for Applecare CPU tech support. I was good at it by the time I quit, but I really hated it. It was very stressful, and the primary thing that keeps me from diving into call center and low level IT and insurance jobs. Though, I do like tech and am typing this from an old Linux ran Thinkpad right now.

That brings me to now. I have only done delivery for food apps and a machine operator job since graduating in December 2018, which is hard to sell to white collar jobs…

I’m considering entering a skilled trade (probably electrician or maybe low voltage work that could lead to a it networking role that would skip the fucking help desk). I just feel like I am wasting the degree I sunk so much into getting, along with cementing in that hard life of laborous jobs. Part of the appeal of being an electrician is I could just jump in and bust my ass as a helper and eventually work my way up to a Journeyman in 4-5 years, which pays pretty good to very good depending on where in the country I am at and if I’m in a union or not. Down side is it’s pretty ecnomically sensitive.

I’m also considering accounting, since I coud take about 30 more credits to qualify for the CPA...though I have never even had an accounting class and INTPs swear the field is awful. I feel I might could suffer for years and eventualy find my niche, and it seems most fields are like that anyways. The thought of trying to land a good white collar job gives me a lot of anxiety also, as I have practically done the boomer method of waltzing into jobs my whole life.





Regardless of what I do, I must continue working full time and can’t get into a lot more debt. I’m not sure what I am asking of the INTP Forum, I just want someone to share my frustrations with and to talk to about it.
 

onesteptwostep

Junior Hegelian
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You should move out of Tennessee, for one. Go try to find a job in an urban area, LA, Houston, New York, Miami, etc.

Are you good with people? Maybe you might want to reevaluate how you want to live your life. Do you want to earn lots of money? Do you want to marry and settle down? Do you have a wishlist of things you want to do to check off?

I think itll be helpful if you slowed down a bit and really think about what you really want in life. Plan from there.
 

scorpiomover

The little professor
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Today 3:41 PM
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Read this book:

41CEcvl5smL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
 

ZenRaiden

One atom of me
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Today 3:41 PM
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5,262
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Location
Between concrete walls
Generally I think the best job is low stress, good pay, and lots of vacation time.
I think you should look for that sort of job. From what I can gather those are the happiest people.
 
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