How many of you work a regular day job?

I picked up the guitar when I was 20 years old and already in the middle of college. I kind of just picked electrical engineering because I wasn't sure what I wanted to do for a career but I seemed to have a knack for those classes. So I stuck with it, practicing all the time in college. Now I'm 30 and I've gotten into a job that I just can't stand. It's a small company with endless problems and near zero resources to fix any of it, but it's still my job to worry about trying to fix everything even though I know it's hopeless. It's soul crushing to me, and I often come home not in the mood to play guitar. Although I do still have a band I'm happy with, and we're making progress slowly....

I still don't see music as a viable career for me. I have a house to pay for and getting my band off the ground by touring in a van can't pay the bills. Also I'm sure if I did it every day as a job I might not like it as much anymore. I really just want a different job that doesn't put me in a bad mood so I can go home after work and play. I need to work on that.
 
Desmo808 said:
The people I work with at my day job aren't bad, but the work itself is stupidly oppressive. I typed out a whole thing, but deleted it. I'll just leave it at that.

The band is like a second job. Music itself is fun, but "band stuff" is like work. This is another can of worms, so I'll stop there. o_O
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fremen said:
I work in a newspaper (sub-editor). Tons of pressure, we fired dozens of employees last year, the problems in the press sector are so hard that I don't know if my office will still be here in a few years. Because of the stress I don't always find the energy to play music. Fortunately I have my side-business selling presets, without that I don't know what I would do
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I'm glad I'm not alone. I can relate so much to both of these posts.
 
I was an engineer playing music for a hobby until I was 35. I hated my boss, and the work was dull. I then got an offer to play music professionally for more money than my day job. I quit the day job, moved to Vegas, and only played music for six years, until I had a kid. I then got another day job as a technical writer, which I really liked. I worked both jobs for about seven years, which damn near killed me.

I quit the day job when my wonderful boss left and was replaced with a major a$$hole. I now solely play music for my income again. I miss the money of both jobs, but I am much happier overall and have time to enjoy life again.

I never intended to be a professional musician. Even though I worked at guitar harder and longer than anything else in my life (including engineering), I never really considered making it a profession. It just fell into my lap, although it wouldn't have if I hadn't spent my life preparing for it. As Louis Pasteur said, "Chance favors the prepared mind".
 
I consider myself pretty lucky at this point.

My first job out of college was a really cool job. Unfortunately it was horrible hours, crazy stressful, and my boss was emotionally abusive to everyone in his life. It sure as hell wasn't ever boring though!!

Then I tried to start my own business doing something I really loved doing. I'm going to stay a bit vague to keep things succinct. It turned out that this thing I really loved doing, I ended up finding awful when it was for other people, and my well being was dependent on it.

My current job (manufacturing/process engineer) is fairly fulfilling. I am stimulated most days, my best day of work is enjoyable, and my worst day is just a little boring. Extra bonus, it just so happens to be for a very well known company in the music industry that has a pretty great company culture overall. Great co-workers (tons of whom are musicians), resources, and generally great attitude towards getting things done. I also have a great work/life balance and feel very lucky for that. Right now, it's exactly where I want to be.
 
Oil and gas industry as a boat captain. I spend alot of time at seas. 8 months a year!

So me being home a few months out the year leaves very little time to crank up my fractal. So its stayes home being i have to pack light do to helicopter flights. So while im at work its me using a guitar and a MacBook.

Never wanted to really do the whole band thing. Jus wish i was home more to use my XL more. Or the pipe dream of a native FAS.
 
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Recording studio manager & engineer in my 20's.

I worked making children's books, trade books, and those crazy book and kit sets you see at Barnes & Noble in my 30's. At one time I knew all the children's movies scripts about a year before the general public did which was cool, especially when I worked on Episode I books. I was paid to travel the world to come up with new book novelty concepts, source things, and make sure everything printed inthe proper color hue.

In my 40's I got into internet publishing and get to teach people how to data mine and search tag.

