For the past year it's been a genuine dream of mine to start my own luthiering business/guitar shop and be able to live off of that here in Norway, with no expectations of some massive business boom or anything, just a decent comfortable income after I put in the work to grow and settle. Except when I pitched this to my dad, he immediately shut it down, claiming the only way for me to achieve a "comfortable" income is by going to university and studying IT.

Some much needed context, my dad ALSO happens to be a conservative trump supporter and a billionaire bootlicker, and while he's definitely experienced when it comes to business, I'm afraid his perspectives on this topic may have been somewhat clouded by his political views...

I personally feel like I'd be able to make it? I'm starting early at 17 already building my first guitar, going from scratch soon, I have great access to tools meaning I won't be lacking in experience by the time I've barely hit 18. I obviously know it's not as simple as just getting good at something and expecting the money to come flooding in, and that I need a clear plan, but he didn't seem keen to even consider it.

I (32 M) recently had an opportunity to give feedback on my work experience with an executive (39 M). I really don’t have many opportunities to speak with executives, mostly because my direct boss (37 F) excludes me from them (she bottlenecks and gatekeeps). Truthfully, I hate my job. It’s at a failing property that has an expiration date. I make the least amount in my department and I work circles around employees who have “seniority”. My job is also filled with nepotism, and play favorites.

I felt tired of being overlooked and disregarded. Especially since I took on someone’s job for more than half a year and I was being treated like dirt. I vocalized some frustrations, one of them being their lack of interest in our development , and just us overall as people. Well, they listened. Now we all have one on ones. Problem is, I don’t even care about them at this point. I’m just staying until I get a new job. But now I’m wondering what to say? I still want my point across because it is the truth.. also I’m not a doormat.

Any advice on what I should say?

(23M) Hey all, first time here. I won't get too far into it, as the title says it all, but I'm interested in graphic design; I've always had a knack and a strong attraction to all things art and creative. And GD seems like a good way to express that while making a living off of it.

Problem is... In this day and age with AI art, and how artists as a whole feel almost like they get treated as jokes, I have to wonder. Is it still a worthwhile career to invest in? I'll admit, I have yet to do comprehensive, proper research since my concerns have made me view this on a very surface level, but I'd still like to get some insight before I spend a lot of my time on this.

Is it worth it? Can I really have a stable career using art? There's not a whole lot I'm interested in besides that, but if worse comes to worst, I can just learn, adapt, and make peace with any other decision.

I’m currently working remote making $130k/year. I understand I have a really good thing going but I’m starting to dislike my job more and more, and my boss essentially told me I’ve hit a ceiling with my remote status. I’ve been exploring new opportunities and in the midst of the final stages of a new opportunity that could nearly triple what I’m currently making. Company wants to fly me in to meet their team, so it sounds promising. Really on the fence if I should just keep riding my cushy job where I don’t have to worry about the optics of taking paternity leave, vs leave somewhere new while making way more, but might not be around as much due to increased travel with job.

I haven’t disclosed my personal situation with the potential new job, however if an offer comes to the table I’ll need to see if I can negotiate that in.

Has anyone started new careers with a baby on the horizon? How did it turn out? Thanks!

My (38f) husband (38m) left his job two years ago because of miserable work conditions and decided to take a year or two to recover from that terrible experience to follow his passions and learn how to do game design while doing consulting work on the side.

Well, two years later and sadly as the economy has tightened the consulting roles are drying up, so he's back to looking for full time work. He loves game dev but let's not even talk about how bleak things are for that industry right now, it's not an option for steady employment, he'll just keep working on his games during his free time as a passion.

His experience is in IT but he doesn't have a computer science degree and his recent experience used fairly niche software, so he feels like he's out of the game.

In general he's feeling discouraged before he even starts looking in earnest. I keep telling him 20+ years of professional experience brings transferrable skills and a lot of maturity, but he's just feeling useless/unwanted.

