If you hated your office job and resigned, what do you do instead?

[careerswitcher]

Just pondering this today. I've worked in a public sector office job (although currently WFH) for 14 years and it's sucking the life out of me.

There must be more to life than this so I'm looking at career changes. If this was you and you made a switch, what do you do now? Looking for inspiration!

Following!!
I'm in the same position

How interesting OP, I feel the same also.

Hoping for a deluge of responses from people who felt the same and took the plunge. It's scary considering leaving, isn't it, despite the fatuity of some areas of the public sector.

Just us so far @bluesky8 and @bellaara

I just feel like I'm wasting my life, one PowerPoint, excel spreadsheet, briefing paper at a time...

I think the whole Covid and wfh has just made me hate it tbh.
I've lost all interest. Whilst I make sure it doesn't show whilst working or in my work I just dread logging on everyday.
I've also been at my place over 10 year and I just feel like I'm ready to move on now.
Just don't know what

Not me but my DH became a self employed gardener doing really well. Always wanted to work outside and found lots of local clients. Earns more than when he was a teacher.
Has done horticulture courses and other training to enhance his knowledge.
Just thought this might be an interesting example.

That's really interesting @ilovebagpuss.

Did he have a clientbase set up, to go to, and did he have a love of gardening, prior to making a living from it? Best if luck to him, and you

Hi yes he always enjoyed it as a hobby. He did a sort of slow transfer from teacher to agency teacher/substitute part time with one or 2 gardens then built up his clients until he could ditch the teaching.
Took about 6 months and he was having to turn down clients. Now if he gets an opening it doesn’t take long to get a new garden slotted in just from neighbours or word of mouth.

I decided I needed to learn a new skill so I could work for myself.
Enrolled into uni and studied (for 5 years) whilst working in my job doing never ending PowerPoints.

Can't say what new skill is as outing but think along the lines of a psychology degree, and then working privately as a councillor. Something like that.

I think the problem is that many people want to leave the corporate rat race but you really need to put the work into mastering a new skill if you don't have one yet.

I'm doing a course with OpenLearn (actually doing loads of courses to try and find out what career would suit me), it was recommended recently on Mumsnet. Here's the link. SO HELPFUL so far!!

www.open.edu/openlearncreate/course/view.php?id=2173

Decide what it is you will be an expert in. OP's gardener husband is a good example.

Barber
Teacher/ private tutor
Cake baker
Curtain maker
Sleep consultant (for babies)
Wedding photographer/video maker

And so on. Then work towards learning that skill, prepare that it'll most likely to take years (I'd say 5 on average). As you'll need to be really good at it if you want to work for yourself and attracting clients.

The hard bit is to continue to work in your corporate job. I couldn't afford to quit and had to wake up at 5am to write uni assignments before starting work at 9am, and my weekends were spent studying.

I quit my office job, retrained and now work in a nursery. I love my job. Money is crap in comparison but happiness is more important.

Trained to be a midwife.

That was me 20 years ago

I retrained to teach secondary (on the job as I already had good bachelor's and master's degrees, so I was paid as a full time teacher without QTS for the first year - back then it was called the graduate teacher programme). I taught for five years after that but didn't find secondary school teaching compatible with having a baby/ small child (to be fair my senior management team were particularly unhelpful and there were no female teachers with younger children on staff - something that I didn't notice until I was pregnant myself).

I was a childminder for a while and then moved abroad, where I taught part time adult education classes for 8 years. retrained again a few years ago and now do a learning disabilities support role.

I found my office job soul destroying because it was ultimately pointless. It wasn't pointless in the context of the organisation I worked for; it was integral. It was pointless in that what the company did felt pointless, and that people were treated as commodities. I found that made me feel somewhat pointless as a human being after I'd been doing it a while!

Years ago I did this and became a preschool teacher.
I loved it for a few years and ran my own preschool. Now I'm back working in an office.

I'm working to try and get sales in my Etsy business high enough to leave my office based day job. Which feels backwards because I worked so hard to get the day job, it's the role I always wanted to be in, but I just don't feel fulfilled now that I'm actually there!

That’s so interesting to hear, @ilovebagpuss – I’m desperate to retrain as a gardener but finding it hard to juggle work, toddler and training, especially when I couldn’t be certain of the outcome. I resolve to give it another go – the slow transition route sounds sensible; I need to save more, I think, for a cushion and to reduce my work hours to buy time for training.

I'm thinking about this too. I'm lucky in that we've got enough for me and DH to retire in the summer. I've spent the last 40 odd years as a legal PA and it's draining now. I've got several bosses one of whom is hugely demanding, and the last 2 years WFH have made me realise that I just don't need the drama and the presssure.

I suspect that I'll do 6 months and then will be itching to do something, but that's me, so I'm thinking about what I'd like to do. One of our local independent clothes shops has offered me some hours of I want them, and I make my own cards so DH has suggested maybe doing something on Etsy. It's exciting to look at doing something different!

@CovidCorvid

Trained to be a midwife.

I want out of this so badly. I do a LOT of different roles (6) but god I’m tired. The life, is, indeed, sucked out of me.

I was the same as you OP, worked for a huge multinational, endless spreadsheets and conference calls, it completely drained me.

I now make wedding cakes, and although it can still be stressful I love being self employed.
As a previous poster said, you do have to be very good at it and become an expert, it’s taken me nearly 6 years to get to level where I can charge a premium for my services and earn a decent wage!

I would love to retrain in Post-mortem reconstruction and embalming, do some cosmetic and nail art courses and perhaps go into something forensics related from there.

Unfortunately it's all way too expensive or I'd start today!

I'm another one just here for the inspiration avoiding typing up the minutes I should have done before Christmas.

Someone who used to work with me got an RHS apprenticeship in her 30s so the opportunities are out there.

Looking into retraining as a family support worker.

@ItchySnoof

I would love to retrain in Post-mortem reconstruction and embalming, do some cosmetic and nail art courses and perhaps go into something forensics related from there.

Unfortunately it's all way too expensive or I'd start today!

I did my degree with a government loan.

There are SO many govt loans to support our study; we are lucky we have that option. I know someone who had beauty training business (nails, hair etc.) and students studied via loan from the govt.

Have you looked into it?

I'm sort of transitioning out.

Senior management in a small office based company.

Now doing the same job at a much lower level part time whilst I complete an IT qualification l. I have ten year's experience in the area, just need the certs to go freelance or consult part time. Starting salaries are 45k+, and without bragging too much, I've met a lot of useless people at that salary compared to my skills.

I'm planning to do flexi IT support for a high salary for no more than 20h per week, whilst living the Good Life growing my own veg, volunteering and writing. I craft too, and I want to sell on the side.

I don't care about being some big exec again, or that crafting would make a fraction per hour than if I did the IT work full time. It makes me happy, and I've spent enough time in the chore of employment.

Giving this a bump because I’d like a few ideas. Would love to retrain in something so I can work for myself.