All the while, I would still pick up recording sessions on the side that were interesting and I could afford to turn down stuff that wasn't interesting due to the day gigs.

Now I make IR files too :) I must say I have lived an interesting life thus far, it's never been boring, and I have met & worked with awesome people along the way.
 
Been steadily employed for past 40 plus years. I like the people, the technology, and the challenge of getting something to work. I hate the politics and the grind. I have to eat - I will never be enough of a player to make a living at it - but that is fine. This is my stress release - I don't do all this with the idea that I will make it - I just like music and guitar in particular. I am learning to play solo - I am too old to deal with the band thing any more - I am trying to learn big box jazz - chord melody type of stuff. Also working on my acoustic fingerstyle chops - it is another very rich world that I am psyched about. I still love to rip off a nice blues or rock solo, and will always be that kid, but my relationship with the instrument is evolving - I think as it should.

JB
 
This is an awesome post. Nice to see that we all have a lot of differences, but also a lot in common. I've been playing since I was 16 or so - never "professionally" but certainly a LOT. lol I think last year I did like 168 shows or something, while working full time. My job is awesome - no complaints - the people are cool and it's super flexible, and I'm at a point where I don't have anyone really riding me to do anything - like I know what I need to do and just do it.

I've always had a love/hate relationship with 'regular' work though. Sometimes, even now, it's really hard for me to handle the contrast between band life and the normal job. This weekend my musical partner and I were up north here in Michigan as our acoustic duo just killing it - played 3 shows to people jumping around and singing with us, like REALLY singing with us - at the top of their lungs. They were super into it. And then, I drive home and come to work and type weird things into a computer that rarely if ever, does anyone jump up and down about. :) I saw in another post someone saying that being in a band, or in music in general, is work. Couldn't agree more. Anything that becomes a job is just that, and carries with it all of the positives and negatives of any job.

I'd say overall, I've been lucky with work, music, and relationships and get to really enjoy myself whatever I'm doing. Music is my absolute love though - playing it, listening to it, writing it, whatever.

Great reading the other posts!
 
great thread...raised by an artist...then learned the guitar and played full time and taught for several years...went to school...degree in electrical engineering...for the last 25 years have made a decent career as an embedded sw engineer...all the time plotting my return...during my time as an engineer on the side i have studied sound engineering, designed and built my studio and big playback system...fixed my old amps, resurrected my guitars and have finally cleared the space to sit down with a metronome, a guitar, a sheet of paper and play some catch up ball on where i would've been if owning a house and having a family were not important. :)
 
The grass is always greener over the septic tank. Welcome to grown-up adult life. Every career has with it the BS that makes it suck no matter what it is.

If you're a scientist, doing science is awesome. Grant writing sucks. Chasing funding sucks. Dealing with idiots in your department or admin types that shouldn't have a say but for no real good reason do, sucks.

If you're an engineer, engineering stuff is awesome. Dealing with the everything that isn't engineering stuff and solving problems - sucks.

You could be a heart surgeon. Everything that goes along with the cool part (heart surgery) sucks.

If you're a program or project specialist or an analyst of some sort or comptroller or any of the other aforementioned species that hinders the ability of the people actually doing something - you are a middle man.

Captain Reynolds sums it up nicely for us here in "Firefly" Episode 10...



If you're a musician, dealing with everything that's not about getting up on stage and playing or in the studio making your ideas happen - SUCKS.

And then you retire or die.
 
USMC_Trev said:
If you're a program or project specialist...or any of the other aforementioned species that hinders the ability of the people actually doing something - you are a middle man.

Captain Reynolds sums it up nicely for us here in "Firefly" Episode 10...
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You take a dim view of project people. That's okay. We're used to it. If we needed to be liked by everybody all the time, we would have chosen a less brutal profession.

Good project people enable things that could not happen without them—the Space Shuttle would never have gotten off the ground without project people rigorously practicing their discipline. Bad project people hinder productivity, just like bad eggs in any profession (including engineering, where I started my career). Sometimes, good project managers do things that look like they're hindering you, when they're actually preventing you from tripping up somebody else.

