Stepping Away (Sort Of)

Posted by HayabusaJack@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 48 comments

For the past 45 years or so, I’ve enjoyed computers. From the Z81 to Color Computer where I learned how to program, to LANs, Unix, and Linux. My homelab is pretty extensive and I use it to learn new technologies.

But at 69, I’m finding I’d rather continue to have computers as a hobby but stop working at it. It’s still fun, but the job is less and less fun.

Several years back, I took over a tabletop game shop as a retirement path. I’m a gamer, have been since I was a kid. And I’m finding that my computer skills have elevated the shop well beyond where it was when I took over.

So I’m retiring. Stepping away from being a professional computer geek, continuing it as a hobby, and stepping into running the shop full time.

I’ll likely continue to read here and other computer related subs and external sources. It’s hard to step away 100%. I might even take a short term contract job now and then, we’ll see :)

Later!

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DaftPump@reddit

I'm currently walking in your footsteps(over a decade younger), and it's been nice for me.

I'll always be on this sub but doubtful I'll return to this life now.

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new_vr@reddit

We had a CoCo 2
I remember writing programs and saving them to tape

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IAmTheM4ilm4n@reddit

Congrats! I retired last year and I don't miss the work one little bit - I hope you find the same.

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Huge-Competition3311@reddit

imo the best thing about stepping away from IT professionally is rediscovering why you liked it in the first place. the homelab stays fun when theres no ticket queue attached to it

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dualboot@reddit

Welcome to the club! I did the same two years ago and I'm a luthier now.

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valar12@reddit

I wish i could find a business worth a buy that would reduce my hours. At some point I might just get my pinball parlor.

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oldmuttsysadmin@reddit

I have six years left, or whenever I'm replaced ny AI.

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ErikTheEngineer@reddit

Wow, enjoy! I'm 50 and am trying to figure out how the hell I'm going to make it to 67, 65, 62, 59.5 or 55 in this industry (increasing levels of desperation early retirement in the US^1.) I have retirement savings but nothing I would dare try the FIRE thing on with inflation being what it is/could be in the future. I still really like my job but with AI creeping in and ageism being what it is, I think it'll be hard to get another job if I lose this one.

^1 67 is full retirement age, 65 gets you Medicare, 62 gets you permanently reduced Social Security benefits, 59.5 is when you can access your retirement money penalty free, and 55 is the last-ditch safety valve where the law allows you to withdraw from your final 401(k) before you were fired.

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jftuga@reddit

Congrats. I'd love to hear 1 or 2 of your more memorable stories from back-in-the-day.

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HayabusaJack@reddit (OP)

There are a few :)

My first programming job was part time maintaining Surveying software written in Basic. It was at a farm and the brothers ran the software on Leading Edge, Franklin, and Radio Shack Model 4 computers. But I also went out to hold the stick and clear brush for the surveyor and chase cows when they escaped. But it was loads of fun :)

At the next job, I was a telephone tech support tech for a manager who didn’t believe in computers. We all took calls but wrote things down in a notebook. One call I took had me replacing a Novell serialized disk 3 times because the admin kept borking it. It was also the place where one of my coworkers dealt with the “coffee holder” CD drive and I dealt with the single sided 5 1/4 floppy call with the lady, “I can’t fit the 3rd disk in the drive” because I failed to tell her to remove the other disks :) That was my call :) But a different LAN person who called because customer 1 had a color screen but customer 2’s screen was only green and white. I spent far too much time trying to figure out why the software wasn’t showing color until, “ping”, “what does the label on customer 2’s monitor say?” And sheepishly she said it was a monochrome monitor. I still have the card she sent thanking me for the effort :D

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jftuga@reddit

Fun stories, thanks for sharing 😀

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nut-sack@reddit

Congrats on achieving your happily ever after. I hope to find that one day. Hopefully the offshoring slows, so others in the US can enjoy what we have.

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ItzMcShagNasty@reddit

69! Congrats on making it, man. Those of us under 30 likely won't get to retire, make the most of it!

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RevLoveJoy@reddit

Table top gaming is much better than goats. Congrats! Well deserved.

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CharcoalGreyWolf@reddit

Congratulations. I understand that full well; hardware (which used to be fascinating, always changing and improving) has stagnated so much, and it feels like the writer of Ecclesiastes: “There is nothing new under the sun.”

In its place is primarily unexciting subscription maintenance, a never-ending stream of SSL certificate renewal, and things that while productive to an environment, don’t seem to improve things more than incrementally. I’m thankful for my job, and what it does for me, but I won’t miss it when I leave the field in a decade or so.

Best wishes to a hobbyist life and an enjoyable new chapter.

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7eregrine@reddit

Your 69... And haven't retired?

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walkalongtheriver@reddit

I'm with you. Plenty of ways to use your time without being answerable to a job.

But that's jmho.

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HayabusaJack@reddit (OP)

I like working with computers. I’m still mentally there. I continue to learn new stuff so I’m not stuck in my ways. Why not?

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7eregrine@reddit

I'm 55 and would retire today if I could. I don't get it. Life's too short I can find plenty of tech to docker with that's not attached to a job.

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PositiveBubbles@reddit

My mum is 71 and still works part time, she enjoys it to keep her brain active and she usually does the work in her field (bookkeeping) that the clients owners want because she's reliable (not saying others there aren't).

My last manager is in his 60s and got promoted to a senior manager in cyber solutions because he can say no when needed. He talks about retirement but I don't see it happening soon.

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ExceptionEX@reddit

Man, your literally going to be that one guy that got out clean.