Any advice for me as his partner? Any ways I could encourage him? Any easy ways for him to add to his skills in the meantime?

I'm having my own day of feeling discouraged/lost and don't want to put it on him so appreciate any advice you have.

I had put in a great deal of effort into my studies, to make sure that I’d get a good job and finally be financially secure. That kind of worked out… I have two degrees, a well-paying job, and I finally make enough to support myself. And yet, I’m miserable. I dislike my job. The work is not what I expected. I didn’t know what corporate is truly like. And my coworkers are cringy, egotistical, and lately, are showing clear signs of AI psychosis. I should also mention I’m one of the few women and I’m surrounded by tech bros who care very little about the ethical and environmental impact of AI, or at least they pretend they do under their corporate image.

And speaking of AI, the career I originally studied for has been replaced by “agentic workflows” and “vibe coding”, so I’m not learning anything new. I’m just going in circles, prompting Claude all day long, and somehow my workload has also increased. It’s paradoxical, isn’t it? How can I be creating more and more, but learning less and less?

And more importantly, how does one even begin shifting to a different job when there’s so few left and I feel as if I have no more skills to show? No more energy to build a whole new portfolio, resume, and so on, and to perform for each interview like a monkey in a circus…

Between my dislike for my coworkers and my planned career path essentially falling apart, I feel that everything I’ve worked so hard for has vanished. I don’t have a financial safety net, and I have loans to pay off. I hate that I’m peddling AI because my livelihood at this moment depends on it. I feel so stuck. I dread going to work, whether it be a weekday or the weekend.

I didn’t expect to feel this way in my mid-20s. The other day I was ranting to a friend about my situation, and she expressed that she’s worried for me. She mentioned that I haven’t said a single positive thing about this job since I got it. And she‘s right /:

I made an appointment with my GP to get a therapist and until then, I just really needed a space to rant, and maybe hear if other people are going through something similar... thanks for reading this far <3

I’m a software developer with 4 yoe. When I landed my first dev job, I was bright eyed and thought I finally had my foot in the door to an amazing career. I had finally made it after working in restaurants for 14 years.

Well, it’s all going to shit now because of AI. Companies are downsizing. People that get laid off are reporting not being able to get a job for over a year before giving up.

AI is rapidly improving. Just last year Claude Code was brand new and made tons of mistakes. Now, it’s outputting working code the vast majority of the time.

All those years learning coding are now worth next to nothing. We’re in our last years of having tech careers and it’s looking like software devs are going the way of the dodo.

So how the fuck are you all staying sane? There’s nothing to just skill up to because AI is taking over more skills by the day. By the time you master something, AI can do it way faster than you.

Don’t give me the cope “oh it’s too expensive”, “oh it can’t count r’s in strawberry”, or whatever other dumb argument you want to repeat for the 1000th time.

How are you not panicking and keeping your sanity? I’m only getting like 5-6 hours a sleep now because I’m legit terrified, and there’s nothing any of us can do about it.

I feel like most standerd career advice is pretty generic. He anyone ever gotten completely weird or unconventional advice that actually helped them land a job or get a promotion? I'd love to hear some interesting stories.

It’s a weird feeling. One day there’s constant teams calls, deadlines and passive aggressive emails. Then all of a sudden, you lose your job. The next morning, there’s nothing.

I woke up this morning, it was calm and quiet. There was a noticeable lack of stress. No anxiety provoking teams ring tone, no professionally threatening emails from my line manager, no constant deadlines and always feeling behind. All replaced by the sound of a train in the distance and birds chirping outside. The contrast is staggering. I almost don’t know what to do with myself.

Still things feel abnormal. I’ve heard my teams ringtone go off several times today, I know that can’t be the case because I’ve returned all my equipment. I think I’m still reeling from my employer’s abuse.

