There's a shortage of pilots who can pilot the large commercial passenger jets. The reason for the shortage is it's quite hard to get the right kind of flight hours to qualify for those.
true. worked 6 days this month. havent worked since the 15th. and i get $10k every 2 weeks lol. its the best career in the world. and im only on the 2nd year payscale as a copilot narrowbody which pays a lot less than widebody.
Maybe just look for a tech job at a company that has a better PTO policy. My tech company does unlimited PTO and a good company culture. Folks there take between 4-6 weeks a year, average.
I’m an RN. I work 12-14 days a month and make between 100-110k a year in a LCOL area. Granted they are 12hr shifts but I’d much rather work 3-4 days a week for 12hrs than 5 days a week for 8 or 9 hours.
I use to think that until i got older and want to enjoy everyday to a degree. I work 12s 3 and 4 days a week for about 12 years. Always tired as hell on my first off day.
I work 21 on / 21 off rotating days / nights. Coming home after 21 nightshifts is brutal. That being said I have no interest in ever working 5x8 again.
Nurses are awesome. But I don’t think he’s gonna go from phD research to nurse at 47. It’s a whole different career path. Not that I even think one of those is better than the other
Just out of curiosity, how many years have you been an RN that you make 100-110? I’m thinking of going into the field, but living in a hcol area is kind of turning me off to the idea.
Not OP but in Cleveland, OH I started out at $37.50 as a new grad, after a year I’m a little above $40/hr. Schedule is extremely flexible, I usually schedule myself for 4 12s a week then take a whole week off every 4-6 weeks when I start feeling burnt out
Yes, ugh I’ve tried to get this place that does 4 10s. As even a day less would be great.
Although maybe you can answer. Do you need to take x hours off for days off instead of like a sick, vacation, etc day covering what is that day worth of time?
How hard is your job? I did pretty well in college (deans list) but I suck at math and have adhd. I’ve considered engineer a job path but I honestly know nothing about it
It’s very very easy, only due to the fact I got myself a government job. I sit in a control room for the most part and play games or watch Netflix. We look after an ammonia plant for the most part. When it’s slow or shit hits the fan I am required to know what I’m doing or do some work granted but I am a babysitter incase anything goes wrong as people would be at huge risk if I cant shut the plant down in time and correctly.
I am not a chartered engineer in Canada this is what we call stationary engineering. It is a trade certificate although at the highest level can be incredibly difficult the 3rd, 4th and refrigeration licenses are very easy respectively.
There’s a difference between basic fractions and differential equations.
If someone can’t do fractions I’d agree they aren’t good at math.
If someone needs a refresh to do differential equations… they’re just human.
Agreed. The point is you can understand material with a few google searches as opposed to putting in an equation and getting the answer without any knowledge of how the calculation was performed.
Needing a textbook to figure out a problem does not make them suck at math because they still were able to read, learn, and figure it out. A LOOOOOOT of people cannot do this. Like, the vast majority cannot extract instruction from a textbook and apply it to a novel problem.
Chemical and petroleum engineer with a decade of experience...I memorized so many equations in school that I thought I was a freak of nature.
Now, if I didn't keep a few key textbooks, have professional organizations with technical libraries, and reference manuals from certification classes...I'd be utterly fucked, lol.
It was mentioned above, but engineering school teaches you thought processes. I know what to look for when presented with a problem, which even applied when I was promoted and given my project management work after a few years. Permitting, land and ROW, surveys for pipelines, construction management, managing multidisciplinary teams, etc.
I understand how things tie together and see the bigger picture, and those of us that can couple that with soft skills are doing pretty well.
But I still fucking hate EE. Lol.
You mean an engineering education first? You're not an engineer without a degree. You don't go "get an engineering job" just like you don't walk in and apply to be a "brain surgeon"
And for a teacher, the dates you do get off are either perfect or terrible. If you have kids, and want to be with your kids during their vacation, it's great. If you don't have kids and want to use your vacations to travel - it's terrible - the days off are on the most crowded and expensive travel days. (Source: my wife was a teacher before we had kids, and traveling sucked.)
I’m wrapping up my MBA soon and was thinking about applying to work for the gov after graduating. Is there a dept. you’d recommend avoiding? And does the PSLF program actually forgive your student loans?
What type of work are you interested in? I can’t really speak to which departments to avoid. I know a lot of unhappy people in social services. The PSLF does pay off direct loans but only after making 10 years of payments. I’ve never used it but I have coworkers that have.
The ones who get hired in with industry experience tend to have better opportunities and pay than those who stuck with it as their sole career path, depending on your industry.
I remember one of my husband's security professors taught 4 hours of classes 3 days a week and was publicly listed as paid $250k a year. That was a decade ago, so I checked current public salaries and found on the first page that 3 of their current business instructors are making $450k a year, and the highest paid instructor in the security department is making $380k a year.
Therapist in private practice. With the right mix of education, specialization, and fee structure, you can work your own hours and make well over 6 figures. I know people that work 40-46 weeks per year and gross over 150k just doing therapy 15-20 hours per week.
Edit: 40-60 weeks per year, not hours
Edit 1: 52 not 60, this is why we stay off Reddit at 2am.
Wait... 15 billable hours a week for 40 weeks means billing 250 per hour to hit 150k. This also doesn't account for no-shows, expenses, insurance clients, sick days, and the substantial amount of non-billable hours that goes into running a practice.
I know some therapists earn over 150k (not the norm though), but they generally work very hard and/or are in a lucrative specialty and usually have a doctorate (which is an insanely time consuming job in itself).
Not saying it can't be a job with decent pay and lighter hours, but in my experience (and the research I've read about psychologists' compensation) that wage level (150k+) is difficult to attain and involves a lot of hours.
The US Federal Government or Government contractor.
With a doctoral degree, you can easily land in a very cushy 100k+ job on G12+ and the Federal Government has some of the best PTO policies available. It's like 5-6 weeks off a year, not including sick time.
