I'm 40 years old with a newborn baby, and have been self-employed as a freelance animator/motion graphics person (I make TV adverts and quite a lot of corporate stuff such as 3D representations of products, showing how they work, etc. for well known brands, plus some more interesting smaller companies) for 10+ years. I've been self-employed for a long time so doubt I would be a good employee to someone else.
I really don't feel like I can manage another 10+ years of sitting at a computer and have been looking for a new career.
I'm not a total idiot. I have a wide knowledge and can learn complex things, including theory, quickly. I am not afraid of hard work. I'm particularly good at product design/invention, though I've also had some success with the stock market (though not brave enough to gamble anymore - need to think about retirement eventually and my pension is in shares right now).
I've had a lot of online businesses at the same time as other employment, quite successfully did hifi cables and accessories, fountain pens, and electronic cigarettes, but the bad customers (breaking things and returning them, claiming things didn't arrive) really make me despair with society. I am looking for something wholesome to do, but it must also be potentially lucrative as I do like cash. I really like the idea of a family business that can be built up and handed over to my son one day if he's interested. I don't mind if my new career draws on the skills I use everyday right now, but I need to be around more people and have less computer time.
What would you do for a career at my age? My shortlist is:
Open a sandwich shop / chain of sandwich shops
Be a dog walker / open a doggy day care
Train as a watch repairer
Interested to hear if anybody has any advice or thoughts?
Is there no opportunity to grow your business, and employ a couple of guys to do the 'work' while you build relationships with clients, manage your team and develop the business in an industry you've obviously lots of experience and contacts in?
Seems more logical than getting involved in catering or dog walking.
Yes this is something I've thought of and is my fall-back in case I can't find a suitable alternative, but to be honest I hate having to work in the marketing industry, I think it's soulless and there's way too many things getting shoved in people's faces to sell them things they don't need... Really want to feel like I did something to help society, not bleed it dry, so it's kind of a last resort unless I could find sufficent clients I believed in to keep everybody busy. I'd really feel more confident doing this with a business partner, but am aware that partnerships can go sour also.Originally Posted by chrisparker
The principles of gaining an income in a market economy split broadly into 2 directions.
1) Making & selling stuff. Taking something, probably in bulk, probably adding value to it by a manufacturing or marketing process and selling it on. Generally requires working capital or very carefully managed cashflow.
2) Doing stuff that others can't or don't have the inclination to do. Requires less working capital generally, but does require a skill set that others don't have.
Your options straddle the divide. I'd infer that you are perhaps looking at the issue from the POV of thinking what you could put up with rather than having a driving business principle.
I'd suggest you maybe look at a broader range of options before making a choice. I'd also suggest that you perhaps consider
1) Design skills are a rarity. In my experience, designers don't often get the proper share of the value they add to others' ventures. If you were to set up a consultancy, you might target a clientele that sees your input as a major contributor. You'd be surprised how few designers worry about selling their labours to clients who only see them as a necessary evil.
2) Scott Adams' character Dilbert very accurately segmented the market into 4 parts: clever+rich, clever+poor, stupid+rich, stupid+poor. The suggestion that targeting the stupid rich made most sense was intended as ironic humour. It's more than that. If you're, say, going to design and sell a watch, you're unlikely to crack the low margin mass market as a start-up. Selling a rhinestone encrusted monstrosity to the tasteless 1% seems a much more realistic prospect. The clever rich will screw you over, the clever poor won't be parted from their £ and stupid poor will just mug you. Stupid rich is where it's at - take a walk along Bond Street for proof of that.
3) If you really are clever and hardworking, you might also consider adding to your skill set with some more qualifications. One area that strikes me as underexploited by people with true design ability is advising on intellectual property. Could you hack it as a patent attorney? You'd be applying your existing skills in an environment where a lot of money is often at stake (so advice is worth paying for), and you won't get sandwich filler or dog poo on your shoes.
Good luck.
Last edited by Bristolian; 15th January 2018 at 13:07.
Thanks, this gives me some good input to think about. Some different perspectives.
Law is something I've been very interested in all my life. I have 7 siblings, 4 of which are solicitors, and my partner has a law degree from Oxford that she doesn't use, though I feel maybe it's too late in life for me to retrain in law. I've spent most of the last 2 years fighting the property developer who bought the house next to me, and this though choresome at first ultimately has been very enjoyable - I did wonder about advising people who want to object to planning applications. I enjoy the 'built environement' a lot, and have considered becoming an architech or interior designer.
