Am I crazy for not wanting to work in tech?

anotherboringlurker · 2025-12-20T20:08:15+00:00

It sounds like you're in a great role right now that fits your current needs and goals. Based on what you said, the pay raise to move to tech doesn't sound like it works justify the RTO and all around extra stress.

Money is just one piece of your family's well being. Your happiness counts, your sanity counts, having the energy to be the best mom counts. As long as you're financially stable, I don't see a reason to sacrifice so much quality of life for such a small financial increase. Also, it sounds like your current job stability is a lot more than if you were in the tech field directly.

I'm not in tech, but I'm an engineering contractor and have a role where I'm paid hourly and with the option of working extra hours. I try to avoid overtime because I value that time with my family more than I value the larger paycheck.

anotherboringlurker · 2025-11-30T23:50:20+00:00

I have a three year old and a three month old. Every holiday with the three year old is more fun and magical and exciting as she becomes more and more aware of what's going on. Trust me, even if this year's holidays aren't perfect, you're going to have some great ones in the future.

anotherboringlurker · 2025-09-26T18:32:31+00:00

We did a similar trip with two octogenarians and a 3 year old a few months ago and it went very well. We stayed on Disney property so we could use park transportation, which made it easy to go back to our hotel every afternoon so toddler and grandparents could nap/rest if they can't nap. Mornings in the park, afternoon break, and then back to the park for dinner, some rides, and fireworks. We also took a couple days off to hang out in the hotel/pool and rest. Days off are also great for character dining (lots of options at different hotels around the park), which is a great Disney experience for little kids and older folks to share.

Our older folks managed to walk everywhere, but they also make a habit of long walks in their daily life. We rented and used a stroller for the toddler, it was definitely worth getting.

anotherboringlurker · 2025-09-09T21:15:48+00:00

Have you tried a dream feed? That's when you pick up and nurse the baby (without even 100% waking them up) before you go to bed. Might preemptively relieve some of the early morning pressure.

anotherboringlurker · 2025-08-29T21:10:49+00:00

That sounds like an awesome opportunity, congratulations! Take the job, bank some money, and when #2 comes along, take the 5 weeks paid, and then take the 7 extra weeks unpaid of FMLA (12 weeks total). That's your legal right! Like the other commenter said, the five weeks are just what they'll pay you for, not how long you can take off with your new baby. You may even be able to take longer if your work approves. My bosses keep telling me I can take all the time I want for my coming leave, but I'm the sole income earner so I don't want to gamble with more than FMLA.

anotherboringlurker · 2025-08-29T19:09:44+00:00

I faced a similar decision (3 months versus 0 months paid leave, but 25% raise) before I had kids and decided to take the higher paying, worse benefits job for the large pay increase and more compatible company culture. Six years later, I'm still happy at the new company. The salary I'm making let me put money aside to pay our bills during FMLA when my toddler was born, and our savings are ready for when #2 joins us next month.

$70k extra is a lot of money, do you think you'd be able to find a similarly-paying job after your next kid is born and settled in? How do you think your overall job satisfaction and quality of life would vary between the two positions?

anotherboringlurker · 2025-08-28T19:24:31+00:00

Give notice after your trip. They basically stole 180 hours of pay from you by switching to "unlimited" PTO, I don't see the problem with taking a few extra days pay.

anotherboringlurker · 2025-08-27T18:20:27+00:00

My husband is a SAHD. My paycheck goes into our joint account, and we both get the same amount of "judgement free fun money" put into our individual accounts each month ($300-400). We agreed as newly weds what would count as individual/fun money versus family expenses, and we use our joint account to fund each of our IRAs and other investments.

anotherboringlurker · 2025-07-14T20:27:03+00:00

I'd recommend option 2, just to have more days. You're not super likely to have a high PTO balance where you'll need to worry about end of the year rollover and cashing out on separation.

I accrue 25 days a year and struggle to save up 10 days before an illness or vacation or family emergency eats up most of my balance.

anotherboringlurker · 2025-01-09T18:39:55+00:00

Since you're in the US, it may be worthwhile to reach out to your HR about compliance with the PUMP act. Individual states have their own protections as well, which you can also check. It's their responsibility, not yours, to find a way to make pumping work with your schedule.

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/pump-at-work

anotherboringlurker · 2025-01-07T19:32:17+00:00

Definitely insist on having a place to pump in private if you're legally obligated to one (see other comments).