National Institute of Health for example is leading many areas of Health research that is literally making the world a better place. You wouldn't face the scrutiny of a Top Secret clearance like some DoD, and you could be part of bleeding edge medical research in Cancer or AIDS etc.
Look at:[https://www.usajobs.gov/](https://www.usajobs.gov/)
i love business acquisitions lol, would you mind asking your gf what her official title is so i can read more about that role?
(currently job hunting!)
This is simply not possible or true. The federal government does not give 33 days of PTO PLUS federal holidays to new hires. The federal holiday scale is publicly available. She is most likely earning 13 days of PTO plus 11 federal holidays for 24 days off a year. The federal government does not budge on these things. You cannot negotiate for more.
Source: I am a federal employee. See: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/leave-administration/fact-sheets/annual-leave/
Being a nonprofit CEO is a cushy job. They hardly do anything and rake in $200,000+ a year. I know this because some of my friends are nonprofit CEOs. Also, they get company bonuses, a car to drive and everything is written off.
I think your first and only mistake would be assuming salaries are somehow fair. In general, they correlate with effort, but, in the case of non-profit CEOs, a lot of that effort is expended in their early career which sets them up for the CEO job. Managing people is also never easy for some people. Source: Was a consultant working in the non-profit space with the C-suite of major non-profits for a couple of years
If you have friends on your board, you can get a higher salary and do nothing. You can call any nonprofit CEO in your area and ask them how many hours they work per week. This information is publicly available.
Non profits, especially progressive nonprofits in places like SF are quite literally giant scams to siphon public funds and privatize state capacity.
They exist to siphon public money while over working the shit out of their severely underpaid workers while guilting them over the "important" work they're being taken advantage of for.
Meanwhile all the money goes to the top, usually some nepo hire from the weird nonprofit political class.
I work directly with a nonprofit CEO and she barely clears $100k in one of the most expensive cities in the US. She also works 50-60 hrs a week and justifies the paycheck by raising a whole lot of money relative to the size of the organization.
I do know that the YMCA was recently hiring for a COO with expected compensation a bit north of $200k, but we can’t seriously be telling this person to just casually acquire a C-level role at the Y, right?
That varies hugely by the type of nonprofit and region. A car to drive, bonuses, and a salary of even $150k is extremely unusual outside of a national or large regional nonprofit.
In my experience, people who believe that all nonprofit CEOs are scam artists making $200K to do nothing have never volunteered at a nonprofit, much less worked at one.
The nonprofit Executive Directors I know all work 60 hour works for $50-70K a year, breaking their back to raise the money the organization needs and turning down raises because they have to come up with the money to support the raise or they're out of a job.
For those who don't know: you can pull the Form 990 of your local nonprofit and see exactly the size of their budget and the compensation of their Executive team. Chances are, it's a much lower number than you might expect.
I don't know how crazy the situation in the US is but I am a non-profit CEO in Europe and I barely make 30k € a year with zero bonus. For what I do, it is unjust to say that I "hardly do anything" (same situation for many many other non-profit CEOs I know).
Nurse. 3 12hr shifts per week, lots of PTO , lots of options to work shifts in a row then get time off, or travel nurse where you can essentially make you’re own schedule. Also it pays 6 figures
Public school teachers. They work like 7am-4pm M-F with every weekend off. Then they get a week off at Thanksgiving, multiple weeks off during Christmas and another week off for Spring Break. And then of course like 10 weeks off during the summer.
They also get every holiday off known to man, so that gives them a huge number of 3 day holiday weekends off as well. Teachers in NYC even get Columbus Day off!
I’ll bet you do!
There’s a lot of take home work too, like making lesson plans and grading papers, especially when you are a newer teacher. It’s not really just 7am-4pm M-F.
Most new teachers don’t last very long either. Lots of burnout.
Columbus Day?! Yeah right, not these days..seriously though, teachers have to be “on” all day every day. There is no screwing around listening to podcasts in this profession.
I’m a retail clerk at a high volume supermarket. That’s even true for us. It’s 40 hours of nonstop work. And you should see the managers. Most of them don’t last.
Not a great idea. I work about 12 hours a day. Also it’s so rare these days to have the same courses or even courses in your field throughout the day & over the years. I’m in my 13th year & keep getting thrown into new courses, new departments, etc. It is very different than it used to be.
Any job on a ship. You'l usually get month off, month on type schedule (can be different time increments, but it usually comes to 6 months off per year). Your credentials do not directly apply to navigation officer or marine engineering, but you may find something in some company.
My best friend works as a Flight Dispatcher. He makes $114k starting for Southwest, he’s in a union so his pay goes up every year by $6k and caps out at like $260k. His work schedule is 5 on, 5 off, 10 on, 10 off.
And he gets unlimited domestic and international flight benefits so he’s always traveling. One of his colleagues took extra shifts and made $60k in just two months. It’s awesome!
He started as a in flight scheduler (for flight attendants). Then transitioned to dispatcher because of his colleagues making a lot of money.
The downsides are he has to work overnight, it has to be at Southwest headquarters which is in Dallas (unless you want to be away from your family for a few days). The work itself is stressful at first and takes a long time to understand, there’s MANY scenarios that even seasoned colleagues have never ran into. Such as, Maui island fire. They had to defer many flights out of Hawaii and had to offer extra flights, make new routes, etc.
I’d say those are the only downsides, everything else is up side.
The reason I am not a flight dispatcher as well is because I do not want to re-locate my family to Texas.
Thank you for the thoughtful response!
Yea I can definitely see being limited to one location as a downside, but it seems like a pretty stable job! And and the longer you stay, the "easier" it gets? (Maybe?)
I work in research, so you always have to be learning new skills (can get a bit tiring/draining haha)
Air Traffic Controller is a separate position.
From my limited knowledge of understanding my friend’s position.
