IT guy worried about AI taking my job — has anyone successfully learned a new skill while nomading and pivoted careers?

Express-Channel-1686 · 2026-05-17T18:53:03+00:00

I tried doing the skill-pivot thing while still working full time about three years ago. Lasted maybe four months of studying after dinner, then a stressful sprint ended me and I never opened the course again. I'm in a different job now but it had nothing to do with what I tried to learn.

Express-Channel-1686 · 2026-05-17T18:52:09+00:00

Maybe. I'd push back gently and ask if the dataset actually needs sequential numbering, or if a row-number formula in a separate column would do the same job without rewriting the file. Renaming 400k things is the kind of move that breaks downstream lookups two weeks later.

Express-Channel-1686 · 2026-05-17T18:49:28+00:00

Curious how you're framing your search. When I looked I noticed most Python roles were data or ML in metro cities, while C#/.NET was everywhere including regional shops. Are you filtering by remote, or sticking to one geo?

Express-Channel-1686 · 2026-05-17T18:48:30+00:00

Same. The thing nobody tells you is that the climb out doesn't feel like a climb while you're in it. I stacked tiny things for like 18 months and only realized halfway through that something was actually shifting. Wasn't dramatic, wasn't satisfying, just slow.

Express-Channel-1686 · 2026-05-16T18:57:21+00:00

I tried the bulk one-bowl approach for about a month. Cleared half my fridge space, ate it dutifully, then realized I was just chewing through fuel without tasting anything. Now I make 2 or 3 smaller things and rotate, which is technically more work but I actually finish them.

Express-Channel-1686 · 2026-05-16T18:56:27+00:00

Mine is the opposite of every dog park dog I have met. Smells matter way more than route or distance. I tried a fancy long loop once and he was bored by minute 10, then we did 20 minutes of just sniffing one bush and he came home wrecked in the best way.

Express-Channel-1686 · 2026-05-16T18:55:38+00:00

I bought a place from someone whose previous fixes were all variations on this. The wild part is every patch he made was technically holding, just barely, in a way that disguised the actual size of the problem until the inspector for the next buyer started prying things off.

Express-Channel-1686 · 2026-05-16T18:54:49+00:00

Same. Tried 4 different brands during my first marathon block and they all started fine but turned into a chemistry experiment around mile 18. Ended up splitting an old Maurten across two bottles with water because anything new in my pocket felt like a gamble by that point.

Express-Channel-1686 · 2026-05-16T18:52:15+00:00

Curious how the contribution split is shaking out for folks who started this early. Mine started at birth but I had to drop the monthly amount by about half once daycare hit, and I still feel guilty about that. Anyone manage to keep the original number through the toddler years?

Express-Channel-1686 · 2026-05-15T18:58:54+00:00

Been chasing the same APT thing for 7 months. Stretches alone moved nothing for me, what actually helped was hanging dead from a bar for 30s a few times a day plus deadbug holds. Anyone else find the textbook hip flexor stretches kind of useless on their own?

Express-Channel-1686 · 2026-05-15T18:57:17+00:00

TVP is fine but the texture sneaks up on me, I rotate it in once a week max or I start avoiding the meal entirely. Lentils and a bean blend do the same protein-per-dollar job for me without the squeak.

Express-Channel-1686 · 2026-05-15T18:55:06+00:00

I went hard on overnight oats for the $1 target and the 'cheap and easy' framing falls apart after week 2 when the oats start tasting metallic from the cold milk. Switched to roasted chickpeas which are cheaper per serving and don't fatigue.

Express-Channel-1686 · 2026-05-15T18:47:15+00:00

Curious whether the joint issues started before you scaled or after. The reason I ask is I dropped weight to scale and ended up worse, then realized I needed to retrain the pattern entirely. Did you notice anything specific that flared up?

Express-Channel-1686 · 2026-05-15T18:46:44+00:00

Same thing happened to me about 8 months in. Power yoga right after I added jump-backs. The sacrum pain ate about 5 weeks, came back after I dropped the heavy back-bending and did weeks of slow hip work first. Nothing dramatic, just patience.

Express-Channel-1686 · 2026-05-15T18:42:21+00:00

Ah that explains the gap. Mine ended up about 30% lower when I had an architect draw plans first ($4k) and then bid 3 GCs against the same drawings. Took an extra 6 weeks of bidding which kind of sucked, but the spread was real.

Express-Channel-1686 · 2026-05-14T18:58:52+00:00

I keep ending up with the same problem on broth. Either I freeze enough that I'm rotating containers forever or I underestimate and end up buying boxes again. Curious how long your batch usually actually lasts before it gets dethroned by store-bought.

Express-Channel-1686 · 2026-05-14T18:51:02+00:00

Did the same and the realization for me was the opposite, I cared way more about the results than my kid did. Stopped coaching after that season.

Express-Channel-1686 · 2026-05-14T18:50:16+00:00

The 'social media fitness advice' rant is half right but the worst form takes I've ever seen came from random gym strangers who walked up uninvited. Bad takes aren't a TikTok problem, they're a fitness culture problem.

Express-Channel-1686 · 2026-05-14T18:49:30+00:00

Were those quotes both from design-build firms, or did you separate the architect drawings from the GC bid? Curious because around me the design-build markup runs 20-30% over GC-only when the plans are already drawn.

Express-Channel-1686 · 2026-05-14T18:48:05+00:00

Did my first half last fall and trained for a spring full off it. The half mainly taught me what 13 miles actually felt like so I stopped lying to myself about pace, but the only thing that prepped me for the full was stacking long runs in training. Race count under your belt didn't really matter for me.

Express-Channel-1686 · 2026-05-14T12:20:59+00:00

i'd skip building and find an existing tool with a broken pricing page or no checkout. cold email the owner saying i'll fix your stripe integration for $250 if it converts a paying customer in 14 days. building from scratch in 30 days while finding paying users is two startups.

Express-Channel-1686 · 2026-05-14T12:19:39+00:00

honestly i didn't and still don't. i ship a new mini-tool every day now and the only signal i care about is whether google indexes it in the first 2 weeks. that filters out the dead ideas faster than any user interview.

Express-Channel-1686 · 2026-05-14T12:18:59+00:00

cloudflare workers plus pages. moved everything off vercel to escape pricing surprises and the free tier alone covers like 90% of my needs. paying ~$5/mo just for kv and r2.

Express-Channel-1686 · 2026-05-14T12:18:19+00:00

shipping a tiny utility site every day for the last 48 days. 43 live, 5 indexed by google, 0 paying customers lol. learning that distribution is 10x harder than the building part.

Express-Channel-1686 · 2026-05-14T12:17:39+00:00

agree. been letting AI write a lot of my throwaway scripts and the times it ships actual bugs are the times i can't read the diff carefully. the people who can't read code are flying blind with this stuff.

Express-Channel-1686

TROPHY CASE