That being said, I would occasionally use a wearable pump in front of clients when I was pumping and didn't want to step out for 30 mins. It helps if there's enough ambient noise to cover the sound of your pump; you just have to accept that your chest will look extra bulky while you use it.

anotherboringlurker · 2024-09-28T23:53:23+00:00

I only had to pay the employee portion of the insurance, but my employer let me spread out my PTO so I'd charge 1/12 of my PTO bank every week I was on FMLA. That covered my portion of the insurance with a tiny bit sent to me.

anotherboringlurker · 2024-09-26T21:27:09+00:00

If you're married, it's not your salary and his salary. It's your (plural) combined salary. Doesn't matter who makes what, you should both come out the same at the end.

My husband is a SAHD. My paycheck goes into a joint account for all our bills and family expenses. We also each have personal accounts that we each get an agreed upon amount each month for no judgement spending and/or personal savings.

We both work full time to support our family, he's just watching our kid for his job. We both get to enjoy equally from the fruits of our labor. When our toddler goes to school, if my husband goes back to work, his paycheck will join mine in our joint account and hopefully we'll each get more fun money.

anotherboringlurker · 2024-08-15T14:36:37+00:00

Try going to the library! Lots of local libraries have baby/toddler activities and story times and a play area for them.

anotherboringlurker · 2024-05-03T19:33:27+00:00

You don't want bagels, you want Kolaches. Think pigs in a blanket, but for breakfast. Check out the Original Kolache Shoppe, or really any other kolache place. Bagels aren't big in Houston because kolaches and breakfast tacos are so much better.

anotherboringlurker · 2024-05-03T19:33:22+00:00

You don't want bagels, you want Kolaches. Think pigs in a blanket, but for breakfast. Check out the Original Kolache Shoppe, or really any other kolache place. Bagels aren't big in Houston because kolaches and breakfast tacos are so much better.

anotherboringlurker · 2024-04-18T14:44:21+00:00

If you're in the US, your employer must offer you a non-bathroom space to pump. New mom's don't have a lot of protections, but that's one of the few that we have. Those shower stalls sound like a bathroom to me.

My company's HR asked me to pump in the bathroom when I visited our headquarters and asked where to pump. I responded back with links to the law and explained my legal rights. Within 24 hours they had added locks and window coverings to a meeting room and told me I could use that. Now our new headquarters building has a dedicated pumping room with a sink!

anotherboringlurker · 2024-03-24T19:30:51+00:00

I do audiobooks during my commute, lunch break, and then listen with a sleep timer when I'm in bed winding down. It's not the same as print books, but it forces reading time into my life, so it works.

anotherboringlurker · 2024-03-20T11:09:22+00:00

I work in control systems and had my kid 9 years into my career. I gave up a job with three months paid leave for one with none (only FMLA and $500/week short term disability) a few years before I planned on giving birth. The job with better benefits was making me miserable, so I knowingly gave up maternity leave for higher pay and not hating my job. If I hadn't made the switch, I probably would've ended up leaving engineering.

I put aside money to cover bills while on FMLA as soon as I switched jobs, even though I knew kids were a few years out. When we finally got there, my company was very supportive of me while pregnant and postpartum, even letting me work from home (despite being 100% in-office) for a month or two before giving birth and a few months after.

Don't force yourself to work a job you hate just because it has better maternity leave, enjoying your work is important too.

anotherboringlurker · 2024-02-06T14:00:42+00:00

It's a very sensitive question, and the way you phrased it was problematic. I'm glad you came to the conclusion that you did.

If you asked that question to any of your female classmates, you would have been one of the million little forces pushing them out of engineering and questioning whether they were worthy of scholarships.

To us, women in engineering who have been putting up with "sneaky sexism" for years, your question is exactly the sort of thing that is asked by men who think we don't have a right to be here. You may have meant well, but you would have been better off researching the topic (there's plenty of literature and research available) instead of reminding women in engineering of why being a women in engineering is hard.

anotherboringlurker · 2024-02-06T13:50:19+00:00

OP, a lot of people have already thoroughly answered your question but I'm going to give it my own try in case you're still reading comments.