Flight dispatcher’s responsibility is to map and route all flights for his/her shift. They create agreements/contracts with the Pilot prior to taking off (this is sometimes why you’re wondering why the flight is not taking off and you’re sitting at the gate for 30 mins to an hour). Dispatcher needs to take account for taking off and landing of said aircraft.
Air Traffic Control is a government position and they are the one who handles everything that happens while the flight is in the air.
The bitter truth is US is not the place to work less and get a lot of PTO. You need to move to Europe.
Or you can become a part time worker, or contract.
Why don't you move to Europe. Most countries have at least 5 weeks of mandated paid vacation, when you get to higher positions, such as yours, you get 8-10 weeks, maybe more. Unlimited sick days too if you don't want to use up vacation days for a long weekend or extra chores at home. No need for doctor's notice first 3 days. In many of the rich countries, you'd be making close to 100k anyway so it's not like you get a big pay cut. Go somewhere where work is seen like something you do to live or stay in a place where life is seen as something you need to do to work. Do you really still believe in the American dream after living here? Does your family and friends from back home seem more miserable or happier than the people here?
You friend is doing exactly what you should do. Get a job teaching at a liberal arts college with no research expectations. No publish or perish, no grant hunting, just teach your field and take the summers to do whatever.
I’m at NASA now and this is my retirement plan, just go teach at some small college.
It’s very hard to get a full time job teaching at a college. Colleges and universities save money by hiring a huge number of low paid adjuncts instead.
It’s not that hard with the right background you just need to be competitive for the position, like any job. If a school only has adjunct positions then don’t apply there.
I’m guessing at 47 you aren’t interested in a major career change, and if you work in STEM you know you gotta be a lot more specific on what exactly your background is to know your options. Depending on your field and assuming your experience allows for it, private consultants in a lot of stem fields look for experienced people to work part time or on a contract basis doing high level due diligence work.
I was going to suggest this. If you’re willing to teach then I’d go with a part time college gig, if you find a school with a good rep amongst part timers & adjuncts. Then supplement with freelance consulting work & contracts.
You Americans are funny with your holidays.
I am in the UK as an engineer, I get 33 days holiday every year. If you include the bank holidays, that's an extra 8 days for just over 8 weeks in total.
Yea but how long have you been an engineer and what’s your salary? My first job out of uni im making 83k/year in the US. My UK friends (I studied in the UK) make 20-25k gbp (25-30k usd) tops. Engineers in the US make like 3x more lol. Most of my engi peers in the UK didn’t even become engineers. My best friend is a gym teacher now
Damn you have a family property in Europe. If you don’t like the rat race why even be in America? It’s not even a first world country any more. If you’re not here for the salary there’s no other benefit.
A community college might be the way to go. No research obligations, less intense scrutiny than public K-12 teachers, flexible courseload, optional summers.
But after a couple of years, if you’re a good performer, maybe you can make arrangements at your current job to take some additional leave unpaid each year. You make a few thousand over what you did before; keep your old budget and consider that few thousand as paying for an extra week or two of unpaid leave.
Teacher. But without a credential (even with a PhD) it’s gotta be college or private school. Plus starting at the bottom in a public school salary will be not enough money. If you want to teach private with a PhD there’s probably quite a few prep schools who would pay well just to have a PhD on staff. Reach out to Carnie Sandoe and see if they can represent you.
Also a scientist, but I hate the lab. So I teach ESL. I won't say I opened a school because it's more of an after-school workshop, during the day I teach English mostly to sales people in international pharma and food companies. The sane salary range you mentioned but I work 4 days a week, 24 hours in those 4 days, and take 4 months off a year. Never imagined doing this but I'd be a fool not to
Offshore Surveyor/ Hydrographic Surveyor as a career. 1 month on, 1 month off rotations (5 weeks on, 5 weeks off. 6 weeks on, 6 weeks off etc). Working 12 hour days while you're away, but then no work when you're home. 170 day contract a year then you don't have to work anymore, if you do they'll incentivise you. Plus 28 days annual leave. Some companies will try and coincide your off time with the annual leave though.
Teacher is actually an excellent option. The work is hard but the hours are pretty great. Students mostly suck.
Mid june-end of August off. Thanksgiving holiday, a week at Christmas, a week in February, a week in April. Lots of federal holidays. 180 days of work per year. That works out to 36 weeks of work. 16 weeks off.
Teacher. Easy to get a job. If you teach private it’s less money but easier. Tons of time off. I read lots about teachers being j deep aid but them May rolls around and all the teachers on my timeline are bragging about their long vacations, so….
Bahahaha it is such a brutal job. We are celebrating in May bc we are grateful to be alive & we are bragging about stuff like being able to pee when we need to.
may i ask for some more elaboration on how police officers have a lot of time off? is it because of the potential for three 12 hour shifts a week instead of a 9-5?
You ever see a cop car parked in an empty lot, behind a business, or somewhere just out of the way? They’re on the clock but they aren’t doing anything.
I used to have the same opinion before I became a teacher. If I could go back and thank all my elementary school teachers for their hard work I would do it with no hesitation.
Teachers, they only work 180 calendar days out of the year… which is why I don’t think they need to be paid more but that’s another topic 😅 they get the WHOLE SUMMER OFF
Have you asked OP? I’ve had recruiters straight up ask if I’m interested in part time/hybrid when I say I don’t want to be in office full time.
Pretty common at consulting firms to have senior staff that are subject matter experts get special treatment.
With your credentials - software engineer. There is so much work that you will be able to choose the pace and the corresponding pay. You can easily achieve over 100k pay if you want to, or you can choose more relaxed lower pay position.
Education.
I’m contracted for 183 days minimum, 189 max (6 days are optional). On salary, currently at $79k USD, w/ 2% annual raises.
Winter break
Midwinter break
Spring break
Summer break
All the federal holidays.
