Yup! I had an amazing job lined up working for a major company at their EMEA headquarters in the UK. I had got through a half-dozen rounds of interviews and was offered the position. I had just moved into a place near their campus and was heading through the process of joining (there was a longwinded - but fully paid - enrolment process I was working through) with an amazing job full of travel, interesting challenges and, crucially, a £100k/year salary waiting at the end. But this was shortly after Brexit and the flailing UK government was jumping from self-imposed crisis to completely-unavoidable crisis, insulting and infuriating other countries by constantly changing the terms of neotiation, publicly announcing then denying new impossible promises by the day, and the company in questions had just had enough: how the fuck could they keep their EMEA HQ in a country that couldn’t even promise that foreigners would be able to visit - let alone work - there in six months, and they announced the campus was closing. All the existing jobs moved to the EU, existing staff offered redundancy or relocation, and the onboarding process was cancelled. Thanks to Brexit I wasn’t allowed to live or work in the EU so I was jobless. I ended up doing shitting IT support jobs for £20k then £18k for years until I finally landed the job I’m in now which I love, but it’s definately not where I could - or, at the risk of sounding arrogant should - have been.

Music production. It would have taken years after finishing recording school to even begin to break even, let alone make minimum wage, let alone make a living wage. All the entry-level gigs were one-time unpaid things.

I haven’t fully given up on music production forever because I’m too fucking stubborn, but I’m not making it my full-time job.

I wanted to be an NFL player all my life…do you think I’m an NFL player?

I’ve always dreamt of creating music for video games. Ended up becoming a developer but still dabble with music here and there.

Radio production.

Got a degree, moved to London, applied for loads of jobs, and… nothing.

Trouble is, I needed to be paid, and at the entry level it’s all unpaid internships and volunteering at community stations. Unless you know someone who can get you through the door, of course.

Stuck with making a podcast in my spare time for a few years, but ultimately lost the spark.

These days I work in health and safety management and stream a radio show every Monday night that about 15 people tune into live, and 30-odd people listen to on Mixcloud. It makes me no money, but I enjoy it.

Unfortunately I’d need to be an American citizen to be president of the United States.

I wanted to be a mechanical engineer growing up, I was always playing with Lego and building little mechanisms. Then I had a physics teacher who got into the subject of physics vs engineering. He told the class about his brother who was an engineer for some electric motor company, and how his team would spend 18 months fiddling with the parameters of a motor, and they’d throw a party if they increased efficiency by 0.5%. I couldn’t disagree with his assessment that that sounded boring and soul-draining.

It sounds like the perfect job for a certain kind of person, and I am not that kind of person.

Well no. I’ve changed my mind a lot of times about what I want to do not because of industry but simply because my taste changed. I believe it’s important to do what you love, personally I don’t care if I don’t make lots of money.

Multiple times in my career the thing I had trained for basically stopped being a thing, or became such an easy thing it wasn’t going to be much of a job.

Being at the wrong point, either too early or too late, in various tech waves almost felt like my super power.

Wasn’t until I turned thirty that I picked the right tech at the right time, and for 20 years have had a great career in an industry that is just as valuable today as when I started.

Programming turned out to be a major component in what I do, and while I’ve seen AI spit out some reasonable code in the more popular languages, I can’t see it replacing what I’m doing before I’m too old to care.

Growing up I wanted to be a mechanic. After I went to tech school and got into the field I learned how much of it was pushing shit on people even when it can wait or they can’t afford it. I got bitched at by my boss for trying to help someone prioritize what they actually needed vs “recommended services” on more than one occasion. I tried switching shops a few times but it was always the same thing so I completely lost my passion for it. I just work on my own car now.

Game developer. Quickly realized the working conditions in the industry were not for me. Maybe one day I’ll go indie and try to release my own game.

Yeah. In middle school I was gonna be an NBA player 😂

All careers suck as they are designed to make you enter the rats race. Owning a business included…

Myself I started 3 or 4 times a careers and the only time I enjoyed my work it was due to the people around me.

Do whatever and try to find its positives…

I work IT and I would say: Don’t worry too much about AI. Lot of hype from boomers but is mostly bullshit.

I wanted to be a doctor really bad but in canada its basically a lottery system. My fiance had a 97 average, did well on her tests and basically lived her whole life in prep for med school and never got in, I have friends doing their PHDs on their fifth attempt, so seeing this I never even bothered. I did get into med lab which has been really fun, I now have 10 years in research/histopathology and have had an incredibly rewarding career in a field that I love, you just pivot and move on.

Honestly I wish I’d gone into finance/trading and done something I hate to make a shitload of money and just enjoy my free time but I’ve only got one life and I’ve already min/maxed my skill points so I’m in it for the long haul. Overall I’m happy with all my choices.

I wanted to get into IT (primarily computer networking), but I unfortunately could not deal with the customer service aspect and all the corporate bullshit that came with being in the field. Plus, it’s nigh impossible to get a job in the field now, even after getting a certificate and “doing my time” working at a call center (hate that shit.)