Ask HN: How did you escape your safe 9-5 job?

[amadk]

How did you escape your meaningless 9-5 job to work full time on what you wanted to work on[1]?

Did you have a strategy or was it a leap of faith?

Did you regret it later on?

Are you happy with the decision you made?

Where do you think you would be today if you had decided to stay in that job?

If you are currently in a job like that, then do you have any plans of escaping to work on your passion[1]? if yes, then please share your plan.

[1] Your passion may be a dream job, a special course (masters, software bootcamp, course in another field like marketing or airplane pilot etc.) or a startup. It just has to be something you love but are not doing because you think you're job is currently the safest option for you.

[codegeek]

I bought a side project from someone else that was doing 2K per month at the time and 4 years later, I have turned it into a 10+ person company (yes bootstrapped so slow but controlled growth and I own 100% of the company). So pretty happy about it. It cost me 60K upfront though which I had saved by working a miserable Wall St. Tech. Job.

I just couldn't figure out how to get out of that routine. I had tons of ideas but could never work on any of them. So I decided to take someone else's validated idea and grow it further. The point was to get STARTED somewhere. Force yourself into it. I forced myself into it by buying that side project and then quitting my job 4 months later. My income went down but couldn't be happier.

EDIT: So a few of you asking how I found the project. It was flippa. Yes, I know it is needle in a haystack. That is where I guess the luck factor comes in. I was just browsing that day and came across that project for sale. It looked perfect for me and I talked to my wife and put a bid. Leap of faith really. I never met the seller but he was an excellent marketer. THe software was crap but he had already built a very small paying audience which I knew could do a lot more.

If anyone is interested, I wrote a blog post on how to buy an online business. Linked on profile.

[jamisteven]

Literally in the same position (miserable WS tech gig). How'd you get the grit to make the jump?

[tehlike]

How did youfind whay project to buy? Are you active on the project, or going more passively?

[lionpixel]

Can I ask on which platform you bought the project? Would like to do something similar.

[sigi45]

Wow nice. The first time i heard someone doing what you did.

How did you find that project?

[peterwwillis]

> How did you escape

Out the window. I had to back up quite a bit and take a running leap, but I was able to easily shatter the floor-to-ceiling pane glass. Marge from Accounting tried to stop me, but luckily I had begun taking Parkour classes recently and was easily able to dodge her.

> Did you have a strategy or was it a leap of faith?

It was a literal leap of faith. Some banners set up to advertise a corporate conference broke my fall.

> Did you regret it later on?

Well, yes and no. I didn't regret choosing to leave my job, as I was able to take a chance and see what I could achieve. But I did regret the broken legs and fused vertebrae.

> Are you happy with the decision you made?

Yes.

> Where do you think you would be today if you had decided to stay in that job?

Probably not in this motorized wheel chair...

[amadk]

Thanks, I'll make sure to pack some rope.

[tfehring]

Should've grabbed some cat-6 cable for a climbing harness first. https://xkcd.com/308/

[thisisit]

The whole safe but meaningless job is just romanticization. The same job can be meaningful if you are working on a good project. It can also be unsafe if the workplace is toxic.

It is about finding what you really want in life. Sometimes safe but boring is good enough. But sometimes working on a dream project might feel like a chore because of the circumstances and people.

[whorleater]

I love this response so much because it encapsulates a SO style response of "why are you soon X, you should do Y instead". The person asked about how to escape from a job he perceived as meaningless and safe, not a job everyone perceived as meaningless and safe.

[dejv]

I was product manager for fast growing product, but I was waking up at 5am every morning, just so I can do some coding before work and then do another coding session after I get back from work.

That managerial job was ok and it paid well, but still my morning/evening coding sessions is what I was looking for all day. One day I was like "Cmon somebody will always pay me to write a code." I had some savings, didn't have kids or mortgage, next day I resigned.

It turned out well, I find maintenance contract doing programming job nobody wanted to touch (writing internal application in Delphi) that lasted for decade. I haven't made that much money, but I was able to travel the world few times over, failed few startups, read a ton, play a music and even bought a farm (dont ask).