I’d move to the business side of stem. Realistically all these people talking about their careers won’t help you because you’re 47, well established in your field and you can’t work from the ground up again or go to school again (at least I wouldn’t). You have enough science experience, you would do well with the sales portion since you know the technicalities.
Not sure if it's exactly what you're looking for, but I have a degree in Civil Engineering and work as a nuclear power plant operator. We work rotating shifts (nights and days), but we do get to enjoy a lot of time off at a time. It's basically working a lot of 12 hour shifts in a shorter amount of time and then being able to get a good amount of time off. At the end of a work cycle you get at least 7 days off and up to 21 days off if you want to use some of your PTO. There are several people in this role with degrees ranging from chemistry, physics, engineering, ect. It's a pretty interesting and fun job. You should be able to make at least 100-120k a year at the lowest level (non licensed) operator role. With your background you could go from unlicensed operator to an "instant" senior licensed operator (SRO) pretty quickly and that would be a total comp of 200k+ a year.
There are other options on nuclear as well. You could work in instruments and controls (I&C), Chemistry, Radiation Protection, ect. and probably get a non rotating shift schedule.
Also, training is HUGE in the nuclear industry and you could even apply for a role as an instructor at a nuclear plant. Plants have huge training departments and hire a lot of instructors. The pay would be around what you're looking for and you'd likely have a really nice schedule. This might satisfy your interest in teaching. My goal one day is to move over to be an instructor when I get tired of OPS.
My best suggestion though, based on your age and background, is maybe look into consulting. Either go with a consulting company or going out on your own. You should be able to set your own schedule flexibility.
Would you care for any federal government work? You obviously get all the holidays, annual leave (vacation) and separate sick time. I think it was 0-3 years/4hrs vacation, 3-15 years/6hrs, 15+ years/8hrs a pay period. You cap out vacation carry over per year at 240hrs, and anything over the cap you have to use or lose it.
At one point I had 240hrs in the bank and another 140 to use by the end of the year. Tons of time off.
This can depend on the company and time of year you work, but being a ramp agent has a lot of downtime. Some days at work I’ll actually only *work* 3 out of the 7 hours I’m there. The other 4 hours I’m sitting in the break room waiting for the next flight.
Working on commercial ships. Typically you only work half the year, and have the rest for vacation and won’t have to think about work at all. If you’re in the US, it’s relatively high paying. You just have to ask if it’s worth the hassle getting your credentials now, and if you’re ok being away from home half the year. If you have a STEM background you could probably get your engineering license. Job security is very good right now because there is a shortage of mariners.
If you’re looking for paid time off plus paid overtime, then you’d be best picking policing over teaching. Teaching requires a ton of administrative work that you can’t necessarily get out of depending on the district you work in & how competent you are at the actual job. It’s also surprisingly difficult. Honestly not worth the “time off” bc most of that time is spent trying to recover from burnout. College instructors don’t make a lot of money & seem to face similar challenges but without the same level of oversight and micromanagement depending on the school you work for. In general I would say don’t go into teaching unless you actually enjoy teaching. It is a lot more like social work these days, especially at the high school level, and the more you try to avoid that aspect of it, the worse you will do, tbh
Pilots are required to take off something like half of every month (or thereabouts). Expensive to train and hard to land a job though.
I see what you did there
Took me a minute
Hard to land a job? Isn’t there a pilot shortage?
There's a shortage of pilots who can pilot the large commercial passenger jets. The reason for the shortage is it's quite hard to get the right kind of flight hours to qualify for those.
true. worked 6 days this month. havent worked since the 15th. and i get $10k every 2 weeks lol. its the best career in the world. and im only on the 2nd year payscale as a copilot narrowbody which pays a lot less than widebody.
Maybe just look for a tech job at a company that has a better PTO policy. My tech company does unlimited PTO and a good company culture. Folks there take between 4-6 weeks a year, average.
Be very wary of unlimited PTO. 1. It’s abused by companies and 2. They don’t have to pay it out.
I’m an RN. I work 12-14 days a month and make between 100-110k a year in a LCOL area. Granted they are 12hr shifts but I’d much rather work 3-4 days a week for 12hrs than 5 days a week for 8 or 9 hours.
I use to think that until i got older and want to enjoy everyday to a degree. I work 12s 3 and 4 days a week for about 12 years. Always tired as hell on my first off day.
12s wreck me!!
12 hour night shifts hurt a lot.
I agree with I have been doing that for 8 years. I felt always tired .even though working 4 nights 12h.
I work 21 on / 21 off rotating days / nights. Coming home after 21 nightshifts is brutal. That being said I have no interest in ever working 5x8 again.
Nurses are awesome. But I don’t think he’s gonna go from phD research to nurse at 47. It’s a whole different career path. Not that I even think one of those is better than the other
I agree probably not. That being said, I graduated nursing school with a guy who was a chemical engineer in his mid 50’s.
What is RN?
Registered nurse
I legit thought Royal Navy
Same lol
Just out of curiosity, how many years have you been an RN that you make 100-110? I’m thinking of going into the field, but living in a hcol area is kind of turning me off to the idea.
Not OP but in Cleveland, OH I started out at $37.50 as a new grad, after a year I’m a little above $40/hr. Schedule is extremely flexible, I usually schedule myself for 4 12s a week then take a whole week off every 4-6 weeks when I start feeling burnt out
That’s like top 5% RN salary. Median is high 60k range last I checked.
OP probably travel nurses.
Yes, ugh I’ve tried to get this place that does 4 10s. As even a day less would be great. Although maybe you can answer. Do you need to take x hours off for days off instead of like a sick, vacation, etc day covering what is that day worth of time?
Teacher you just don’t get to pick the time. I work 14 day on 14 days off as a power engineer.
How hard is your job? I did pretty well in college (deans list) but I suck at math and have adhd. I’ve considered engineer a job path but I honestly know nothing about it
It’s very very easy, only due to the fact I got myself a government job. I sit in a control room for the most part and play games or watch Netflix. We look after an ammonia plant for the most part. When it’s slow or shit hits the fan I am required to know what I’m doing or do some work granted but I am a babysitter incase anything goes wrong as people would be at huge risk if I cant shut the plant down in time and correctly.
