There was a very good article on these forums on this subject a couple years ago, and I was hoping to tap into some of the same knowledge. I posted this on reddit a couple weeks ago but only got one response.
I am in my late 20s and have a reasonably successful career in retail management as I run a retail corporate store. I never wanted a job like this, however after graduating with a masters degree in government, it was either work in retail or go live with my parents.
Slight detour here: I am fully aware that a liberal arts degree is not typically a pathway to economic success. My original plan was to work in government directly or work for a research think tank. I had that pathway somewhat opened for me(interned for a US congressman and was offered a paying job on staff after the conclusion of it. At the munificent sum of ten dollars an hour.), but I chose to step away from it, due to the long hours, low pay, cutthroat practices, and large amount of stress involved. Also see: ten dollars an hour is not a living wage.
I also chose to avoid trying to get a foot in a policy think tank as the story is much the same there, with the additional bonus of the fact that unless you are an Ivy League graduate with connections, you will never be in any position to do research on anything worthwhile. Everything you do will be pure gruntwork that nobody else wants to do. Also, they get back to you in geological time, i.e. months can easily pass before you even find out that you might possibly be considered for the position of assistant dung-keeper. I did have one phone interview, but by that point I was already working in the oil fields(little more on that below), and giving a phone interview right after a 35 hour day(still in my work truck, still filthy with grease and oil)...well it was a good thing that I had already decided that I had no interest in the job and did the interview purely on a whim.
Anyhow, I was raised to be self-sufficient, so when my ivory tower plans were shown to be untenable, I moved to the oil fields of (insert state here) and worked for some months servicing the rigs. I found that I enjoyed the physical labor and the lack of butt kissing, however my system was starting to break down under the strain of 90 hour weeks(on call 24 hours a day), so I chose to move on to the only other thing that I knew how to do, which is retail work(worked at Best Buy for a few years while in graduate school, most of it in Geek Squad).
Two years ago I started at the bottom of (insert famous retail store here) as a full-time sales consultant, and within two years I was asked to take over a failing location as store manager(with an interim stop in between as an assistant store manager). That was four months ago.
Please understand, I have no grounds for complaint, nor am I trying to complain. I have a salaried job, work about 45 hours a week, and make about 66K(80K last year with some moving bonuses added in) a year with great benefits and lots of vacation time. The problem is that I hate retail work. I just happen to be quite good at retail sales and retail management.
Can anyone offer me any suggestions on alternate career paths that I could move into? I have looked at B2B sales (not a huge fan of sales either, but if I am going to work it, I would prefer to do B2B and/or sell large items such as cars). I have looked into working in car sales, however there seems to be a ton of shady behaviors there, and an 80 percent fail rate. While I am confident that I can sell anything, I want to be able to spend time with my family and avoid working 6 days, 12 hours a week.
I have some years of construction experience from working through college and I do like the thought of going into commercial construction and working my way up, but I have no idea where to even start.
I have some basic IT experience (one class away from an IT minor in college but would have had to stay another semester) and I worked at Geek Squad for a couple years while in graduate school. I took COBOL (yeah...not terribly useful. but kind of fun :D ) and a year of C Programming along with a year of Networks. But I haven't the foggiest idea where to start looking in that area, if that's even an option.
I have access to online classes through Udacity at my employer's expense(they do tuition reimbursement as well, but it requires staying for two years for each reimbursement, or else you have to pay part/all of it back), but I want to make sure that if I do something that requires more time commitment to education, that I pick my topic carefully as I don't want to waste time.
Please understand, I am fine with taking a decent pay cut if that gets my foot into the door at a job that I can enjoy working and avoid dreading going into work every day. But I do need to make somewhere in the mid 40k range in order to take care of my family(first kid arrives next month) and service my bills. (I have 35K of student loans and a small truck payment on a 9-year-old vehicle. I am almost out of all other debt completely, paid off about 15K of debt in the last year and a half and am down to about 3000 in credit card debt, that should be gone in another two-three months.)
I really hope that this kind of made sense as to what I am asking, and I appreciate any advice that is given on job prospects or areas to look at.
Thanks!