I am in my 30s, having two small kids, mortgage and that farm. Everything is going well and I am still happy to code everyday and when money get low I go and consult for startups or something. If I stayed at that job I am sure I will have some career going on and more stable live, but I am still glad I did jumped the ship.

[justaguyhere]

even bought a farm (don't ask)

I know you said don't ask, but I guess there is a good story there. so why the farm? :P

[roadbeats]

I’m also in my thirties and have a 1 year old boy. I want to wake up at 5, but can’t find the power and energy. What would you suggest me?

[alex_duf]

>Did you have a strategy or was it a leap of faith?

Complete leap of faith. Got a very safe job in the French administration writing programs that manage pension for public servants and electronically archive documents. So safe I was bored to death and depressed.

I applied for a Canadian work Holiday Visa, got it with a friend, left and never looked back. My boss at the the time was so surprised I left such a safe place he literally told me "You've got balls" ("t'as des couilles"). Truth be told it was a matter of mental health.

I've spent two years in Vancouver, Canada, learned scala in a startup, met people I'm still in contact with. Now I live in the UK and work for the Guardian which is by an order of magnitude the best job I've ever had.

>Did you regret it later on?

Never. It was risky but it also was the best decision of my life. I just miss being closer to my family.

> Are you happy with the decision you made?

Yes

>Where do you think you would be today if you had decided to stay in that job?

Probably still integrating bloatware in order to manage French public servant pension, if not in hospital.

[avh02]

Nice! The Guardian was my dream job for a while... I put together an application, submitted it - and a week later all tech job openings disappeared. open source too - so I found the PR removing the job descriptions on github, it was quite a funny and surreal experience.

Keep up the good work!

[projectramo]

A risky, non-9-to-5 job can be just as meaningless as a safe 9-5 job.

The hours and safety of the job are not what give the job meaning; it is you that gives it meaning.

I have worked for large firms and startups (none of them, by the way, were 9-5) and always felt it was a great job to have at the time. There was no "escape" though since the work was remarkably similar. The startups still paid.

To put it another way, I think you're looking at the wrong feature set to make this prediction.

[bavariancake]

It sounds like you overthink uncertainty, which is something I was stuck in for years. If I just reason it out enough, and have a good idea, and think it all through, maybe I can solve the problem before I quit that cushy job, or so the thinking goes.

It turns out that as long as I'm employed as a factory worker cranking out pointless Jira tickets all day to integrate another A/B testing framework, I don't have any good ideas. Boring works makes people dull.

How to escape: have f-you money. Pay off debts, save ruthlessly. See e.g. Mr Money Mustache [0] or The Simple Path to Wealth [1] for more. Bonus: you'll end up making better decisions at your 9-5 job because _you just don't have to put up with all that_, if the need arises.

My strategy: realizing that having a boring 9-5 job I found unfulfilling would make me insanely unhappy in the long term. You can always get another job if you decide you'd rather do that again.

Did I regret it? Am I happy? N/A. I know for sure I'll regret wasting another day arguing with a project manager that putting a ticket in the "in progress" column isn't actually the same as progress. In any case, others' experience doesn't have any bearing on yours (fortunately!). However, I strongly recommend against discussing this with your coworkers. They've chosen the same path you have, and will demotivate you despite having best intentions for you. If you go on an antarctic expedition, you'll run into a lot of people interested in the South Pole, and may begin to think it's common to spend lots of time thinking about penguins or the aurora australis. Well-intentioned but bad advice is pernicious.

You can't go wrong spending your days doing something that matters to you.

If you haven't read it, I recommend Post Office by Charles Bukowski.

[0] https://www.mrmoneymustache.com [1] JL Collins: The Simple Path to Wealth

[SmellyGeekBoy]

I was deeply unhappy in my job as a web developer. My co-workers were great but our department (attached to an IT support company) was treated as an afterthought. Our manager had no development experience and had bounced around from department to department. He was basically one step away from the door but the owner of the business didn't have the heart due to personal reasons.

A friend who owns an ecommerce business said that he would create enough work for me full time for my first 12 months if I set up on my own, as well as paying me the same as I was earning at my previous employer. My first job was to build him a new website which involved not only building the site but migrating all of his product and order data, which kept me occupied for the first few months. I jumped at the chance, splitting my time between home and his office at first.