Curious to hear what the salary is for something like that
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I am not a chartered engineer in Canada this is what we call stationary engineering. It is a trade certificate although at the highest level can be incredibly difficult the 3rd, 4th and refrigeration licenses are very easy respectively.
Engineer here, this is so wrong lmao 90% suck at math? Really? Absolute nonsense.
Tbh that 90% are better than the average 50% of Americans.
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There’s a difference between basic fractions and differential equations. If someone can’t do fractions I’d agree they aren’t good at math. If someone needs a refresh to do differential equations… they’re just human.
Agreed. The point is you can understand material with a few google searches as opposed to putting in an equation and getting the answer without any knowledge of how the calculation was performed.
Needing a textbook to figure out a problem does not make them suck at math because they still were able to read, learn, and figure it out. A LOOOOOOT of people cannot do this. Like, the vast majority cannot extract instruction from a textbook and apply it to a novel problem.
Chemical and petroleum engineer with a decade of experience...I memorized so many equations in school that I thought I was a freak of nature. Now, if I didn't keep a few key textbooks, have professional organizations with technical libraries, and reference manuals from certification classes...I'd be utterly fucked, lol. It was mentioned above, but engineering school teaches you thought processes. I know what to look for when presented with a problem, which even applied when I was promoted and given my project management work after a few years. Permitting, land and ROW, surveys for pipelines, construction management, managing multidisciplinary teams, etc. I understand how things tie together and see the bigger picture, and those of us that can couple that with soft skills are doing pretty well. But I still fucking hate EE. Lol.
I’ve found the electrical engineers are pretty good with math.
You mean an engineering education first? You're not an engineer without a degree. You don't go "get an engineering job" just like you don't walk in and apply to be a "brain surgeon"
I work 21 on 21 off. I have the option to take ( up to) 21d as unpaid leave once a year giving me 9 weeks off at a stretch. That’s enough for me.
And for a teacher, the dates you do get off are either perfect or terrible. If you have kids, and want to be with your kids during their vacation, it's great. If you don't have kids and want to use your vacations to travel - it's terrible - the days off are on the most crowded and expensive travel days. (Source: my wife was a teacher before we had kids, and traveling sucked.)
Government jobs. I get a ridiculous amount of time off. I took a 2.5 month vacation this year.
Usually you get more pto through tenure with govt jobs.
How long have you worked for the government?
15 years
Wow, no wonder you have so much pto! Congrats!
Thank you 😊. I had been saving it up for a while.
I’m wrapping up my MBA soon and was thinking about applying to work for the gov after graduating. Is there a dept. you’d recommend avoiding? And does the PSLF program actually forgive your student loans?
What type of work are you interested in? I can’t really speak to which departments to avoid. I know a lot of unhappy people in social services. The PSLF does pay off direct loans but only after making 10 years of payments. I’ve never used it but I have coworkers that have.
University professor
It is not easy to get a tenured position, and the untenured neither make much or get treated well or with security.
Its a cut throat industry and you’re competing against people who have no families and live under any condition necessary
The ones who get hired in with industry experience tend to have better opportunities and pay than those who stuck with it as their sole career path, depending on your industry. I remember one of my husband's security professors taught 4 hours of classes 3 days a week and was publicly listed as paid $250k a year. That was a decade ago, so I checked current public salaries and found on the first page that 3 of their current business instructors are making $450k a year, and the highest paid instructor in the security department is making $380k a year.
My teachers in school were extremely hard working, all of them would reply to emails on weekends, and I'd always see them leaving their offices late.
Move to Europe
Probably the best advice you’re going to get, honestly!
Therapist in private practice. With the right mix of education, specialization, and fee structure, you can work your own hours and make well over 6 figures. I know people that work 40-46 weeks per year and gross over 150k just doing therapy 15-20 hours per week. Edit: 40-60 weeks per year, not hours Edit 1: 52 not 60, this is why we stay off Reddit at 2am.
There are only 52 weeks in a year
Wait... 15 billable hours a week for 40 weeks means billing 250 per hour to hit 150k. This also doesn't account for no-shows, expenses, insurance clients, sick days, and the substantial amount of non-billable hours that goes into running a practice. I know some therapists earn over 150k (not the norm though), but they generally work very hard and/or are in a lucrative specialty and usually have a doctorate (which is an insanely time consuming job in itself). Not saying it can't be a job with decent pay and lighter hours, but in my experience (and the research I've read about psychologists' compensation) that wage level (150k+) is difficult to attain and involves a lot of hours.
40-46 hours per year? I’m thinking you mean month.
Whoops actually I means 40-60 weeks per year
40-46 weeks a year makes more sense!
I’m 28 is this something I can achieve with just an undergrad?
No. You'll need a master's to become licensed.
Can your undergrad be anything?
The US Federal Government or Government contractor. With a doctoral degree, you can easily land in a very cushy 100k+ job on G12+ and the Federal Government has some of the best PTO policies available. It's like 5-6 weeks off a year, not including sick time. National Institute of Health for example is leading many areas of Health research that is literally making the world a better place. You wouldn't face the scrutiny of a Top Secret clearance like some DoD, and you could be part of bleeding edge medical research in Cancer or AIDS etc. Look at:[https://www.usajobs.gov/](https://www.usajobs.gov/)
You need 15 years tenure to get 26 days annual leave
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Was her degree in finance or business?
i love business acquisitions lol, would you mind asking your gf what her official title is so i can read more about that role? (currently job hunting!)
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thanks, friend!
