Great bosses are way harder to find than great engineers.
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A great number of people are not meant to be bosses.
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Your specific skills may become less relevant (well, you might hold out for the CoBOL phenomenon 
), but your critical thinking skills will not, and will hone with every new opportunity you take on.
Best career advice I ever received was from a Canadian Major General who came to speak at our Air Command Staff College seminar*. When asked āto what do you attribute your success?ā, he said something to effect, āI only strived at two things: 1) I did the job I was currently doing as best as I could, and I was more successful at that in some than in others. 2) If an interesting opportunity came along, Iād tend to go for it if doing so didnāt bollox my current commitments. In doing so I learned a LOT of different things, each adding to my cumulative experience, which seemed to just attract more opportunities.ā
Anyway, FWIWā¦
*sounds fancy, but it was the local version for people who werenāt āhotā enough to get selected for the in-residence version.
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Having great fun watching my grandkids slide into adulting. Theyāve all taken retail/food service jobs (grandson IS Chuck-E-Cheese, I have his autograph ), and the two in food service were offered management jobs. Scared both into doubling down on schoolā¦
The other wants to be a screenwriter. This is one of those aspirations the more practical part of me would want to discourage; indeed, where I volunteer is a fellow whose name youāll find in about 30 blockbuster movie credits, I asked him about such a career and his reply was āDonātā. But, she writes really well, has wonderful grasp of the nature of storytelling. Iāve always been a fan of āyouāll be more successful doing something you likeā, just easier to be motivated to do it well, and I canāt bring myself to talk her out of it. All wife and I can do is offer her a safe place if it doesnāt work out.
Life is what you make of it, and nothing else.
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My nephew is also Chuck-E and he says they donāt wash the costume 
he likes it more in the kitchen.
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Cripes, same exact conversation with my grandson. I just found out heās put in his two-week notice, going to look for something different.
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I told my nephew its best to look for a job when you have a job readyā¦
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Well, another client of mine has vanished, confirmed yesterday. I donāt know whether itās to the Dread AI or not, but I suspect so. That or good old cost-cutting as we slump into another economic slowdown.
Anyway, Iām now officially job hunting. The trouble is, I need to get out of my industry but itās all Iāve known for 15 years. Just browsing some job listings this morning, all I saw was āAt least two years of relevant experienceā, which counts me out for lots of jobs in a new industry.
Itās a completely different level of daunting Iām now facing from the last time I was job hunting. Iām now over 50 and I donāt have a clue what I want to do other than get out from behind a screen all day and try to find something that wonāt be taken by AI in the coming years.
If anyone has any advice (or jobs), Iām all ears.
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Sorry to hear about that. Hope you find something fulfilling to do.
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Iām sorry to see this.
I found that up to a point I could move around a bit between specialties in my industry, until maybe the late 2010ās. By then, I had a ālabel on my backā and I couldnāt get a foot in any other door.
HR and hiring managers, in my experience, have come to hire for very specific skills and experience, not talent. Itās a shame.
Best of luck to you.
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I thought Iād check into this thread again.
Thank you all for sharing bits of your lives - itās interesting and often encouraging to read of othersā thoughts, challenges and successes!
Life is still very often a challenge, albeit one that is a little more often feeling more manageable. Thank you all for the good wishes and likes on my last post - the sense of community is really good.
Some things that have become clearer:
(a) I am very likely neurodiverse, primarily with so-called high functioning autism. This makes sense, once I accepted the idea, as I have always struggled with social stress, noisy/chaotic environments, and a whole host of more or less subtle mental and emotional traits that fit straight in.
If any of you reading this are autistic, you will probably be aware of masking and the exhaustion it can cause.
I am in a waiting list for an actual assessment, but none of us have much doubt as to the outcomeā¦
(b) Something called complex trauma - I didnāt even know this was a thing - how well known is this outside clinical/therapeutic circles?
Basically itās like PTSD, but instead of it being the result of specific events or circumstances such as an accident, disaster or service related, itās the cumulative effects of small but repeated stress over many years. I donāt want to get too personal, but I have had to accept that parts of my childhood and particularly adolescence were, well, very ānot idealā due to multiple family and circumstance related reasons.
These were THEN compounded by my neurodiversity allowing a blanket of misunderstanding and unhelpful (although often well meant) advice to become internalized and a lot of values that are actually totally unhelpful to become firmly seated.
Anyway - this is all hard stuff for me to understand, let alone explain properly, but the result feels like trying to run a program (normallife) on the wrong operating system 
.
Itās a long slow process of relearning values and learning to not only trust myself again, but also to trust other people.
Anyhow!