This was 8 years ago and while growth hasn't been explosive, I've been consistently employed since then and now have 2 full time employees to help me out, with revenue slowly increasing year-on-year. I still have the original contract (he started another ecommerce business in the meantime which has grown to be the biggest in their sector) and have picked up a couple of others along the way, expanding into industrial software and interactive marketing. It's a mixed bag, and a lot of fun getting to pick and choose which projects we want to take on.

I honestly couldn't be happier with the way things went. My life is relatively stress free and I (and my employees) earn good money off the back of a very small number of stable long-term contracts. We have a nice office and nice working conditions. Everything I ever wanted and never got in my old job.

As far as what would have happened had I stayed? The company was acquired and the web department was eventually dismantled after years of sitting around with nothing to do. I hear the redundancy packages were half decent, at least.

[mrdependable]

I spent years working on side projects. They were always these apps that didn't really exist yet, and by the time I finished making them and trying to market them, I'd realize I had no idea why someone would pay for it. Then I'd throw it on the trash heap and start the next idea. After far too many years of this I decided to be more practical about it. At the same time I also cut my living expenses in half and started saving all the money I could. Once I released the app a major multi-national company signed up on the first day, saying they had been looking for something that did what the app does for a long time. Unfortunately, they were using it in a completely different way than I had anticipated, and the amount of usage it was getting right off the bat was way more than I thought it would get when I released it. Keeping up with the bug fixes and feature requests was too much, and I couldn't stand my job anyways, so I just gave notice. It's a bit strategy, a bit leap of faith.

This is actually all happening right now, but I am currently very happy with the decision. I enjoy the risks and the unknowns. They are huge motivating factors for me, rather than a source of stress. I honestly don't think I could be happy working for someone else. Every job I have worked at, people justify bad behavior as just being "good business". I simply can't accept that, and don't want to be part of it. On top of that, I can't stand giving someone else so much power over my life. I understand a certain amount of that is inescapable, but a 9 - 5 just feels oppressive to me.

[chrisweekly]

Got laid off. Started taking contract gigs. Found I preferred it. Partnered w/ a collective of consultants founded by a friend and former colleague. Established my S-Corp and committed to consulting. Now I make more $ and have more autonomy than ever before. It comes w/ some uncertainty and some downsides, but what doesn't? I don't expect ever to go back to traditional employment.

I haven't yet reached the point where I only ever work on projects that are particularly meaningful in terms of impact on the world, but I have more time w/ my wife and daughters and dogs and guitar, and I take every July off to go sailing... so it's a lot closer to "dream job" than anything else I've yet come across.

[chrisweekly]

P.S. The "safe" job might not be as safe as it seems. Stuff happens. Acknowledging this reality and being prepared to adapt and move on is crucial, and much harder if you're complacent and stay put based on the illusion of security. There's a huge opportunity cost in basing life decisions on risk avoidance.

As for "meaning", one can find purpose and merit in almost anything, it's more about mindset than circumstance!

[Spooky23]

Just be careful that you don’t use your job as a proxy for life. Understand what you want first, then figure out where work fits.

[JunaidBhai]

I wouldn't say that I quit because I wanted to work on something that I wanted to, but instead, I quit and then came up with something that I would love to work upon.

It was a leap of faith and within 10 days came up with Draftss. 9 months later we've achieved 8k MRR. (http://draftss.com)

Very much happy with the leap of faith. At present, I wish I would've done it sooner.

[everdev]

I was laid off in 2008 during the recession.

I always wanted to start a business but preferred the safety of a salaried position. When that was taken away and no one was hiring I had no choice.

I bought a laptop on my way home and started calling my professional network. Within a day I had signed my first web design client.

5 years later I sold the company.

Both starting and selling my web agency were incredibly rewarding for my professional growth.

[dhumph]

Depends. Do you have a family? A spouse? Debt? Do you need meaning in your work or just a paycheck to get satisfaction out of life. You create your own meaning or lack of it - the job doesn’t inherently have or not have it. If you want a more fulfilling life find thing that give you that and do them. they don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

[EZ-E]

Remember that your job doesn't define you.

