I hate programming. I thought I liked it as a kid, but even then I knew that if tried to turn it into a career it would ruin it for me. I only ended up taking it up as a job because my immediate post high school plans feel through and I didn’t know what else to do, but at this point it seems the only reason I was able to pull that off was because of the ridiculous market conditions of the time.
Now no one will hire me, not even the sort of companies just described I used to work for. I’ve even been rejected from shitty fast food jobs for a variety of reasons at this point. I just feel lost. I don’t know what I want to do or what I can do anymore. The risks and time costs of going back to school are too expensive, no do I believe I have the cognitive ability for any “useful degrees”, and I’m not particularly in the shape to do hard labor.
What are some options I might be overlooking for finding a new career?
Maybe this could lead to consulting or freelancing. Maybe call them all up and see if they need help, even only part time / temp?
I'd also make sure that your current negative feelings RE: the job search aren't being transferred to programming as a whole. The right tech job may make you love programming again.
The biggest challenge for me is what a coworker once called the “golden handcuff”, it’s pretty hard to find similar salaries and if one has grown to need a tech salary to keep afloat, well, it would require major life changes to get out of there.
With that said here are a few of the things that I’ve seen
1. Medical Coding (has nothing to do with code as in programming) This is an interesting one because it seems that one can get in with a few months of training and a $200 certification exam. The initial salary is not horrendous but it can grow quite a bit.
2. Federal jobs (USA based) (usajobs.gov) I was surprised to find such reasonable salaries for such a big variety of roles! Things like administering programs or approving grants or mathematics statistics for the IRS easily and routinely make it to the 6 figures.
3. Completely different career:
I came across a fascinating masters degree in Coursera which allows me to earn a masters in a field I have no professional experience although I’m quite interested in. There was no requirement for a bachelor’s degree in that field nor the general tedious process of admission to a graduate degree. It simply required that you’d be able to keep up with the course work, like complementing knowledge you don’t have from a bachelor in that area by yourself. This is certainly a longer term commitment but for me sounds fantastic to get to a place where I could match software salaries without ever looking at a software company again!