A Job I Am Done With

For the last 6 years of my life, I have been slaving away on peoples roofs in the blazing hot sun for 40 hours a week. I was a solar installation foreman, and while it had it's rewarding moments, I was never truly happy doing it.

Gotta be the longest one I ever built, 210 feet

Several factors, from the day to day wear on your body, to the fact that nearly zero contractors are willing to give you benefits or even pay you properly, to the fact that you never get to work in the shade (skin cancer anyone?) caused me to re-think my choice of career and eventually leave my company and head back to school.

It was SO FUN carrying all these panels up this hill in 100 degree heat

Even the best case scenario for this career path (becoming a contractor) sounded awful to me and was going to take much more money than I could make or save doing installation to ever accomplish. I felt like I would just be used by ungrateful employers until the inevitable day when my body couldn't manage to do the job anymore and then cast aside, left to start all over again, most likely in my 50's.

You never know what kind of hazards you'll face on a job site

 In my relatively short trades career (12 years counting carpentry) I have, been shocked nearly to death by solar panels, put a screwdriver through my hand, injured my back to where it hurt for over a year, worked on slanted roofs so much that my knees and ankles hurt every day now, cut myself more times than I could count and gotten awful sunburns hundreds of times. All this while never working for a company that provided health or even dental insurance. This was clearly not sustainable for me.

I will miss the views....and not much else

So here I am, just finishing my first semester studying for a computer science and game design degree and although I am struggling financially to make ends meet, I've also never been happier with the direction that my life is headed in. Just next week I am going into 2K games in Novato to do some paid game testing and focus group work and I really couldn't be more excited for what the future holds.