If you think of a job as just a tool to make money, lots of the pressure of having a "meaningful" job goes away. The job has meaning because it allows you to feed yourself and your family.

[Applejack]

That's some any-time-previous-to-the-late-20th-century shit right there. Only a few decades ago did we start to have the luxury of even thinking our job should be "meaningful". I often think of a caveman or a child working in a textile mill or the lead dude in "The Jungle" screaming out "My job has no meaning!" as they're trying to just not die of starvation. I often find myself too thinking that I would like my job to have more "meaning", but the truth is, my boring corporate job provides me creature comforts that most of the world present or past will never know, and me deeming it meaningless really points to the fact that I lack volition and drive to make it or my life outside of work sufficiently(existentially?) meaningful. Still, fuck corporate bureaucracy that keeps me writing TPS reports instead of using my trade skills.

[gk1]

I wrote a longer version of this before[1], but here it is in short form:

> Did you have a strategy or was it a leap of faith?

It was more of a loose plan. I'd been reading Patrick McKenzie's articles about consulting and knew I wanted to try it. When my 9-5 (more like 8-10) job pushed me to the edge, I decided to put in my notice and give consulting a shot.

I had about $30k saved up from four years of 9-5 work which helped A LOT because I made zero dollars for a few months. But that cushion was a result of good personal finance decisions, not because I knew I'd quit some day.

> Did you regret it later on?

No, never.

> Are you happy with the decision you made?

Absolutely. I still have challenging moments but they're the good kind of challenges; interesting and rewarding.

> Where do you think you would be today if you had decided to stay in that job?

Miserable. No way my mind or body would survive that long in that environment for that long.

In short: I made the right decision for myself, but it wasn't a rash decision. My savings cushion helped me survive for the first few months. Even if things didn't work out as well as they did, I would have no regrets for trying.

[1] https://www.gkogan.co/blog/how-i-learned-to-get-consulting-l...

[guggle]

I found a meaningful 9-5 job.

[diafygi]

I agree with this. When I had to look for work last, I asked myself what was the biggest problem I wanted to contribute to fixing (for me it was climate change). Then, I started researching and networking with people who worked for companies in that area. Eventually, I got a job in renewable energy. So far I've loved every minute in this field because I feel it is so meaningful.

There's lots of 9-5 jobs that are meaningful. They may not pay as much as a meaningless adtech job, but if you're in software engineering, they still usually pay pretty well.

[TomVDB]

I’ve switched from a meaningless 9-5 job to a meaningful one at a different company. And when that became a soul crushing death march affair, I switched to yet another 9-5 job within the same company (but a totally different department.) I’ve been with that one for almost 10 years now and it’s by far the best I’ve ever had (and I don’t see how it could ever be matched by something else.)

When your planning to leave because you can’t take it anymore, you suddenly have a lot more freedom to tell your existing employer what you really want. And if they still want to retain you, things can work out great.

[muzani]

If you're a Malaysian, it's a no brainer.

A senior tech job pays about US$1000-$2000 per month. Maybe $3000-$6000 for managers/VP of listed companies. Conditions can be poor. Long hours at work, long hours in traffic, 14 days of vacation. Aggressive people. Pay is often late with startups, and the norm is paying on the 5th of the month.

The trick is to work foreign jobs. I make about US$35/hour freelancing, which is a very comfortable amount for me personally, and also well below the usual rates internationally. I can live in a comfortable area away from the city with good food, good traffic, and fast internet.

If I can just make an international SaaS thing at $1000/month, that should be enough spare change to buy a family house.

[tmaly]

I did not escape in the physical sense, but I picked up side projects to keep building out my skill.

I make it a priority to try to find more interesting work and projects that will add value to the company.

I have tried for many years to create a profitable side project, but I am still trying. You have to be careful about survivorship bias when you hear about successful startup. I am not saying you should not try, I am saying you have to consider that there are far more failures than successes. Keep that in mind and try to learn as much as you can along the way.

[JoeAltmaier]

Never had one. Straight into startups right out of college. Never looked back.

The fallacy is, that a corporate job is safe. One startup got bought by Dell, then we got laid off. Hadn't been laid off before.