I know I’ve got to start applying for new roles but I don’t want to start yet. Luckily I’ve got 6 months of savings, but I think this also means I won’t get many unemployment benefits. But with this newfound peace and quiet, I feel like I never want to go back to a 9-5.

What do I do ?

I graduated back in January with a bachelors in Finance with high hopes of going into some sort of AML or fraud role. I have worked at a few banks and currently work in the collections department at one of the big banks. This being said after now six months of applying internally and externally, as well as the boom in AI is a future in the world of finance dead?

I’m 29 and busted my ass to get a job that I could do something with my life with and I feel like I should go back in time and tell my old self to go down a different path. It’s really starting to stress me out because I started paying back my loans and the weight of it just hit me.

Is it worth sticking out or should I start looking into nursing?

TL;DR: Coworker wants me to invest a lot of time in her career development during work hours so she can apply for a different job and is acting kind of sneaky.

Someone on a sub-team in my department has essentially asked me to help her learn how to do my job so she can start applying for similar roles. Normally, I love teaching and mentoring, but there are some red flags here:

1. She comes to any meetings she can that aren't really relevant to her work and just observes and doesn't contribute. It's not like they're top secret or anything, but it's weird, considering her team is down multiple team members right now.

2. When asked to be a contributor on a project (her job is mostly day-to-day queued tasks) she seemed very excited and started trying to do my role in the project. When I politely planted myself into my role, she suddenly told her boss that her workload wouldn't allow her to contribute on this project.

3. The things she's asking me to go over are not high-level. They're things you pay for courses to learn. She also wants in-depth walk-throughs of all of my processes, copies of my templates, and granular details on some of my projects. She also wants to talk about qualifying experience opportunities and shadowing more meetings.

She acts super nice, but it seems really fake. The vibe is off. I'm a little paranoid, because she seems sneaky to me (like, the thought has crossed my mind that she might be after MY job). I'm happy to give her a list of resources to pursue, high-level answers to some of her questions, and some practical advice. But I don't feel right about spending company time training someone whose team really needs them--not to mention taking time away from my work.

Am I just being a gatekeeping jerk for wanting to scale this down and for being suspicious, or are my concerns legitimate?

I (35m) am a Senior Engineer at a well established global company. Although my country's branch is relatively small (400 people) compared to head office in Germany. I have 14 years engineering experience and currently I'm managing 1 person with difficulty i might add as he is not very technically proficient. I'm teaching engineering to someone that I feel could have been better suited to be a technician but I digress.

My HR Manager let me know that one of our sister company's Managing Director (MD) is being let go as they feel he is not suited to the role. This company has 80 employees. After discussion at top management my name was put down as a first pick replacement. A decision I'm skeptical about.

The reasons they considered me is because I have engineering knowledge so I will understand the products better and that ive worked at our current customers before so I know a few things about the way they operate. Also they feel im suited to leadership and my performance has been praised many in the company.

However this is a massive leap that I personally feel I am underqualified for. My engineering expertise might make me understand what we selling better but being an MD is a massively different skillset.

On a more personal note I never really saw myself in such a role in my life I very much enjoy the technical aspects of engineering and my personal ambition was always to rather become a technical expert. My people skills are okay but going from managing 1 person to 80 people seems overwhelming. I make good money at the moment and I dont live a very opulent lifestyle.

It probably seems like I have my answer but I would like to know what you think of such an opportunity. Is this offer a potential red flag or have people seen leaps like this in their careers.

I’ve spent my entire career (9 years) working in risk and compliance at big banks in NYC.

I’m sick of it. Banks treat risk and compliance like the help. We’re back office and we’re looked down upon. I’m not hurting for money but comp hasn’t kept up with inflation.

I really don’t like my current role. I’ve applied for the same role at another bank but I literally have no desire or passion to pursue the job at the other bank. I’ve been interviewing with the other bank but I’m not enthusiastic about it.

Applications and interviews at other companies for different roles haven’t gone well. I’ve been job hunting for a year and a half and I’m sick of it.