Welcome to being a reference point on doing it right.

Best of luck you glorious nerdy bastard.

Now roll initiative...

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OneSeaworthiness7768@reddit

Hell yeah brother. Live the dream. Tbh I don’t know how you’re even still in the industry at 69. I don’t think I can even see myself making it to 60. One way or another I plan to find a way to retire, at least from corporate work, before then.

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HayabusaJack@reddit (OP)

I like computers and am paid reasonably well for it. But four years back I took over the game shop and I think it’s been long enough and trying to do two vastly different jobs, even with a store manager, is making my tolerance for work nonsense wear pretty thin. :)

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OneSeaworthiness7768@reddit

I’m 40 and my tolerance for work nonsense is already practically nonexistent 🤣

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pywacket@reddit

I started in a netware shop myself, still have my business card that say LAN Manager. I’m a few years behind you in age, but looking at retirement too. It’s like you said, computers are still fun but the job sux now.

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HayabusaJack@reddit (OP)

Yep. I was doing installations before it was called “Netware” I think. Replacing clock chips with Emerald chips, Emerald tape drives, and learning ANSI codes to create color menus for customers. :) I bought Fansi-Console to have a larger keyboard buffer (I was typing too fast and kept hitting the buffer limit) and extended ANSI codes including screen positioning codes.

PC then XT, then XT286 and ATs. My IBM Model M was from an XT286 back in ‘88 maybe? Still going strong.

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pywacket@reddit

Ah sir, my esteem and congratulations. It is cool to know we’ve come from amber/green screens to the ubiquity of AI in our lifetimes.

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HayabusaJack@reddit (OP)

Heck, I modify my terminal to be amber and disable colorizing files and directories. :)

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stromm@reddit

I started at 15. I’m nearing 57. Sysadmin from 90-2017. Moved into Business Analyst and not sure I like IT at all anymore.

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harrythefurrysquid@reddit

69! Holy crap.

I'm 44 and I'm already making plans to throw in the towel: I have 47/48 in mind unless fate gets in the way.

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andrewsmd87@reddit

Wish you the best!

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Shantoz@reddit

I hope to one day also get to make a similar post! Good job dude!

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jcr1985@reddit

I feel the same way. I’ve been in the industry for 20 years and have been into this hobby for 30. I used to work a lot with Sun Microsystems. The technology was really fun. After Oracle took it over, everything went downhill. Today, everything feels the same, and the most important thing is that it has AI in it. Good luck with the shop! It sounds pretty geeky, too.

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HayabusaJack@reddit (OP)

I was working as a MS LAN Manager admin when things were centralizing, so I decided to move on. But the two guys in the Unix department didn’t want me to leave so their manager approached me. Did I want to shift over to Unix? I actually took a week to think about it but eventually I agreed and started on my path with Unix.

It was a Solaris shop (2.5.1) with HP-UX, Irix, and Tru64 systems. Six months later, I took the exams and passed and received the Sun Networking and Admin certs. Recently I found my pins for the two certs! :)

Right now I’m trying to get a Solaris 10 distro installed on my Proxmox cluster but it’s just not working. I had a couple of Solaris VMs on my VMware cluster, no problem but there’s something just not working on Proxmox. I’ll get it working though, eventually :)

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jcr1985@reddit

Good old Unix days. The goodies you got made it feel kind of special. Always had my Solaris Cluster Certificate ID card in my wallet.

I remember having trouble with Proxmox and Solaris, too. But I got it working by tinkering with the hardware settings. I'm sure you'll figure it out. Make sure to have those pins applied while setting things up!

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RansomStark78@reddit

Awrsome, life goals

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Jacmac_@reddit

I just retired myself, you put in 10 more years than I did, so hat's off!

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HayabusaJack@reddit (OP)

I like screwing with computers. I expected to continue until I was found, hunched over my IBM Model M keyboard. But man, work sucks and at a certain point you just have to move on.

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IllThrowYourAway@reddit

Model M!

You probably know this but you can still buy perfect reproductions from Unicomp. I have several and they are a great price I feel for what they are

I just have to myself on calls while typing :)

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HayabusaJack@reddit (OP)

I’ve tried a couple of different repos but none have the same feel as my Model M. My only real issue is the 3 adapter plug so I can use it. It used to be just 9 pin to PS/2 but now I have to add a USB and fiddle with the computer BIOS for it to be recognized.

But I got relegated to the storage room at work because my phone ring-tone was too loud so the keyboard sound can be an issue :D

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5eppa@reddit

My dad's in a similar boat. He's just a handful of years younger than you. He learned computers at a young age vut became a CPA sort of before companies actually had an IT department or at least most companies didn't. The company he has worked for for over 40 years now was growing and when they eventually needed an IT department dad was the guy they put in it and he has run it ever since. Earlier this year he took a step down. He's now a consultant for that company and he's looking for CPA work again. Basically technology and computers and all that is evolving so fast he kind of doesn't care to keep up anymore.

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HayabusaJack@reddit (OP)

I was an MP then Graphic Artist/Typesetter which got me interested in computers way back around 1981. On my homelab, I have kubernetes clusters, use ArgoCD for gitops, ansible to manage my 152 VMs. So doing contract work a few months out of the year seems like a good way forward.

I do have to say, running the shop, managing employees, creating content, and going to conventions isn’t easy. But it’s fun :)

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jort_catalog@reddit

I feel like I've read exactly this post here before

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HayabusaJack@reddit (OP)

I’m sure I’m not the first and certainly won’t be the last. :)

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Sp00nD00d@reddit

One day...

gif