The design consultancy idea appeals to me a lot, though I'm not sure how to get up and running with no commercial portfolio... Maybe something I could use my existing clients to get into though.
Edit: Years ago I did a B2B sales job where I designed and sold fire alarm systems, did this for 3 years and loved being out on the road selling jobs and banking commission and would absolutely love to go back to something like this too.
My main fear, being honest here, is that it's too late in life for me to retrain into a 'serious' profession.
Last edited by 200mwaterresistant; 15th January 2018 at 13:19.
Lots of people on my postgrad courses were in their 40s and a few in their 50s. I was 38 when I re-qualified.
Most professionals I know seem to work, in some way, well into their 70's - only the public sector folks seem to pack it at 60. You'd maybe be qualified at 45-48, that gives you at least 20+ years of interesting & remunerative work.
The regret in not having done something like this would surely be agony if you knew you'd had the ability.
IMHO professional qualifications are actually much easier as a mature student, but the ability to study at home is an essential prerequisite.
Patent Attorneys (I think) generally train on the job with p/t study.
Thanks so much, this has put things in perspective. Studying would not be a problem, I spend most of my spare time learning in one way or another. I'll start thinking wider about what to do.
I understand your views in the marketing industry, I work in that sector too. But the society/moral issue can really differ depending on your client base. One of my main clients is a manufacturer of life-saving technology. Developing campaigns for products that will ultimately save lives is certainly more rewarding that trying to flog an overpriced razorblade. I've also done a fair bit for charities, eduction and business that are promoting good social change.
Ultimately it might be your client base your tired of, rather than the industry itself.
Good luck anyway, wherever your journey takes you.
I hear you on this for sure, but I don't know if I've just served my time in this role and I'll be insufferably bored in 5 years time. I feel like I'm the digital equivalent of a labourer, and I need to be moving into management for the remainder of my life.
You don't work at a company represented by the initials CR do you? If so we are connected on LinkedIn.
Having time to enjoy with a young family and doing a job that you enjoy are priceless, consider the work/life balance and job satisfaction angles carefully. They are only young once. Good luck.
I take it all of this is being discussed with your wife as you proceed?
What about a planning agent or planning consultant? Not sure if you'd be willing to go back to school though
Not sure what you are trying to suggest? What would a woman know that some people I've never met off the internet don't?
I was quite interested in planning for a good while due to my involvement with their legislation while dealing with my neighbour. I chatted to 2 different people already working in the industry (1 town council, 1 private consultant) and they both said a similar thing, that budgets are constantly being cut back and it can be very low on the job satisfaction front. They could not recommend it due to the long-term prospects for someone starting late in life being poor - companies want young people who will put up with being abused til they get sick of it and move on to something else.
Do you mind me asking what you retrained as?
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Not at all. PMd.
What about going in to eduction? Your skillsets are very sought after and as such, reasonably well paid (the freelance motion guys we use charge well anyway). So you may struggle if you're used to £400+ a day.
I'm the same age as you and work in the design industry (started as a graphic designer moving up to creative director and now working more in UI/UX). My role has been more client facing and directing junior staff over the last few years but i'm sick of it and actually looking to get back to being sat in front of a computer creating stuff every day. I'm also desperate to get out of the agency/consultancy life. Its extremely volatile and increasingly cut throat these days.
On the third option you're considering, you can train as a watchmaker at a distance with the BHI (British Horological Institute) and top it up with on site courses at their base in Newark. The advantage with doing their DLC (Distance Learning Course) is that you can pace yourself and fit it around your existing work, especially if you're able to reduce that work to less than a full week. It'll probably take about three years if you can fit in 10-15 hours a week and have the aptitude.
If you want to try it, best option is to go on the Basic Mechanical Watch course, for which you don't need any experience. If, after the week, you never want to see a watch again, it's not for you! It does happen, apparently.
If you're interested in general, I can give you some ideas of what you need to become a watchmaker. It needs a fair investment in both time and money but can be very rewarding. On the other hand, you won't be spending much time dealing with other people which is something I think you were also looking for.
Cheers, Chris
Consider consulting a fully qualified occupational psychologist.
dunk
"Well they would say that ... wouldn't they!"
