I tried actively to leave for a while. The past year and a half, two years I've just milked it. Part of that was dealing with depression issues. It was easier to do without the stress of job search/new job and being around family while working from home.
I have a buddy I was working with a few years back that has changed jobs a few times since. He's gained more and more responsibility and yet his pay has not increased. He's actually jealous of me. I'm not sure which is better at this point. I've got another buddy who is trying to get me into a side business and my wife's business is growing. Maybe the answer is keep milking this while I prepare other paths.
This pretty much describes me. I wouldn't say my job is easy, in the sense that I'm really good at it and hiring somebody as good as me would be very difficult. But in terms of how demanding it is for me, sometimes it's harder than others, but it's about as easy going as it could get. Pressure isn't high very often, hours are not long.
I'm definitely in a trap situation, because my very particular skill set just isn't just something with a lot of demand. Sometimes I wonder if there are 30 people in the country that do exactly what I do. The skills I have are soft skills around managing stuff, which i could apply to other fields for sure, but probably not for half as much as what I make. I do think that I'm good enough at what I do and have enough of a track record that I could potentially find an equivalent job in my field, but I would have to be willing to look nationwide, and it would almost certainly come with 2-3 times the responsibility and pressure.
More than my skills atrophying, because I don't know that I ever had particular job skill as they are defined in the employment marketplace, what has atrophied after nearly 25 years is my WILL to really get excited about new work challenges. I like doing a good job, and I like making money, but I literally don't know if I could hack it having to prove myself all over again at a new company, work under pressure, have my performance under a microscope, put in long hours, etc. I've been coasting long enough, I'm really not sure I could throw myself into something the way you want to in a new position. It would be different I suppose if I was more passionate about my field, but I'm not.
My bosses are about ten years older than me, so unless they bail out early, I'm hoping I'll have ten years more here, until I'm about 55. My goal is to be in a financial position by then that I'll be able to switch careers for a fraction of my salary and be ok. I don't feel real confident about any scenario that has me trying to make big money what I'm doing now in my late fifties or sixties. And while switching careers in the mid-50s is going to be difficult enough, and come with a huge pay cut, it's still going to be more doable than it would be at 61-62 or something.
