I know you’re man enough to accept the help you are given and will return the same when you can. Hang on in there.
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I graduated college with a BS in Computer Systems Engineering in the oughts and have been a working software engineer ever since. I’ve worked for a few companies. I’ve been with my current company 7 years and don’t have imminent plans to leave. I’m considered a “Tech Lead” but that’s not my title (it’s “Software Engineer”) but I provide technical guidance, mentoring, and set strategic direction for a team of 40ish software engineers. I specialize in engineering efficiency and automation.
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When I was going through the collapse of the hedge fund I worked at I went through several stages of grief and fear of not being able to provide. I tied allot of who I was into that company and watching it lose literally billions of dollars and dismantling everything I built over a decade most of it from net new was hard. I cried when I dismantled the original datacenter we built out and moved the infrastructure back to the main office racks. It was possibly one of the hardest things I did telling my coworkers and friends they had to be let go in waves not even knowing if I was on the block until I got the list from management. I was second to last on my team to be let go as a last ditch effort and I shortly after that the fund reverted to a family office which is just a nice way of saying the only money left to manage was the owners and their family and friends.
I also lost all of my retirement in that. It was terrifying watching my nest egg and future. My safety net all slowly disappear and stare starting over in the face. I’m still not back where I was in 2022. I won’t recover my retirement for another decade which is gonna suck.
This all to say I don’t know how it feels to be in your shoes I can’t imagine what your going through in the slightest but I’ve been in a dark place before and I am thankful my wife was there for me and supported me and I hope you have that same support.
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I mean I guess I’m a SME now. A senior engineer focused in networking or whatever but I do feel like I’ve slipped backwards in my career in my current role. Complacency is what’s keeping me where I’m at right now. Honestly the work I do today being mostly IT governance is extremely dry.
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Idea inspired by this topic: Maybe we can get Andre to create badges for different income levels. Also, maybe a badge for spending a disproportionate amount of your income on yoyos. I’m totally earning the “Credit Warrior” badge for all of the PayPal credit purchases I make for yoyos.
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I don’t need that…
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I’m hoping that was poorly executed satire.
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I’d like to think it was pretty well executed satire.
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Man!!! Hold on to that gig as long as you can!!!
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Absolutely yo-yo has been so helpful. It has gotten me moving and involved in this community since picking them up again early 2023. The zen from throwing comes from all the processing moving to the motor control portion of the brain I think, that’s why you literally can’t think of anything while throwing. This gives me a lot of relief as I have to excerpt a lot of exercise-like effort just to focus my attention on anything. Like this text. I’ve been focused on it for a good 10 minutes now.
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Have been a professional poker player for 19 years. Have hated it for 13 years and wanted to quit but haven’t felt properly motivated to do so and it made very little sense to take would what realistically be a 50-80% paycut while also spending time and money to further my education beyond a bachelor’s when there is no traditional career path that I have any real interest in. Only in the past few years has it become somewhat feasible for me to retire. My yoyo budget is unlimited but I don’t buy many. After all this time it’s pretty clear to me what I like, plus I really dislike owning things that I don’t need. I’m also very unwilling to feel like I overpaid for anything so since the only things I want rn are a Sudo and a select few copper plated things that people want imo silly prices for, I’ll just never get them.
Before and during this time I was a buy/trader/reseller of various collectibles. Kinda something that happens when you are obsessed with collectibles (retired from this obsession). When you have the means to purchase very large amounts of collectibles and are intelligent enough to pick up on market trends, this can be a profitable venture. I probably wouldn’t do this anymore as I think too many people are too good at it on a short term level, though I think long term is still easy to predict.
I was briefly doing work editing videos and some other stuff for a gaming channel on YouTube. I went into it with 0 experience but quickly realized that everyone else in the industry doing this job had 0 idea what they were doing and put 0 effort into it so it felt good when my work was noticed and complimented. Unfortunately the company I worked for is a lot more interested in their bottom line than the quality of their product and they realized they could just make someone do my job during their shift, though the quality of their work was very poor compared to mine. And to be fair, the execs at the company have no idea how our end of the company actually works, so I get that they are more worried about the money. They didn’t know that I completed my 15 hours of work each week in like 2.5 hours but it was fun while it lasted.
Though it is conceivably possible for me to retire (I am under 40), I fear not actively making money and just being bored, so it’s more about quitting my current job and having some sort of other business to interact with than it is just not working at all. For some time I’ve wanted to experiment with opening some print on demand stores (selling literally anything but clothing). While I don’t believe a large profit is to be made from any individual store, I think with numerous stores it could be worth my while and largely hands off. This is a business I have 0 passion for but something I think I could get cranking pretty easily thanks to the ease of generating really cool and unique things through AI. But since I have 0 passion for it and am lazy, I’ve yet to put any meaningful effort into it.