Fortunately, I have music. That's my fun zone. And it allows me to make the occasional two dollars. :)
 
Shortly after high school I was supporting myself playing in a band and teaching guitar. A few years later, the band cut a record and did a regional tour to support it. I was on the road too much to maintain a teaching schedule. After a year or so of doing that, the band was burnt out and we ended up going separate ways. I got completely out of the music business. I was never happy with the lack of income...I still tell people I picked up a bad habit on the road called "eating food", and the music biz wasn't supporting my habit.

After a summer of bumming around trying to decide what I wanted to be when I grew up, I ended up doing construction materials testing, construction inspection, and earthwork estimating for a few years and was pretty quickly topped out money-wise. In order to make more money I'd need a degree...something I had no interest in doing. By my mid-30s, I ended up moving to California and switching careers. I got into the software business, first as a tech writer, and eventually managing tech support and product development teams. In my mid-40s I had an accident and broke my back. When I came back to work months later, my position had been filled, so I went back to just being a tech writer again. (I liked having less pressure from upper management, and I was making the same money as before.) Throughout all this time, I played less and guitar. Eventually, I was down to about 30 minutes per year.

By my mid-50s, a job layoff and subsequent job hunting brought me back home to NM for another tech writing gig. Not long after I moved back, I hooked up with my old bass player, who was playing in an acoustic classic rock trio with one of my guitar students from years before. Before long, they invited me to sit in with the band, so I showed up at an acoustic gig with an electric guitar. That was about 5 years ago. They never officially asked me to join the band, but I just kept showing up at gigs and they felt compelled to pay me, lol. We gig anywhere from once to 4 or 5 times per month, and we have a ton of fun. We're four good friends who play for enjoyment, not the income. (Although the extra cash in the gear fund doesn't hurt.) I've since switched jobs (doing nation-wide tech support admin for a government agency), but the band continues to be a great source of enjoyment for me. We tell people we play for free...just charge money to move our equipment.
 
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Rex said:
You take a dim view of project people. That's okay. We're used to it. If we needed to be liked by everybody all the time, we would have chosen a less brutal profession.

Good project people enable things that could not happen without them—the Space Shuttle would never have gotten off the ground without project people rigorously practicing their discipline. Bad project people hinder productivity, just like bad eggs in any profession (including engineering, where I started my career). Sometimes, good project managers do things that look like they're hindering you, when they're actually preventing you from tripping up somebody else.

Fortunately, I have music. That's my fun zone. And it allows me to make the occasional two dollars. :)
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It's not that I hate project people - nearly ALL of my best friends are PMP types. I very nearly became one myself when the flying part of my career ended. I do think they are the good ones. They probably wouldn't be my friends if they weren't. The "good ones" are, unfortunately, the ten percent. For every good one there's a platoon of people who accomplish little except the creation of process, which increases time spent on process, which increases cost in a circular spiral towards increased friction and inertia until the thing that started out simple collapses and suffocates under its own weight....

Maybe it's not universal. My opinion is based on my own experiences in the defense world, where the 10 percent is really sub-2.5 percent.
 
Like others have kind of said - as jobs go, I have a good one - I get paid well, I very rarely work overtime and if I do, I get paid for it. I also have the ability to work from home if I want. Do I love my job? no....But - no one bugs me here - I have a great boss who lets me be and have a great work environment. My job is very independent, I don't have to deal with customers or the public in general ( just some sales people - which can be worse than the public!). I only work until 3:30 every day and I'm home by 3:45 most days which gives me plenty of time to play guitar every day until my wife gets home. I have health benefits, have 401k, take lots of vacations out of the country etc etc. My point being this: would I love to have a job where I get to do something fun and creative like music, art, film ? Of course I would. Does it pay the bills and allow me freedom? not really.. I went to college for film/video production ( graduated in 1995 so technology was quite different back then) and when I got out, I very quickly realized a few things - I would probably work for free for a very long time, and work 12 + hours a day. I interned at an animation studio for a bit - the guys that worked there and got paid for it were working 80 hour weeks - all kinds of crazy hours. The older I get, the more that time is the most valuable commodity. Anyway - I deeply respect people who try and make it in the music biz - especially today its tougher than ever. And to drop everything and pursue a dream is commendable. Just my 2 cents... :cool:
 
