Not quite mid life crisis

[winder]

Hi.
I'm 36 and I can't stand my job and want a change of career.
I joined the Army at 19 and served 7 years getting and apprenticeship as a communications engineer. When we stopped fixing things with spanners and started using laptops I quickly became bored and hated it.
In search of adventure I left the army and joined the fire service. I have been a firefighter for almost 10 years now and it is not an adventure at all. It's dull. Some people LOVE it but I find it boring. I have specialised as an instructor in lots of specialist areas in the hope I'll like it but it is just dull.

I have read lots of books about this and they all say "do what you love" or "what would you do if money was no object". For me I spend all my free time working out or pulling motorcycles apart.
I love being on the spanners and if money were indeed no object I would like to do that all day everyday for my work.
However, in the real world I need to pay bills and the pay looks to be terrible and i would need to do a 3 year apprenticeship on basically zero pay. Not ideal having a big mortgage and a young family.
Are there any motorcycle mechanics on here that live in the south of England?
How much do you earn as a brand new mechanic?
Is the job just doing basic servicing or do you get to rebuild engines etc a lot?
Would I better training as an aircraft mechanic (high pay) or HGV mechanic (average pay) to try to get a job closer to my ideal and then have bike rebuilding as my hobby?
Anyone with experience with career change or working as a mechanic please give me your two cents worth.

Cheers

Mark

[pepperami]

Hello and welcome.

Hmmm? Thinks! ....... have you ever seen a rich motorcycle mechanic?
I would say that for 99.999% motorbikes are either transport or a hobby.

I’d suggest keeping bikes as a hobby and look elsewhere to make a living.
If you keep bikes as a hobby, you’ll always love them, maybe, possibly, I think?

Work to live your life, not live your life to work
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I am the sum total of my own existence, what went before makes me who I am now!

[andyscooter]

my old bike mechanic went bust as he couldn't pay for the building he was always busy

a lot of bikes would just come in for service and mot so wouldn't really make much profit on them

he had three ramps in his building and quite often two would have a bike in bits awaiting special parts so not making money

the other one I know sold his shop and is working from a small unit due to costs

he used to spend Saturdays just moting bikes to make enough cash to pay for his shop evey month
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gilera runner vxr200 (chavped)
if its spelt wrong its my fat fingers and daft auto correct on my tablet

[wr6133]

Compared to being rained on by IDF, IED'd to shit everytime you go anywhere and hearing "Contact, Wait Out" , more often than "Hello", everything you do in life is going to be boring.

They don't tell you this when you join Civ Div but you will firstly never ever fit in, secondly most people will think you are a walking basket of severely repressed mental issues and you will find any job boring rather quickly.

I lobbed my kit over the QM's fence over 10 years ago. After drifiting about briefly (which as you've probably realised is shit), I found the Haulage Industry a good fit. HR and political correctness stuck in the 1980's and if not a turbo-mong you can climb to decent pay fairly quickly. I'm now at a level where I'm bored (behind a desk all day), but I've developed the sense to realise bored and earning a fairly large pay cheque is far better than temporarily not bored and not being able to afford a garage full of toys.

Guess what I'm saying in a long winded way is stick with what is paying the bills, progress in it. Use the wage to play with fun toys and save what you can to retire early somewhere sunny with sand (but no Chogies ). The varied nature of work in the Army you are never going to rediscover. The sense of purpose you will never rediscover. The camaraderie between brothers you will never rediscover. Those are unique to the Military. On the plus side if you lower the rose tinted glasses you are also never going to rediscover picking bits of your mates brain matter from between your teeth and other such awesome memories being a soldier leaves burnt in to your brain.

[winder]

I thought that to be the case.
I should have added that I really don't care about money as long as I can live in relative comfort. If I list the priorities of a new job I would have a genuine interest in the job as number 1 and pay would be much further down the list but obviously we need money to survive in this country.
Not sure where to go to be honest. I just can't stay in my current job much longer.
Squirting water on fire is hardly challenging.

[P.]

[Nobby the Bastard]

You shouldn't live to work, you're supposed to work to live.

