Criteria include pay, difficulty of attaining a career within a given field, and future outlook of the field.
Not much has changed. Healthcare is still DOMINATING the US economy, it’s easily the best field to be in and will be for the foreseeable future. White collar work continues to get decimated, manual labor is still low paying garbage for the most part.
Discuss.
Air traffic control- is it worth it?
Hello all, I’m soon going to go to college and graduated valedictorian this year, but have a lot of family who are in the trades and clear money like no tomorrow. Just curious would it be smart to go into HVAC or Electrical and open a business eventually there or no? Thank you!
I’d been looking to start my career somewhere for a while, and found a small company I didn’t really know but they liked me in my interviews and wanted to bring me onboard.
When it came time to sign and get on, they offered me 38k. I’d been given the advice it’s always good to negotiate salary, so I asked if they could do 41k instead?
They looked at me like I’d just given them the middle finger. “…..how about we start at 38 and then reevaluate for 41 down the line” and I said yeah okay sounds good.
Since then, my reputation really never recovered with one of my bosses. He describes me as “some guy we found on the street” and when he found out I left early with my group on a Friday, he pulled me in for a meeting and said if you can’t find 40 hours of work to do here, we don’t need you here. Which is fair but I found very harsh, and it just seems like he now thinks I’m ungrateful for the position or something.
What do you guys make of this? I feel like I learned not to negotiate salary.
I’ve worked outside all my life, now 30M making 50k a year. Looking to maybe transition to work from home, switching careers in all.
I’m looking to make good money and not have to work outside until I’m 67. While also seeing the reality of grinding at this for over 10 years has only gotten me to where other career paths start off at.
Looking for a brighter path in general.
Any suggestions or help
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Edit for more context, I drive 2.5 hours daily, city commute is getting to me, I just want to be close or near to my kids and their school. I live in a really secluded area so jobs are scarce unless you travel. I have an associate in horticulture and a lot of certifications and training in that field. But I’m willing and wanting to get more involved in technology definitely want to earn a degree. I just don’t know where to start or if anyone had any advice on starting out
high school
2014: $7.25/hour, smoothie king
2015: $7.75/hour, smoothie king
college
2016: $7.25/hour, intern at insurance agency
2017: $2.13/hour, waitress (actual wages varied based on tips)
2018: $2.13/hour, waitress
2019: $2.13/hour, waitress
after college
2020: $32,000/year, local newspaper reporter
2021: $36,000/year, local newspaper reporter
2022: $52,500/year, local newspaper reporter in a bigger metro
move to NYC for grad school
2023: $20/hour, newsletter writing part time
2024: $25/hour, newsletter writing part time
after grad school
2025: $20/hour, reporting fellow at national magazine
2026: $105,000, reporter at national news outlet, getting 3.5% raise at the end of the month
I am a Finance Director at a Tech Startup. I have an MBA and have worked in Corporate finance for 10+ years with a total experience of 13 years. I live in San Francisco. My comp is now $240K and combined with my husband's, our HH income is ~$530k. Since we are both at start ups now, we don't have the big tech stock upside or AI upside in our portfolio. His startup might go IPO in a few years, which will change our financial picture but I see no such thing in my career at the moment.
Our total net worth is ~$1.5M including retirement accounts. No debt. We are mid-30s so I know objectively speaking this is a decent amount of money. However, my anxiety has me in a chokehold and I feel like everyone in the Bay Area is making more than us/has much higher net worth. Is there anyone else in a similar boat in the Bay Area/SF or do you think I have a lot of catching up to do? Again, only looking for people in a similar field and in the same geographical area. I understand that this is a decent amount of money in general. I have public company experience and I want to break into a publicly traded large tech company, but it seems really difficult in this market.
Also, if there is another subreddit where I should be posting this, please let me know. I just didn't know where I can post this. Thank you in Advance!
**[Edit]**Didn’t expect this to blow up. A few clarifications since my original post may have been confusing:
I know $530K HHI and $1.5M NW is a strong position in absolute terms. I said that in the original post. To the folks who confirmed that I am doing okay or shared their own journey, thank you. I was asking specifically whether other people in non-technical roles, at startups, in the Bay Area are seeing the same gap between their comp/NW and their tech-adjacent peers who got equity windfalls or work at large public tech companies. I should have referred to ‘others in the Bay Area’ in general since I am specifically asking for perspective from folks in tech.
To the question of whether this is about career or net worth - honestly both, and they’re tied together for me. A good chunk of the anxiety isn’t just the number, it’s watching friends/acquaintances with a less deliberate career trajectory than mine end up with 2-3x my net worth because they joined the right public company/pre-IPO company at the right time. It makes the whole thing feel more like I made a poor call switching from public company to startup which has been a harder thing to sit with than plain envy and also feels like I am missing out.
On career progression / role level: happy to share more detail if useful context for advice, but the short version is 13 years in corporate finance, public company experience, currently an IC Finance Director at a startup.
Thanks to everyone that has pointed out that this is delusional, a first world problem etc. Frankly, I appreciate the perspective and reality check.
Thanks to everyone who pointed me to r/HENRYfinance, r/HENRYwomen, and FireyFemmes
I run my own community where I teach software and business, most teaching content is free but I charge a small monthly fee for in person sessions and extra resources.
My mother is a teacher for a virtual school and I told her that if she took most of her lessons, structures and ideas and posted them online into a singlely focused place and simply charged a few dollars per month per person, you could get a few thousand people to pay that and make significantly more than what the schools are paying them.
Getting accredited and certified for homeschooling just amplifies that even more.
I think teachers should be paid significantly more as they are generating a massive amount of IP and doing so much amazing work but the school system and education system in the US is not designed to compensate them fairly.
EDIT: It's important to understand that salaries are paid based on the amount of value you're giving the company minus whatever they need to make in profit, which means they're making more off of you than they're paying you. So if you were to go and do that thing yourself be that as a freelancer or start your own company where you got a group of people together that does that. One thing most of the time you can get the same if not more salary. Obviously there's different jobs and places where that maybe is much more challenging because of economies of scale and what not. But at the end of the day, convincing a group of people to spend as much as a coffee a month on you is not as challenging as you think. It's not easy, but it's definitely doable, especially when you compare it to how much you're working in your current job.
I am public school admin with a PhD and two masters degrees. I have two professional licenses: teaching and public school administration.
25M. Got promoted since I last posted here. I live with my parents and am on their health insurance, which limits my spending. Very thankful for the support and upbringing I’ve had. I wouldn’t mind paying more in taxes, assuming it goes to those who need it.
No kids. No husband. No debt.
36 with a BS in occupational safety and a stack of training and certifications. I started taking on more environmental compliance and management roles and responsibilities over the last few years.
I initially started out in corrections, which sucks, don't work in corrections.
F 500 industrial company is all I’ll say. Started in entry level role at $25k.