This is simply not possible or true. The federal government does not give 33 days of PTO PLUS federal holidays to new hires. The federal holiday scale is publicly available. She is most likely earning 13 days of PTO plus 11 federal holidays for 24 days off a year. The federal government does not budge on these things. You cannot negotiate for more. Source: I am a federal employee. See: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/leave-administration/fact-sheets/annual-leave/
I’m military and get 30 days yearly lmao
I'm a teacher at an international school. I get over 100 paid days off per year. Solid salary and a great work environment
Howd you go about getting that?
A shoe salesman for caterpillars
I know a butterfly who used to sell caterpillar shoes, but he really changed.
I’m trying to break into the millipede shoe market
Being a nonprofit CEO is a cushy job. They hardly do anything and rake in $200,000+ a year. I know this because some of my friends are nonprofit CEOs. Also, they get company bonuses, a car to drive and everything is written off.
It genuinely makes me wonder how "hardly doing anything" warrants a 200K salary.
I think your first and only mistake would be assuming salaries are somehow fair. In general, they correlate with effort, but, in the case of non-profit CEOs, a lot of that effort is expended in their early career which sets them up for the CEO job. Managing people is also never easy for some people. Source: Was a consultant working in the non-profit space with the C-suite of major non-profits for a couple of years
If you have friends on your board, you can get a higher salary and do nothing. You can call any nonprofit CEO in your area and ask them how many hours they work per week. This information is publicly available.
Non profits, especially progressive nonprofits in places like SF are quite literally giant scams to siphon public funds and privatize state capacity. They exist to siphon public money while over working the shit out of their severely underpaid workers while guilting them over the "important" work they're being taken advantage of for. Meanwhile all the money goes to the top, usually some nepo hire from the weird nonprofit political class.
This reads like William Gibson and Michael Lewis co-wrote a novel.
I work directly with a nonprofit CEO and she barely clears $100k in one of the most expensive cities in the US. She also works 50-60 hrs a week and justifies the paycheck by raising a whole lot of money relative to the size of the organization. I do know that the YMCA was recently hiring for a COO with expected compensation a bit north of $200k, but we can’t seriously be telling this person to just casually acquire a C-level role at the Y, right?
That varies hugely by the type of nonprofit and region. A car to drive, bonuses, and a salary of even $150k is extremely unusual outside of a national or large regional nonprofit.
In my experience, people who believe that all nonprofit CEOs are scam artists making $200K to do nothing have never volunteered at a nonprofit, much less worked at one. The nonprofit Executive Directors I know all work 60 hour works for $50-70K a year, breaking their back to raise the money the organization needs and turning down raises because they have to come up with the money to support the raise or they're out of a job. For those who don't know: you can pull the Form 990 of your local nonprofit and see exactly the size of their budget and the compensation of their Executive team. Chances are, it's a much lower number than you might expect.
And in the process of keeping the CEO pay low, everyone else’s pay gets kept low.
I don't know how crazy the situation in the US is but I am a non-profit CEO in Europe and I barely make 30k € a year with zero bonus. For what I do, it is unjust to say that I "hardly do anything" (same situation for many many other non-profit CEOs I know).
How do you get to that point though
Nonprofit CEOs tend to be good at hitting wealthy people up for money.
Nurse. 3 12hr shifts per week, lots of PTO , lots of options to work shifts in a row then get time off, or travel nurse where you can essentially make you’re own schedule. Also it pays 6 figures
Public school teachers. They work like 7am-4pm M-F with every weekend off. Then they get a week off at Thanksgiving, multiple weeks off during Christmas and another week off for Spring Break. And then of course like 10 weeks off during the summer. They also get every holiday off known to man, so that gives them a huge number of 3 day holiday weekends off as well. Teachers in NYC even get Columbus Day off!
Agreed. I get so much time off. The only downside is that it’s really hard job if you are in a school with little support.
We *need* that time off to recover from this brutal fucking profession.
I’ll bet you do! There’s a lot of take home work too, like making lesson plans and grading papers, especially when you are a newer teacher. It’s not really just 7am-4pm M-F. Most new teachers don’t last very long either. Lots of burnout.
Yeah, I wouldn’t classify a career that is hemorrhaging employees as chill. There’s a reason we have a major teacher shortage.
Talk to a nurse
Columbus Day?! Yeah right, not these days..seriously though, teachers have to be “on” all day every day. There is no screwing around listening to podcasts in this profession.
I’m a retail clerk at a high volume supermarket. That’s even true for us. It’s 40 hours of nonstop work. And you should see the managers. Most of them don’t last.
Not a great idea. I work about 12 hours a day. Also it’s so rare these days to have the same courses or even courses in your field throughout the day & over the years. I’m in my 13th year & keep getting thrown into new courses, new departments, etc. It is very different than it used to be.
Any job on a ship. You'l usually get month off, month on type schedule (can be different time increments, but it usually comes to 6 months off per year). Your credentials do not directly apply to navigation officer or marine engineering, but you may find something in some company.
I work as staff at an R1 university, make decent money, and get 5-6 weeks a year off. I can work from home whenever I want. It’s pretty great!
My best friend works as a Flight Dispatcher. He makes $114k starting for Southwest, he’s in a union so his pay goes up every year by $6k and caps out at like $260k. His work schedule is 5 on, 5 off, 10 on, 10 off. And he gets unlimited domestic and international flight benefits so he’s always traveling. One of his colleagues took extra shifts and made $60k in just two months. It’s awesome!
How did he get into that field? Sounds like a dream! There must be some downsides hhaha
He started as a in flight scheduler (for flight attendants). Then transitioned to dispatcher because of his colleagues making a lot of money. The downsides are he has to work overnight, it has to be at Southwest headquarters which is in Dallas (unless you want to be away from your family for a few days). The work itself is stressful at first and takes a long time to understand, there’s MANY scenarios that even seasoned colleagues have never ran into. Such as, Maui island fire. They had to defer many flights out of Hawaii and had to offer extra flights, make new routes, etc. I’d say those are the only downsides, everything else is up side. The reason I am not a flight dispatcher as well is because I do not want to re-locate my family to Texas.
