I'm feeling grumpy (long and boring)

A conversation I recently had with an old friend has really got me thinking about where I am in life and where I want to be. Lately I have been working like crazy which I guess in and of itself is a good thing nowadays but I'm definitely feeling a little more than burned out. Up until this week I have worked twenty one days straight, and I'm not talking nine to five here more like twelve to eighteen hours a day, in the tightest nastiest crawl spaces or hanging of the side of a hill wrestling with a hundred plus pound gear head that gets so hot it feels like the surface of the sun. I am in the foundation repair and waterproofing industry ( mainly foundation repair) and now I think I want out.

Now let me tell you how I got here. Growing up (like a lot of you guy's) all I could think about was fast cars, I ate, slept and dreamed about them. I was completely obsessed from about five years old. In high school I worked two jobs trying to get enough money together to build a race car and obviously I was in the auto tech class. Sometime in my senior year all the tech schools started coming around trying to recruit us, none really looked good to me but one had a high performance motorsports program and after touring the facility that was it, I was going. During this time I had taken a state wide ASE test at a competition and did real well. If I remember correctly I placed second in the state. Any ways my memories a little fuzzy about the details but Honda had agreed to pay for half of my tuition. So I was going, I had my dorm and roommates already picked and was just waiting for high school to finish and classes to start. Unfortunately my dad had a massive heart attack and his kidney's failed about a month before school let out. Doctors gave him six months to live and there was no way I was going to leave him. I was living on my own because school and work was completely on the other side of town so I moved back home to help mom with him. The tough old bird hung on as long as he could but he passed about a year and a half later.

I started working at a small company shortly after he passed doing foundation repair and new construction waterproofing. I learned a hell of a lot and really started to enjoy it. Over the next couple of years we really grew and I had worked my way up and eventually the boss decided to make me "operational field supervisor" which I guess was nothing more than a foreman but I did get to see what it really takes to run a small business. I got to work hand in hand with our vendors refining our product and it was really a great experience, I felt like we where on the verge of something big, but all of a sudden all of the houses that where booming up around us just quit getting built. We had too many of our eggs in the new construction basket and the company couldn't survive the slowdown.

So fast forward a couple of years and here I am stuck back out in the field doing the manual labor as a crew foreman. Because of my experience I kind of walked rite into the foreman job and was hoping to use that as a stepping stone work up to an operations manager position. This is a national company and on the business side of it is ran much different than what I was used to with our small company. Speaking with the regional president several times I keep getting encouraged that eventually this may happen. But every day seems to run into another and I'm getting a bit over it. The money's decent at times but on average it's just enough to keep us barely ahead. I'm afraid sooner than later my bruised and broken body is going to let me down and I'll be stuck with nothing. I have no experience in any other fields and don't know if what skills I do have would translate well into other fields. My friend told me life is short and you only live it once, don't work it all away doing something that you hate. The only thing I really have a passion for is cars but I have no earthly idea how to earn a living with that. And that got me thinking about what I might be doing If I had went on to school, I'd like to think I'd be working on a race car right now but who knows. All I do know is I have a wife and a three year old son to take care of and that's what I'm going to do.

Thanks to anyone who suffered through this mess, I just had to get it off my chest.

Cut your bills as close to zero as possible and go back to school. Seriously-it was taking you where you wanted to go and it sounds like you were pretty good at it.

I read the whole thing man, tough story. The only advice I can really offer is perhaps stack as much cash as you can aside, take a (possibly) lower paying job as a tech for a shop, go back and get your ASE's done. Life is too short to slave away at something you hate without a goal in sight.

You're working to much.21 days without a day off?

If you want to work the system, you need to figure out how to get financial aid. Financial aid is based on your previous years income. Figure out how much income you can have and still get a full ride. If the number is for example <30k for your family of 3, work enough of next year to earn just under 30k and quit. If you have been saving correctly, you can survive off of savings and go to school part time. Once the next year hits and you can verify low enough income to get financial aid you can ramp up to full time. This all assumes you don't meet the requirements already. Good luck if you go this route. It won't be fun, but it will get you where you need to go.