Well I'm not really qualified to give carer advice, but there's a Doggy daycare near us and the people there are always smiling.
Now that may just be because they like dogs. And they might be as poor as church mice!
https://www.willowtreek9.co.uk (no connection BTW)
Don’t go into law unless you’re absolutely committed!
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Reviving a slightly old thread as I've actually been making some inroads into a few options suggested here!
Thanks for this suggestion. Since posting this thread I've been teaching a module on a film production course at a nearby university, which I've found very enjoyable. This is something I'd pursue further BUT the pay is quite poor and everyone who works in my department full time seems stressed and unhappy (not helped by the current pensions/striking carry on, granted). It wreaks of an occupation you get into, lose momentum in your professional industry, and by the time you realise you're stuck, it's too late. If they were paying £40k+ I could probably stomach it, but the pay is in the region of £26k+, and then I've got all the overhead of travelling, parking, plus losing 2 hours per day in commuting... Feels like minimum wage when you take in to account all this and the time you need to spend marking, etc. I'm not familiar with the current 'real job' climate out there, but from a business perspective this doesn't seem like a viable option.
I really liked this and reached out to a senior patent attorney via LinkedIn who was very helpful with career advice. The problem here is there is an industry body who you need to be accepted by (need to have a qualification which they consider taught you how to understand how things work). The patent attorney recommended making sure they would accept me as a member before looking deeper into this. I contacted them but just could not get a clear yes or no whether my degree was enough which was a bit disheartening. Apparently there are only a hundred or so openings for new starters looking to get into this industry a year, and with the competition from younger people who will work at a firm for many years who do have the correct degree (basically engineering or maths), I don't think I can pull this off.
So I'm still somewhat lost. My initial thought is stick to what I do now but completely change my client base. I do almost all my work with creative agencies, who have always been the source of my frustration with projects: They sit between me and the client, passing on garbled messages to important questions and suggestions I pose, refusing to ever say no to a client over any silly wish (bear in mind, when I say no it is because they are losing sight of the objective of what we are making, usually for some vanity reason, and it is for the good of the project, to maintain quality), and adding a 100% markup for being a poor unnecessary tier of 'management' in the process.
I'm at a point due to the lecturing that I've no projects currently on so now is a good time to start over. I'm going to go back to my roots as a B2B salesperson primarily and looking locally for firms who would need what I offer and want to find clients to work with direct. Most clients will already have a creative agency they think does everything they need which will be my main obstacle as these agencies do a good job of churning out buzzwords and mystifying the client into thinking they need them and only them so it may be a struggle to find suitably enlightened people to talk to, but I've got enough in the bank to live for a few months with no income so just have to give this my best shot.
I might start going to some local business networking things (not BNI, because I'm just not brainwashed enough to join a cult) to see if there's anything going on there.
Anyway, that's my update for now. It's not easy at all changing career when you've boxed yourself in to a certain corner - I actually regret not staying in the field of IT where I was something of an early starter back in the 80s now!
I have similar thoughts to you on a regular basis. I own a decent living wage as a contract IT desk-sitter-atter and would much rather be doing something else.
It’s hard to make the leap - particularly when the existing work pays well and you have a young family that depend upon you as the earner. I float between wanting to do something radical and just sucking it up and working; the latter is more palatable these days as I’m currently striking a favourable work/life balance with loads of time for the family and living by the sea.
I’ll be looking again at the same question next month as my current gig is expiring. Hmm.
Edit: Career swap! Fancy being an IT PM / Scrum Master? I’ll swap for your role :)
Sounds like you are in a very similar situation. Day to day at the moment I am going between absolutely hating what I'm doing/knowing I'm doing completely the wrong thing, and then considering the huge uphill struggle to do something different, or even identifying something viable and thinking I'm kinda well off where I'm at.
I fear some kind of breakdown is approaching.
My current thoughts are to brush up on my already existing interest and become a penetration tester, or (really what I'd love), set up a little firm doing this and all aspects of computer security - find a couple of young hacking prodigies and be the manager/salesperson for them. That's definitely my 'dream' right now... I just get so bored of dealing with my current clients and their timewasting inefficiency and out-and-out moronic behaviour. I don't understand how most of the people I deal with are even employable, and it's this which disheartens me the most.
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