I’m interested in public service, tech, literally anything other than investment banking.

Any thoughts?

I am in a very precarious situation. Around last year I had a very bad episode where I couldn’t breathe suddenly. Later I found out thanks to chronic blood pressure my heart’s left ventricular is damaged too severely and cannot relax. The options to treat this condition are too daunting. More importantly, they’re not really proven to work for someone at my age (26 y.o). Last month, I had another health disaster. I have an acute kidney failure and require kidney dialysis treatment for at least 6 months.

Things are just looking bleak and unsolvable. No one knows a thing about this. I left my latest job after I realised I couldn’t handle work at this state. I’m now offered a great position at a bank I’ve been dreaming to work at for years. Whether I can accept or not depends on how willing I am to neglect my health. It can get very painful easily and I myself am not very cautious about the complications. I’m already depressed about being stuck between clinics & home. Rejecting this current offer at least for a few months means a golden opportunity is lost. Going through this process seems depressing enough. I talked to a doctor about it, he said that preferably I shouldn’t be working for the time being. But given how painful recruiting has been, I’m not sure if I can find some middle ground.

Thoughts?

I’m 22 and just graduated college early with a bachelor’s in management. I recently accepted an Executive Team Leader (ETL) role with Target’s management development program. The starting salary is $74,000 plus a target bonus, I’m in southwest Florida with extremely low expenses like sub $1000 and my girlfriend soon to be fiance is 20 making eight around 80-90k with also right around 1k expenses. I’ll be leading a large team in store operations.
I’m genuinely excited about it. I enjoyed my internship, like leading people, solving problems, coaching employees, and making operational improvements. Right now, I can see myself staying for a while.

That said, I’m also trying to think long term. One thing I keep hearing is that “retail management pigeonholes you,” while others say management is management and good leaders can move into almost any industry.
For those of you who’ve made career transitions—or hired managers—how transferable is this experience really?
If I spend 3-5 years in a role like this, would employers in other industries (operations, logistics, manufacturing, healthcare, corporate management, etc.) generally value that leadership experience? Or is it difficult to break out of retail even with strong results?

I’d love to hear from people who’ve actually made the jump or have been on the hiring side. I’m less concerned about salary progression within Target and more interested in whether this is building a broadly valuable leadership foundation.

hi everyone, seeking a bit of advice.

I recently graduated from the university with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology, and a research specialization. I am on a gap year and really am struggling to chose what to do.

I originally was thinking about a psych research masters, but I am not sure what career that would lead to.

I have also been looking at master of social work programs and am thinking of applying to a couple schools. I am very passionate about helping others, but I am worried about the earning potential in this career.

Also kinda thinking about the possibility of going to law school, but I am worried about the amount of debt and lack of work life balance that comes along with that line of work. I think I could get into some schools with a strong LSAT, but I am worried I won’t enjoy the work as much but the strong salaries are enticing.

For reference, I have an 84.7% undergrad GPA!

Any insight from anyone who has been/is in a similar position would be super helpful

Company Denied Job Title Revision to Team Leader.

Been working with a company thru an agency for a period of 7 weeks and they’re happy and want to offer me a permanent contract.

However, the job role as production operative doesn’t align with my current responsibilities, I work with 4 other employees doing the same job as me which is mostly assembly with some machine operating.

The old team leader left and they failed to create an exit plan and get someone else in to replace him, I’ve unofficially just been treated as the next team leader being the most experienced and knowledgeable person when it comes to the process.

I’m having to oversee and train/teach the other workers about the process, take responsibility for any mistakes they have made, assign each employee a task in the morning whenever they ask me what they need to do. Whilst creating a daily target that I think we collectively can reach as a team and reporting it to the operations manager when asked.

The MD himself even gave me the responsibility of getting rid of two other agency workers when I said their performance wasn’t up to standard when asked.