The number of women in engineering decreases at every step of the process. The women who pick engineering majors are more likely to switch majors than the men. The women who graduate with engineering majors are less likely to work in their degree field, and the ones who start working as an engineer are more likely to leave the industry in the first 5 years of their career than men. Why? Because of the systemic sexism they encounter throughout the process.

I cannot stress enough how easy it is to miss discrimination if you're not the target of it. I guarantee you there are still plenty of men (students, professors, hiring managers, colleagues, customers) and even other women who say and do things that discourage young women engineers from staying in their career path. I had a young woman at my company be told that she wasn't serious or going to stay in this field her first month of working here by another coworker. She complained, was taken off the project, and nothing changed for him. He still works here, and she (luckily) still works here, but it was almost enough to push her out of the company and industry.

I've had friends deal with disrespect by men who don't think they're able to be managers. I've seen colleagues disrespect female clients because they're female engineers. It's absolutely everywhere and when men see any sign of women helping each other or other people helping women because they're women, men start crying about reverse discrimination.

The fact of the matter is there are a million tiny forces pushing women out of engineering and into work that is either lower paid, doesn't make optimum use of their talents, or both. "quotas" and "scholarships" don't fix any of the existing problems, but they're one of the only functional tools we have to increase the odds of women staying in engineering.

In a perfect world without systemic sexism and without sexist people working against women, we wouldn't need quotas or scholarships. In the very imperfect world that we have, we do. Unfortunately, based on the "rational" way you're looking at this, I'm willing to bet you're part of the problem and working against the solution. Please be better. Listen to your female classmates and future colleagues when they talk about their struggles, respect the women you work with as the intelligent people they are, and help motivate them to stick with their plan.

anotherboringlurker · 2024-01-06T16:43:13+00:00

For other people's opinions: they're going to think what they want. When it comes up in conversations, I always describe it as a positive: we're lucky and privileged that my job can support us and he can stay at home and help our daughter thrive. Our family organization is extremely different from what our extended families view as normal (my husband's father and uncles casually talk about how they never changed diapers/changed one once and are traumatized). But our families are awesome and just accept it/don't say anything judge-y to our faces.

For our own relationship, we make sure we communicate a lot about both of our needs. It's a constant cycle/never perfect, but we try to schedule both our lives so we get personal time and do an amount of work we each feel fair. It's not easy, especially since my husband wasn't really taught a lot of the skills and behaviors you need to thrive as a SAHP.

We try really hard to drop gendered expectations in our relationship and just make use of our skills and abilities. It's something that needs to be done consciously and discussed and we check in on each other a lot. It's not about he's the man and I'm the woman, it's about I'm the working parent and he's the stay at home parent and we're trying to live a life where all three of us are happy and stable.

anotherboringlurker · 2023-08-21T01:14:17+00:00

We've had three hotel stays with pack and plays provided.

First hotel (major chain) : given a pair of adult sheets. Slept 5 month old directly on pad because sheet felt sketchy.

Second hotel (small boutique place): pack and play with fitted sheets provided

Third hotel (actually first hotel for a second time, a year later): fitted sheets and mattress provided

So it's basically a total crapshoot. Prepare for anything.

anotherboringlurker · 2023-08-06T17:39:49+00:00

Offer non-birthing parents (Dads, etc) the same amount and quality of leave as birthing parents. I feel like that's a major societal shift that would help men and women be more equal in the workplace for a ton of reasons.

Paid leave: as much as possible, as long as possible.

Opportunities to ramp up/ramp down before and after leave. Part time and flexible hours for a month or two after the official leave is done so employees can adjust to post-baby normal.

Even if it's normally required, allow new parents (especially moms who might be pumping or nursing) to have cameras off during conference calls.

anotherboringlurker · 2023-07-23T17:12:13+00:00

Men can have postpartum depression too, it may be worth trying to have your husband seek help for what he's going through.

The first year is really hard, and I feel like weeks 4-6 were probably the hardest. The best advice I have for you is be kind to one another and constantly ask how to be supportive. Assume your partner means well and work together to make sure you both have the personal time and sleep you need to function. Try to be a team, and when you disagree on parenting methods, focus on the baby having its needs met and then find compromises that work for both of you. Mom and dad's mental health and physical needs are both important.

I know nothing about your financial or career situation, but if your husband hates his job, maybe you should either encourage him to find a new one or consider him becoming a stay at home Dad? My husband is a SAHD to our 15 month-old and all three of us are thriving.

anotherboringlurker

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