It was actually @europlatusā post that inspired me to chime in again. Iām sorry to hear of your position and the uncertainty around that. I have to say that this
is incredibly relatable. I want to offer my support and encouragement to make the most of the chance to shift to something hopefully fulfilling and different. Iād also be very interested to hear where this leads you, and how the process goes, as I have often felt in a similar position of not knowing what I want do to, even assuming that I one day will be able to.
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Just send in your CV, potentially with a cover letter explaining why you are interested in that industry. It just costs a bit of effort.
Most firms have difficulty hiring competent people. If they have the foundations and skills, and are willing to learn (emphasize this), bringing them up to speed in a few months is doable. [Usual exceptions apply, donāt apply to be a brain surgein w/o medical school.]
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This comes as no surprise to me; welcome to the club! (I was diagnosed Aspergerās Syndrome 2018, confirming something long-suspected. These days this is classified as High-functioning Autism).
Thank you for sharing about complex trauma - it is fairly often to be seen in those with a a diagnosis of Autism or ADHD (or both, for the reasons you have pointed to.
You have also helped get me off the fence and share that Iāve just had a particular challenge also. This time last week I had a stroke, but did not immediately recognise it, because it was an atypical presentation - no drooping face or unequal pupils; rather: difficulty speaking and significantly impaired fine-motor on my right (dominant) side. Ambulance ride to ED was followed by being admitted to stroke ward, numerous scans, and 24/7 telemetry monitoring for 3 days. A Transient Ischaemic Attack (TIA) before the ambulance arrived, and another on Saturday to add to the mix.
Iāve been home since late Monday but am off work for quite some time: ongoing intense fatigue; everything is difficult - a walk to the GP (5 minutes each way) this morning for a follow-up was completely exhausting. I am to get some home rehab including speech and physical therapy. My speech isnāt noticeably slurred, but it is a great deal of effort, and some lip/tongue movements are very difficult. I am, however, expected to make a full recovery. Most inconvenient is no driving allowed for 4 weeks, no matter how minor the stroke.
I have had a 1-week trip to NZ with my daughter booked since last November - we leave on 25 March and my neuro has thankfully said Iāll be ok to fly. Tempted to just take the M43 camera, but it will be good therapy to force myself to persist with the DSLR.
My sister in NZ had a stroke 10 years ago and has passed on some rehab tips to me. Any post-stroke photography rehab tips out there?
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Note that CPTSD is a controversial concept, and is not universally recognized as a valid diagnosis. You can find research articles about the controversy.
Only you know your past, but frankly, most people do not have an āidealā childhood or life. Most people have minor traumatic events, they cope, and move on. Research shows that there is little or no causal effect of this on your adult life (I am not talking about abuse or neglect.)
I would be very cautious of therapists unless they have a well-defined plan with an end in sight after the initial talk, like āthis many sessions of CBT/DBT to address your problem and then we are doneā. It is a costly, time-consuming intervention with little proven efficacy and a huge incentive to keep you as a patient as long as they can.
You may find the following books interesting: Bad Therapy (Abigail Shrier), Myth of Sanity (Martha Stout).
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@martin.scharnke, thank you for sharing! My very best wishes for your recovery - hope it goes as smoothly as possible.
@Tamas_Papp
This touches indirectly on what sometimes seems the hardest part of all this - what/who to trust.
For sure! I am in an incredibly privileged position compared to a massive percentage of the worldās population - and I try very hard not to take that for granted.
Yup. I know. Believe me, I trusted this approach (or rather, trusted its applicability to myself), threw all my energy into it, and trusted this kind of well meant advice, right up until I physically couldnāt function anymore.
In hindsight I basically had the choices of becoming an addict, literally loosing the will to live or admitting that my approach to life was not working and trying to understand how to make it work. I consider myself fortunate and blessed that I had enough people who cared about me and I cared about that I felt morally obliged to pick the last option.
I have since learnt that this is not an uncommon experience in neurodiverse individuals when life events have stretched their coping mechanisms to breaking point - all while to the outside appearance not much is going on.
Iām sorry if this is sounding defensive - if it is, it is not a reflection on anyone but myself and the insecurity I keep battling that tells me I am ānot trying hard enoughā.
Ahā¦ yes. I would dispute the point about lack of proven efficacy as applied to therapy generally, to CBT, yes perhaps. Itās certainly proved useless to me, as it has to many other neurodiverse people.
But the process of discussing, talking, sharing and digging into oneās feelings and learning why one responds to certain, situations, triggers, whatever the way one does is deeply useful, at least if one is of an inquiring mindset that needs to understand the why.
Thank you for the suggested reading! I wonder, do you personally have any thoughts on alternatives to therapy, or even just a perspective? I know this will depend a lot on whether or not you have experience of this, but I knid of wanted to ask.