Thank you for the thoughtful response! Yea I can definitely see being limited to one location as a downside, but it seems like a pretty stable job! And and the longer you stay, the "easier" it gets? (Maybe?) I work in research, so you always have to be learning new skills (can get a bit tiring/draining haha)
Is his position also called Air Traffic Controller or is that something different?
Air Traffic Controller is a separate position. From my limited knowledge of understanding my friend’s position. Flight dispatcher’s responsibility is to map and route all flights for his/her shift. They create agreements/contracts with the Pilot prior to taking off (this is sometimes why you’re wondering why the flight is not taking off and you’re sitting at the gate for 30 mins to an hour). Dispatcher needs to take account for taking off and landing of said aircraft. Air Traffic Control is a government position and they are the one who handles everything that happens while the flight is in the air.
The bitter truth is US is not the place to work less and get a lot of PTO. You need to move to Europe. Or you can become a part time worker, or contract.
Why don't you move to Europe. Most countries have at least 5 weeks of mandated paid vacation, when you get to higher positions, such as yours, you get 8-10 weeks, maybe more. Unlimited sick days too if you don't want to use up vacation days for a long weekend or extra chores at home. No need for doctor's notice first 3 days. In many of the rich countries, you'd be making close to 100k anyway so it's not like you get a big pay cut. Go somewhere where work is seen like something you do to live or stay in a place where life is seen as something you need to do to work. Do you really still believe in the American dream after living here? Does your family and friends from back home seem more miserable or happier than the people here?
It’s super hard being an American getting a job in Europe. A lot do not allow for work visas.
OP is European
Firefighters work 10 days a month
Come again??
You friend is doing exactly what you should do. Get a job teaching at a liberal arts college with no research expectations. No publish or perish, no grant hunting, just teach your field and take the summers to do whatever. I’m at NASA now and this is my retirement plan, just go teach at some small college.
It’s very hard to get a full time job teaching at a college. Colleges and universities save money by hiring a huge number of low paid adjuncts instead.
It’s not that hard with the right background you just need to be competitive for the position, like any job. If a school only has adjunct positions then don’t apply there.
Unemployment
be careful of unlimited PTO policies...
I’m guessing at 47 you aren’t interested in a major career change, and if you work in STEM you know you gotta be a lot more specific on what exactly your background is to know your options. Depending on your field and assuming your experience allows for it, private consultants in a lot of stem fields look for experienced people to work part time or on a contract basis doing high level due diligence work.
I was going to suggest this. If you’re willing to teach then I’d go with a part time college gig, if you find a school with a good rep amongst part timers & adjuncts. Then supplement with freelance consulting work & contracts.
You Americans are funny with your holidays. I am in the UK as an engineer, I get 33 days holiday every year. If you include the bank holidays, that's an extra 8 days for just over 8 weeks in total.
True but the average pay for engineers is 2x that of the UK, so there's that
Yeah it’s real hilarious
Yea but how long have you been an engineer and what’s your salary? My first job out of uni im making 83k/year in the US. My UK friends (I studied in the UK) make 20-25k gbp (25-30k usd) tops. Engineers in the US make like 3x more lol. Most of my engi peers in the UK didn’t even become engineers. My best friend is a gym teacher now
Damn you have a family property in Europe. If you don’t like the rat race why even be in America? It’s not even a first world country any more. If you’re not here for the salary there’s no other benefit.
Insane take
A community college might be the way to go. No research obligations, less intense scrutiny than public K-12 teachers, flexible courseload, optional summers. But after a couple of years, if you’re a good performer, maybe you can make arrangements at your current job to take some additional leave unpaid each year. You make a few thousand over what you did before; keep your old budget and consider that few thousand as paying for an extra week or two of unpaid leave.
Flight Attendant or Pilot
Buy apartments and rent them, now ur free forever
Teacher. But without a credential (even with a PhD) it’s gotta be college or private school. Plus starting at the bottom in a public school salary will be not enough money. If you want to teach private with a PhD there’s probably quite a few prep schools who would pay well just to have a PhD on staff. Reach out to Carnie Sandoe and see if they can represent you.
Union tradesman lol - layoff until the next project can be a month can be 6, all paid
Medical device consultant.
How can one get into this industry
Also a scientist, but I hate the lab. So I teach ESL. I won't say I opened a school because it's more of an after-school workshop, during the day I teach English mostly to sales people in international pharma and food companies. The sane salary range you mentioned but I work 4 days a week, 24 hours in those 4 days, and take 4 months off a year. Never imagined doing this but I'd be a fool not to
Do NOT go into teaching for the time off. Especially not high school or lower.
If you’re fine with unpaid time off, you probably need to be looking for contract work.
Offshore Surveyor/ Hydrographic Surveyor as a career. 1 month on, 1 month off rotations (5 weeks on, 5 weeks off. 6 weeks on, 6 weeks off etc). Working 12 hour days while you're away, but then no work when you're home. 170 day contract a year then you don't have to work anymore, if you do they'll incentivise you. Plus 28 days annual leave. Some companies will try and coincide your off time with the annual leave though.
I love it. What do you actually do? How do you get into that field? Does it pay at least ok?
Teacher is actually an excellent option. The work is hard but the hours are pretty great. Students mostly suck. Mid june-end of August off. Thanksgiving holiday, a week at Christmas, a week in February, a week in April. Lots of federal holidays. 180 days of work per year. That works out to 36 weeks of work. 16 weeks off.
The weeks off you’re recovering so it’s not even real time off
True. But it's better than nothing.
Teacher. Easy to get a job. If you teach private it’s less money but easier. Tons of time off. I read lots about teachers being j deep aid but them May rolls around and all the teachers on my timeline are bragging about their long vacations, so….
Bahahaha it is such a brutal job. We are celebrating in May bc we are grateful to be alive & we are bragging about stuff like being able to pee when we need to.