The other business I’m interested in is something I very much do have a passion for and that would be a yoyo company! Designing a yoyo for myself is something I’ve wanted to do for 10 years, maybe more, and I’m planning to have more free time on my hands than I’ve had in a long time. I have a pretty clear idea of what direction I would want my brand to take and I have over 10 designs written down with ideal specs and how I want the yoyo to play (fast, floaty, etc) including aluminum (multiple types), titanium, delrin, injection molded plastic and steel. I am not completely clueless but pretty close to clueless in CAD so need to spend much more time there before even considering a prototype run but if I’m able to prototype something I think is worthy of a production run then I would be willing to seriously commit to it. And with the ideas I’d have on the backburner, that is already 2.5+ years of releases if my initial 1-2 throws get a solid reception. I have 0 ideas of becoming a big brand but if I can curate a diverse lineup of yoyos that I feel like are improvements on classic designs or things that are just missing from the current scene that I really enjoy and put them in the hands of others to enjoy, that is something I’d be really proud of.
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@archiesdad @Captrogers
While it has been difficult to accept being broken, I am grateful every day that I have a very strong and industrious wife. She doesn’t see this as a negative in any way. I have always felt quite blessed to have her in my life. We have been best friends from the start and that was nearly 30 years ago. We are also fortunate that our son takes his responsibilities very seriously as well. He contributes heavily and never complains or feels negative in any way. If I were on my own I don’t know what life would be right now. Crazy to think about what ifs sometimes.
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I always enjoy seeing your office 
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Graphic designer for the last 20ish years here. Mostly agency work, now in-house for a handful of big brands. I’ve been working from home for the last 4 years and I don’t see ever going back to an office job. That actually sounds like a nightmare now.
We’re a single-income homeschooling family of six, so my play budget is practically non-existent. Anyone need some freelance design work done? 
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Awesome, that’s a big team. My team has 6 total, including me. I’m in software operations so it can get stressful at times but it’s the rewarding type of stress, it’s like constantly solving puzzles, when you solve a complex issue, it’s a good high, that feeling of achievement that only comes from, well… achieving something. I started with JavaScript in the code camp but now I script mostly in Python and occasionally there is the need for shell scripts that just make life much easier to automate tasks.
If I had to do it over, I would have studied computer science in college, it’s just the best way to go. I know I have gaps in my knowledge but who doesn’t in this ever evolving industry but I’m always hungry to learn and grow. Currently, I’m learning Java and I need to brush up on some of my db skills.
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Complacency is a beast, really gotta watch it cause it can sneak up on you if you’re not careful. None of use are immune to it.
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I work at a river water treatment plant. The pay’s not great, but I love what I do and I’m good at it. And there’s plenty of down time for yoyo. I’m currently working on learning programming in my spare time so I can pivot in the industry to programming SCADA systems, or possibly instrumentation equipment. Gotta make more money to afford more yoyos 
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My brother was a graphic designer for about 15 years, when he just up and quit one day. He said he was going to get into ecommerce, which I honestly thought was a huge mistake but he made it work, he found a way to use he skills as a graphic designer and really kind of stumbled on to a really niche market but he’s so successful now, his wife no longer needs to work, although, she still does part time because she’s a registered nurse and she enjoys it. It’s really cool to see how he succeeded at it.
Oh, speaking of my brother, I went over there this weekend, taught him how to bind and once he got that he was hooked so I gave him a Replay YY to start with. I’m hoping he sticks with it. I am sick of giving yoyo’s away and not seeing the people I gift them to not stick with it, so I gave him the stipulation that if he doesn’t stick with it, he’s giving it back!
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Hahaha nahhh, there’s definitely people on here who do a lot better than me fasho. I’m only 27 so I’m really just getting my career started as opposed to lots of others on here who are approaching retirement age and have retirement level funds to throw at hobbies. Real Estate is really weird lol, especially right now. Some months you’ll be absolutely killin it, and then there are also times where it’s pretty dry and you’re thankful for the times it’s good and that you can live off of that while you fill your pipeline with potential new business. Sometimes there are days where I’m so mind numbingly busy I don’t even have a free second and sometimes there are days where I’m totally free. I’ve only been at it three years, and when I love it, I REALLY love it, but when I don’t, I REALLY don’t haha. Overall I’m really blessed and thankful to do what I do, live where I do, and enjoy hobbies like yoyoing like I do.
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