You sir have shown wisdom that I did not possess 25 years ago. Good job. Were this ten years ago, I might think about switching back, but at my age, no one will ever give me a second look, and that's totally understandable. That's not to say that the money isn't good, or even great, but there are more important things in life than money. I also think that due to any real meaning derived from my career, it has motivated me over the years to learn a lot of skills at home on my own time that I may not have otherwise learned. I learned how to cast metal, light machinist work, welding, gem cutting, various homesteading skills, and I still work on at least some of my vehicles (mostly a 1985 4runner), as well as quite a long list of miscellaneous things that necessity required me to learn.
Your automatic transmission comment made me laugh, as I believe there is one of my old ones (TH350) still disassembled from the mid 80s somewhere in central California. Holy shit is there a lot of stuff inside one of those...Never attempted it again, just got out the checkbook for someone else when that problem arose.
On Jan 31 my employer is going to revisit my vaccine exemption, and if it's rejected at that point, I'll get half of my wish: I'll be out of IT, unless I can peddle my skill set to another employer that doesn't require such nonsense.
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