If you happen to end up with a job that you enjoy that also gives you the time and money to do all the other stuff you enjoy, all well and good but if you cant, take the well paid boring job and use that pay to get yourself a good life.
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trevor saxe-coburg-gotha:"Remember this simple rule - scooters are for men who like to feel the breeze on their huge, flapping cunt lips."
Sprint ST 1050

[-]

10 years as a fireman? Stick it out and you'll be retired on pretty much full pay by 50 to 55.

You can then spanner for 20-30 years, on a decent pension. Change career and you'll have to work until almost 70.
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TZR250 2MA road, TZR250 1KT road, TZR250 2MA race, TDR250, YZF-750R Boost colours.
Jaguar S Type 3.0 V6 Sport R, VW Transporter T5 GP LWB Shuttle 140ps DSG.

[stinkwheel]

I know of a guy who is a domicilliary motorcycle mechanic. He goes round to peoples houses and does bits of servicing etc.

Quite a good one. The people he caters for are usually cash-rich but time poor and he charges quite a lot fo the convenience of his service. Pay on the day. Also no outlay on premesis etc. You effectively outfit a van like a club racers pit van. Abba stand with all the fittings, good wind-out awning, manual tyre change machine etc in the back. Think he even has a wee inverter welder and compressor in there.

He tends to do a lot of weekend/evening work. Suits him. I got the impression it's not his only job.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[Diggs]

[Freddyfruitba...]

[Clanger]

[Easy-X]

[Eddie Hitler]

Few years behind you but I had a quarter life crisis and it was deep. Came out realising no job I do really matters aslong as I'm bringing some money in. It's what you do outside your work that brings happiness.

Granted I changed career because of it but I don't actively hate my job which for me is good enough.

[TaffyTDM]

Only advice i can give is never, ever, ruin a nice hobby by having to do it for a living

[kolu]

[A100man]

Perhaps, just maybe, there money in high end restorations of classics.
Although I suspect the current practitioners will be operating a closed shop.

'Big mortgage and young family' you say. Well I don't know how to break this to you but your adventuring days are over for the foreseeable future.

As mentioned earlier, stick it out till pension time and hopefully you'll be young enough to have a second bite at the adventure cherry..

Cheers
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Now: A100, GT250A, XJ598, FZ750

Then: Fizz, RS200, KL250, XJ550, Laverda Alpina, XJ600, FZS600

[bhinso]

My plan is to win the lottery and then go all Trustafarian somewhere...

[Pigeon]

[hellkat]

Hell, just go with what you want to do.

My fall from glory as a legal secretary into a receptionist in a brothel wasn't even considered as a career move: I think I must have been bored the day I did a U-ey in life* and went off and did that. Huge adventures! A whole autobiography all on its own, if I could pull my finger out of my arse and be bothered to write it.

You never know what adventure your life is going to take you on, until you step out of the safe boring place.





*well, okay, it might have been another U-ey. Turns out I might have done a couple through the years, actually

Fuck it.
Life is short, and there are only so many diems to carpe.

What if you died of Covid tomorrow?
Apparently you take long enough to die that you get to think about all the things you never got round to doing.
Yay!
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Not nearly as interesting in real life.

[chickenstrip]

[A100man]

..or do a bunk. Leave the wife and kids - plenty do.

Moral fibre is over-rated anyway.
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Now: A100, GT250A, XJ598, FZ750

Then: Fizz, RS200, KL250, XJ550, Laverda Alpina, XJ600, FZS600

[wr6133]

[winder]

The work to live , don't live to work saying is being used wrong in the above comments. Surely it means don't dedicate all your time and energy into work. You guys doing a job you hate because it pays well are still spending 5 days out of 7 doing it.

I think if you HAVE TO spend most of your life at work why not make it something you like?
If I wasn't a dad I would just sell everything I own and travel the world but since I can't do that maybe an enjoyable job is the next best option.

Anyway. I know I need a change. I'll just pick a direction and see what happens.

Thanks

[Polarbear]

I loved my seafaring job but the further up the ladder I got I disliked it more and more culminating in when I went in the office to run my own little fleet. I hated it.

Not the responsibility but the sense of being twisted and shaped into something I wasn't.

When my 2 year stint expired I had to get out even though they wouldn't offer me anything else. 40 years I worked for them and it was bye, clear your desk and hand your security pass in on the way out. Obviously the new graduate employees could do my job better.

Office fcukers, I never fitted in.
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Triumph Trophy Launch Edition