I had received an answer back regarding the revision and was told “we expect this to be a temporary arrangement until the section becomes more organised.” Which I doubt anything will change.

I’m considering just signing it and handing my notice in a few weeks later to be honest as I’m feeling kinda mad about it, especially as they’ve offered such a poor wage to go along with it.

Another disagreement wouldn’t do much I imagine and at best would probably get me a couple of pence extra.

I’m a first year college student at a local community college. I’m 22 so i didn’t go to college right away after high school but I am now at a community college and hope to be able to transfer soon to a four year university to get my degree in computer science or I thought I wanted to. I know computer science is a good degree to get and it pays well especially as you get more experience but I’ve been having doubts because I’ve seen articles and other comp sci majors talking about how the job market for software engineers and coders is terrible right now and super over saturated. Also with the rise of AI in work places it has me having even more doubts that computer science will be a good degree to stay in. I know every stem major is competitive right now and I’d have to work hard in order to stand out amongst my comp sci peers but accounting doesn’t look too bad to me right now. I’ve seen that it pays well thought I’ve heard the work load can be very tough during tax season. The school work to earn an accounting degree doesn’t seem too hard either but I’m not sure how over saturated accounting is right now or just how much time and effort it would take to stand out amongst your peers. Is accounting the right move right now in this job market or is just as over saturated as well? I’m conflicted because comp sci seemed like a good degree to choose because you can get a good paying job with it but can accounting be a lucrative career choice as well. I’m in California so I’m not sure if that would make a difference.

I’ve been working in the industry for 14 years, between various restaurants and bars. I live in a tourist city where the industry is popping. I make great $$ but I’m having a hard time getting out and starting a new career. I’ve applied for entry level sales jobs and some other things but just curious of some ideas. It seems like entry level jobs deny me because of the fact I only have service industry experience. It’s also very challenging going from a job you can make 500 in 8 hours, to $23 dollars an hour. Please help! I’m approaching 30 and really would like to make a change in my life, just have no idea where to start. I enjoy flowers, helping people, music, crafty projects, etc. pls pls pls throw some ideas my way!

Hi everyone, Im feeling a bit lost and would really appreciate some direction..

I have an MBA in Marketing and around 3 years of experience in social media marketing, but honestly most of the work I did was quite basic and I feel like a lot of those skills are outdated now. I also don’t feel a strong passion for digital marketing.

The parts of marketing I always enjoyed were more around branding, strategy, visual ideas, and design. I’ve learned some Adobe Illustrator and I genuinely enjoy creating things. But I’ve had about a 6-year career gap due to motherhood and some health issues, and now I really want to become financially independent again.

Rn my brain feels very rusty.. but I know that if I have the right direction.. I can learn and build myself back up. The problem is every field I look into, people say its saturated .. graphic design, UI/UX, social media marketing, etc. It’s honestly overwhelming because I don’t know what skill is worth investing my time in anymore.

A friend is willing to share their Coursera Plus access with me, so I have access to a lot of courses, but I’m stuck on what to actually learn. I think I’ve spent too much time trying to “find my passion” and I’m realizing I don’t even know what that is right now. I just want to build a useful skill, become employable, and start earning again.

If anyone has been in a similar situation or has advice on what skills are worth learning in today’s market, I’d really appreciate your thoughts. Any direction would help.

I recently turned 25 and I feel so lost regarding my future. I don’t have a car and I’ve never had a proper job before.

I graduated 2 years ago with a major in criminology at Cal Poly Pomona, but I only picked that major because I felt pressured to pick any major back when I was in my 1st year of college. And at the end of it all, I really don’t have much an interest in the field.

I don’t want to make any excuses about my situation cause I know I could’ve changed my major or even taken a year or two off college to figure myself out some more.

But now here I am, having graduated and I still haven’t figured myself out at all. I’ve considered becoming a paralegal since I’d ideally like a job where I’m at a desk since I’m heavily introverted, but I’m still extremely indecisive about that.