Ditto that. Ditch phones, cable, internet. Turn the lights off, etc. Get some cash together and go to school. It oughta take enough time to figure out what exactly it is you want to do. Ask around. Next time you go to a swap meet, car show, cruise in and see something you like, ask around. Find out what the guy does, what gets him the money to get that sort of hardware together. Not just for what it takes to afford it, but for what scratches that guys itch. A lot of maintenance/engineer/technician types end up doing that sort of thing. Don't just jump into the car tech stuff. Doing oil changes on Beige-mobiles or whatever may end up ruining your love for working on cars.

Are they still building the track over in Oak Ridge? That would be a good place to make some connections.

Figure out which way you would like to go, and establish a time frame/plan. Pro and con it. What would you do if 6 months into your "plan" and the Regional VP tapped you for a promotion?

A lot of dreams die in order to make the rent.

Just make sure that you are working towards something, and stick to task.

Good Luck

Written goals are important. The most successful people do this. Track your plans and goals on paper as you need to see it and work towards it. Don't give up on your goals!

nicksta43 wrote: A conversation I recently had with an old friend has really got me thinking about where I am in life and where I want to be. ... And that got me thinking about what I might be doing If I had went on to school.

yeah, I've been thinking about that myself lately. DO IT.

nicksta43 wrote: My friend told me life is short and you only live it once, don't work it all away doing something that you hate. The only thing I really have a passion for is cars but I have no earthly idea how to earn a living with that.

This has weighed on my VERY heavily lately. I'm seriously considering starting up a full-time detailing business (done it on the side for 10+ years now). I'm in a different set of circumstances, though--no kids, wife makes enough to support my not making much and is encouraging me to do it.

That said--it took a LONG time to get to that point. If I could go back, I'd have done it when I was 22 and under my parents' roof.

pete240z wrote: Written goals are important. The most successful people do this. Track your plans and goals on paper as you need to see it and work towards it. Don't give up on your goals!

When I was discussing the possibility of doing this, my friend Mike told me to do just this. My brainstorm list is in my phone.

Anyway, you'll figure something out. If so many others are able to do something fulfilling, then you can, too.

Talk to admissions at a school and see what their financial aid is like. The gov't throws money at adults who are looking to go back to school.

"Do you wake up grumpy in the morning?"

and the answer is................

"No, I usually let her sleep in."

JFX001 wrote: Are they still building the track over in Oak Ridge?

Last I heard that was dead in the water.

gamby said:

This has weighed on my VERY heavily lately. I'm seriously considering starting up a full-time detailing business (done it on the side for 10+ years now). I'm in a different set of circumstances, though--no kids, wife makes enough to support my not making much and is encouraging me to do it.

I have thought about that as well, not in the near future but I could see doing that later on in life. When you grow up poor with a passion for cars there's not much you can do besides cleaning and detailing everything on your car. My first car was a '80 trans am and I spent most of my spare time taking everything that I could off cleaning and painting it. I can get almost as much enjoyment out of cleaning up a neglected car and kicking back with a beer as the sun goes down just looking at it as I do wrenching. Good luck if you choose to move forward.

Thanks for all your comments and suggestions. A huge change in lifestyle is going to require some major contemplation.

I actually really enjoy what I do. I just hate NEVER having any time to do what I want. I didn't mean for this to sound like I hate my life or anything just kind of woke up sore and tired and that conversation I had was echoing through my head all day.

EastCoastMojo wrote:

nicksta43 wrote: A conversation I recently had with an old friend has really got me thinking about where I am in life and where I want to be. ... And that got me thinking about what I might be doing If I had went on to school.

yeah, I've been thinking about that myself lately. DO IT.

If you're serious, do it NOW....the older you get/longer you are out of school, the more difficult it becomes to change careers.

Also, be aware of effort shock; i.e. don't get discouraged when it gets difficult