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Thank you all for sharing. That is what this thread is for.
Personally, I have always been resistant to all types of treatment, whether it be therapy, medication or other methods. In the end, I just have to grit my teeth. None of any of it goes away. Receiving treatment is doubly challenging, so there is not much choice but to accept the circumstances.
That said, going through that journey is an important one. It is do or give up. I am not one to give up on anything (to a fault).
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What are your primary symptoms if I may ask?
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Thank you @123sg ! Without boring everyone too much with my own troubles, I will update everyone on how my search goes, especially with the hope that it can inspire others in a similar position. I generally have an optimistic outlook that things will work themselves out in the end, although I know that this can only happen with a very difficult period ahead of me of hunting, applying, interviewing and dealing with rejection. Right now, itās incredibly daunting, and I donāt have some of the youthful confidence I once had. When I was younger, I had a 90% success rate once Iād got to the interview stage, but that was a different time!
I also know that I wonāt necessarily be able to do what I want to do, either because there simply arenāt any jobs in that field in my local area, or because I donāt have the qualifications/experience. Realistically, it may be a case of finding a āgoodā company that I will be happy working for, and then just finding a role within it that I donāt hate.
Yes, youāre right and I will be doing that. Iām hoping that a cover letter and hopefully an interview will be enough for me to convince people Iām worth hiring. I am a quick learner, good in a team, and always eager to master whatever task Iām given. I have no doubt in my ability to do many jobs, but I just need to be given the chance to prove myself in it.
I have noticed that Canada in particular is very focused on qualifications and experience, much more so than when I was in the UK. Back in the UK, they often just liked the fact that you had a degree because it showed your ability to learn and get through university. Here in Canada, they want a masterās in that particular field, regardless of how good you actually are. A lot of this is just to weed out candidates, but itās still a real problem with getting to the interview stage.
Thanks very much for sharing, and I hope you feel that the support you receive on this forum helps in some small way. I know Iām going through a difficult time in my career, but I know that health concerns are on a whole different level.
I can relate to a certain extent with your situation because my daughter was diagnosed with autism when she was very young. She is also on the āhigh functioningā part of the spectrum, and the doctors did say at the time that she would probably have been diagnosed with Aspergers if they were still using that diagnosis. Not many people know about her diagnosis because she is an expert at masking. I like to think of her as a chameleon because she adapts to her surroundings. While a valuable skill at times, it is exhausting for her, and it does cause problems, so Iām trying to help her be more true to how she is and feels, rather than feeling she needs to do what everyone else does all the time. But as a teen, you can imagine how hard that is. Thankfully she has found a new group of friends, some of which are also neurodiverse, so she doesnāt have to mask as much.
Iām very thankful that we got a diagnosis early because it has helped us understand her better. A diagnosis doesnāt always help in terms of how to handle problems, but it does help with understanding where the problems come from.
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Maybe this is my uneducatedness talking but now that tertiary education is so widespread, I wonder how this olds up. It seems like it is not really a challenge to finish at least a licentiate in some subjects.
That said, here in Portugal itās basically a requirement and even for those which had a āpassā like software engineering, they are tightening the rules. Who knows where Iāll end up in 2-5 years.
I think this is a very popular perception, and probably very valid. I donāt actually know what the hiring environment is like in the UK anymore, so my experience refers to 20 years ago.
When my dad graduated (in the 1960s), he was in something like the top 5% of the population, and the fact that he had a degree was a massive bonus for job prospects. When I graduated in the 1990s, this percentage had already jumped to about 15-25%, but still you were regarded as being in the top fifth of the population. But itās something like 35-40% now, so approaching nearly half of the population with some kind of degree.
So the value of simply having a degree has certainly fallen.
It also used to matter a lot more where you got it from and in which subjects. When I was applying to universities, there was still a big difference between the āproperā universities and what were called polytechnics or colleges of higher education. The big universities required higher grades and more excellence in extra-curricular activities. The degrees were also more likely to be Honours degrees. While the polys and colleges would often make unconditional offers (basically you just needed to pass your exams) to get you into their programs, and the degrees offered were more standard. Hiring managers were aware of these differences at the time.
And then many of the polys and colleges gradually changed their names, and there are a lot more āuniversitiesā now. There is still somewhat of a hierarchy of which universities are considered prestigious and therefore offering more valuable degrees, but it matters less, especially for the universities like mine (Leicester) which was well regarded but not in the elite bracket like Oxford, Cambridge, Durham.
So, my 2:1 (second highest grade you can get) in a 4-year Honours degree from what was once regarded as a higher level tertiary education institution is now just any other Bachelors degree to many companies. Itās a bit annoying but at the same time I realize that grades donāt really tell hiring managers much about how good that employee will be.
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