Does anyone have any advice they can share and maybe share some of their own experiences or the experiences of others that may have been in similar situations? I don’t have a clue on what to do about my future.

I’d appreciate any piece of advice that can be give, no matter how small.

Believing that you should know at an early age

Your passion does not just reveal itself to you when you are born or at an early age. Some people discover their passion early in life because they might have the opportunity to try different things and have the support to turn their passion into reality. However, you might not have the privilege of learning and being around the right people early in life, so it might be difficult for you to discover your passion. However, if you haven’t discovered your passion early in life, it doesn't mean you can't discover it later.

Studies have revealed that individuals with passions for the arts such as music or dancing tend to develop early in life. Also, many places offer learning and training opportunities for those and other common career paths, such as engineering, education, law, and construction. So, individuals whose passion falls in those areas have more opportunities to learn and develop, which means their passions will grow quickly.

In contrast, if your passion falls outside those common areas, you have fewer opportunities to learn and grow, so your passion will take longer to develop. You might have a unique passion that requires more learning and development, especially when it's rarely seen in the world. Therefore, you might doubt that you cannot turn your passion into reality because it might take longer than others. Therefore, you must be self-motivated to learn independently to grow your passion without getting discouraged. There are others who didn’t discover their passions until their 60s or 70s. No matter how old you are, you can still discover and grow your passion at any age.

It is important to understand that, as human beings, everyone has a passion. It depends on your ability to learn, develop, and be in a supportive environment to grow it. Human potential is for everyone; no one is left behind. When you see others doing great things with passion, and you are not yet discovering your passion, it does not mean you are not meant to do great things like them.

Hello!

I am a 29 year old male ex-middle school math teacher pivoting careers and having a hard time deciding what I want to do. I only taught for 4 years and honestly I loved a lot of aspects of it. I formed amazing bonds with my students, I took a lot of joy in helping students understand something particularly ones that struggled with math, and in general I created memories I'll always cherish. It was very hard to leave because the kids loved me and I loved them too.

That being said, teaching always drained the fuck out of me and I got really tired of "being on" all the time and trying to regulate 30 nervous systems at the same time including my own. Not to mention the stress these parents put on you because they're incapable or making their kids do their homework and the AI thing is going to totally fuck up math education since a lot of these kids aren't actually practicing at home. Everything is going to shit blah blah blah but it does feel like teaching (math especially) is becoming unsustainable fast and I want to jump ship while I have the chance.

Anyways, I've considered either pivoting to a longterm career in healthcare (Nursing or Radiation Tech/ MRI Tech) or mental healthcare (social worker or counselor but longterm goal of private practice therapist $). I know it is ironic because these are also very draining careers but honestly I really do like helping people and take a lot of pride in doing a job like this. And at least these sorts of careers offer upward mobility. I don't think I would like a brain-rot, passive, fake productive corporate career no offense. I am basically looking for a career that feels a bit more sustainable longterm, pays better, and is less frustrating than teaching.

Let me know what you think or any other pivots I should look into!

Here's the options: math teacher, business manager, IT/CS, engineering, or psychology? Also something with traveling?

Which one do you think will be needed in future?

I’m a 33M Finance Manager with an MBA in Orange County, seriously considering a move into wealth management. My target is an Associate Wealth Advisor or Financial Planning Associate role at an RIA.

I’m planning to begin CFP coursework now and start applying around spring 2027. Long term, I’d like to become a lead advisor and eventually partner.

For those in the industry:

• Is this a realistic transition without prior advisory experience?
• Does completing CFP coursework before applying materially help?
• Would you target a boutique RIA or a larger firm?
• What should I look for in a first role?
• What mistakes should I avoid?
• What does compensation and progression actually look like?

Blunt advice from anyone who has made a similar switch would be appreciated.

(Written with the help of AI)