Holy Smokes Batman! This thread really blossomed in a really fascinating and inspiring way. Thank you all for taking the time to share your story, it's really awesome to know that I'm not alone in this, especially considering a lot of you are engineers as well!

Anyway, I'll try to keep it short.. I studied chemical engineering in college because I knew it would be lucrative.. plus my parents refused to cooperate financially in anyway shape or form if I did not major in something lucrative (engineering, pre-med, pre-law, nursing, etc.) so I didn't really have much of a choice. Out of college I got a job for a petrochemical company as an environmental engineer. The job was pretty chill for the most part but a very typical office space type of setting. After three years of that I transferred over to one of the process units as a process engineer, where I currently remain.

Regarding music/guitar, I've always maintained some form of musical project/live band. I've been playing for 15 years at this point. Over the years I've managed to build a very nice home studio setup and acquire a lot of nice toys. As stated in my OP however, my job just feels like a means to an end. I seldom get any sort of excitement for any project or work activity at the plant. Most of the time I'm just working to kill time to get home and do stuff I wanna do. I honestly don't mind the work, I just wish it didn't take up so much of my time.
 
Jimmytwotimes said:
Like others have kind of said - as jobs go, I have a good one - I get paid well, I very rarely work overtime and if I do, I get paid for it. I also have the ability to work from home if I want. Do I love my job? no....But - no one bugs me here - I have a great boss who lets me be and have a great work environment. My job is very independent, I don't have to deal with customers or the public in general ( just some sales people - which can be worse than the public!). I only work until 3:30 every day and I'm home by 3:45 most days which gives me plenty of time to play guitar every day until my wife gets home. I have health benefits, have 401k, take lots of vacations out of the country etc etc. My point being this: would I love to have a job where I get to do something fun and creative like music, art, film ? Of course I would. Does it pay the bills and allow me freedom? not really.. I went to college for film/video production ( graduated in 1995 so technology was quite different back then) and when I got out, I very quickly realized a few things - I would probably work for free for a very long time, and work 12 + hours a day. I interned at an animation studio for a bit - the guys that worked there and got paid for it were working 80 hour weeks - all kinds of crazy hours. The older I get, the more that time is the most valuable commodity. Anyway - I deeply respect people who try and make it in the music biz - especially today its tougher than ever. And to drop everything and pursue a dream is commendable. Just my 2 cents... :cool:
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My step-brother's girlfriend got a degree in Film & Television something or other fifteen years ago. Been working in payroll management for like 10 years now.
 
I studied electronics and wanted to get a career in making guitar electronics, this was where I was headed then 1986
Yamaha SPX90 II Multi-Effects Processor came out and I realized it would take a major team with funding and way more knowledge to carry on with my simple designs. I ended up working day jobs full time in factories for decades. In the last decade I've been a janitor at a large housing coop, pays better than previous jobs.

Don't really play in bands these days, I often feel too tired after laboring all day to get to rehearsals and gigs. By Fridays I am wiped out.
 
Currently a senior network engineer. I'm pretty much on call 24/7 so gigging out is pretty much impossible with the hours I put in. I'm in my late 30s now and am seriously debating a career change. I've been through every aspect of IT though from developer to dba to linux admin and hate it all to be honest. I do have a physics degree, but not much I can do with that here in central Pennsyltuckey. Of course, I'm sure I'd have a much different outlook if I landed a job working for a company I sincerely cared about and could get behind... like, um, FAS? :)
 
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