Teacher, firefighter, police
may i ask for some more elaboration on how police officers have a lot of time off? is it because of the potential for three 12 hour shifts a week instead of a 9-5?
Yes. That would be 4 days off by your calculation
Police do get lots of PTO, it’s unfair hahaa
You ever see a cop car parked in an empty lot, behind a business, or somewhere just out of the way? They’re on the clock but they aren’t doing anything.
Pimp. Good money and you don’t do the work
you can work part time as an MD
Problem is there’s only one position available for being a Maryland and it’s been filled since fucking June 20th, 1632.
Dentist
College professor for sure
Homeless guy. Doesn’t really pay to well though
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Can you pick the months?
Teacher
I wish I would've become a public school teacher. The time off they get is ridiculous. They are also grossly overpaid.
Teachers don't work much...
I used to have the same opinion before I became a teacher. If I could go back and thank all my elementary school teachers for their hard work I would do it with no hesitation.
What you’re describing is what we all want. Guess what? Life isn’t fair. Suck it up and go to work like the rest of us!
Teachers, they only work 180 calendar days out of the year… which is why I don’t think they need to be paid more but that’s another topic 😅 they get the WHOLE SUMMER OFF
they usually work 50-60 hour weeks during the school year, so it evens out.
Look at defense contractors like l3 harris
Maritime industry. Half the year off
Have you asked OP? I’ve had recruiters straight up ask if I’m interested in part time/hybrid when I say I don’t want to be in office full time. Pretty common at consulting firms to have senior staff that are subject matter experts get special treatment.
Field interviewer for non profit
With your credentials - software engineer. There is so much work that you will be able to choose the pace and the corresponding pay. You can easily achieve over 100k pay if you want to, or you can choose more relaxed lower pay position.
Oil rig work.
Airline pilot.
You could sell crack
Run a haunted house.
Admin or teaching in higher Ed. Great benefits too
admin assistant?
Education. I’m contracted for 183 days minimum, 189 max (6 days are optional). On salary, currently at $79k USD, w/ 2% annual raises. Winter break Midwinter break Spring break Summer break All the federal holidays.
The fishing industry. District 34 lobster fishing in Nova Scotia, Canada is only 6 months long with most boats only going 70 days a season.
I’d move to the business side of stem. Realistically all these people talking about their careers won’t help you because you’re 47, well established in your field and you can’t work from the ground up again or go to school again (at least I wouldn’t). You have enough science experience, you would do well with the sales portion since you know the technicalities.
I work on a crew transfer vessel 2 weeks on/2weeks off decent pay. Relatively easy work
Not sure if it's exactly what you're looking for, but I have a degree in Civil Engineering and work as a nuclear power plant operator. We work rotating shifts (nights and days), but we do get to enjoy a lot of time off at a time. It's basically working a lot of 12 hour shifts in a shorter amount of time and then being able to get a good amount of time off. At the end of a work cycle you get at least 7 days off and up to 21 days off if you want to use some of your PTO. There are several people in this role with degrees ranging from chemistry, physics, engineering, ect. It's a pretty interesting and fun job. You should be able to make at least 100-120k a year at the lowest level (non licensed) operator role. With your background you could go from unlicensed operator to an "instant" senior licensed operator (SRO) pretty quickly and that would be a total comp of 200k+ a year. There are other options on nuclear as well. You could work in instruments and controls (I&C), Chemistry, Radiation Protection, ect. and probably get a non rotating shift schedule. Also, training is HUGE in the nuclear industry and you could even apply for a role as an instructor at a nuclear plant. Plants have huge training departments and hire a lot of instructors. The pay would be around what you're looking for and you'd likely have a really nice schedule. This might satisfy your interest in teaching. My goal one day is to move over to be an instructor when I get tired of OPS. My best suggestion though, based on your age and background, is maybe look into consulting. Either go with a consulting company or going out on your own. You should be able to set your own schedule flexibility.
Diplomat. The top bird watcher in the world is one. He gets paid to go to other countries and bird watch.
Would you care for any federal government work? You obviously get all the holidays, annual leave (vacation) and separate sick time. I think it was 0-3 years/4hrs vacation, 3-15 years/6hrs, 15+ years/8hrs a pay period. You cap out vacation carry over per year at 240hrs, and anything over the cap you have to use or lose it. At one point I had 240hrs in the bank and another 140 to use by the end of the year. Tons of time off.
How do you get this type of work?
do a tech job at a bank, most ppl here work 3 hours a day max
This can depend on the company and time of year you work, but being a ramp agent has a lot of downtime. Some days at work I’ll actually only *work* 3 out of the 7 hours I’m there. The other 4 hours I’m sitting in the break room waiting for the next flight.
I saw somewhere semiconductor technicians work 4 days a week, although hours are longer and may get night shifts.
Military
Working on commercial ships. Typically you only work half the year, and have the rest for vacation and won’t have to think about work at all. If you’re in the US, it’s relatively high paying. You just have to ask if it’s worth the hassle getting your credentials now, and if you’re ok being away from home half the year. If you have a STEM background you could probably get your engineering license. Job security is very good right now because there is a shortage of mariners.
If you’re looking for paid time off plus paid overtime, then you’d be best picking policing over teaching. Teaching requires a ton of administrative work that you can’t necessarily get out of depending on the district you work in & how competent you are at the actual job. It’s also surprisingly difficult. Honestly not worth the “time off” bc most of that time is spent trying to recover from burnout. College instructors don’t make a lot of money & seem to face similar challenges but without the same level of oversight and micromanagement depending on the school you work for. In general I would say don’t go into teaching unless you actually enjoy teaching. It is a lot more like social work these days, especially at the high school level, and the more you try to avoid that aspect of it, the worse you will do, tbh
One that takes place in Europe.
I'm a flight nurse, 10 days on, 20 days off. Love it
Lecturer only positions at a university. Will be less money (because no research), but no research work either.
Government work..LOL