I did some work recently while I was between jobs, designing and assembling camera lenses. It was so fascinating, and satisfying. Strongly disappointed they couldn't afford to pay me to stay.
In an old job I spliced a lot of fibre for our research, got the hang of it and got pretty proficient.
My research shifted, and I start making sensors using fibre and similarly sized capillary tube. It all got cleaved, spliced to assemble, cleaved some more, spliced again, then polished to spec. Getting the he process down was a pain, but the results were super satisfying.
Currently doing the finishing touches on a ww2 era surface grinder, closing out a new little design, and ramping my fitness up again. Next up is some duct work, some reverse engineering, and finishing my part of a paper.
I haven't had this much time off in over a decade and it's amazing. I've been hoping to get inspire for some outdoors or running related mechanical design/prototyping projects, but nothing yet.
I've somewhat found the opposite. The cycle I've been in is has had a tight grip on my time and attention that's its been hard to keep up with anything not mission critical. Now I'm backing off, I've got time to get more up to speed.
For keeping challenged long term, I've got a few products I finally have the time to do prototypes for and some chances to work in new areas.
I quit my job. Its forced me out of the cycle of 'just a bit more' and made change the only option. Is it the smartest move, likely not, but so far I stand by it.
A very good synopsis. I recently had the chance to put myself as the intermediate member between those expectations and our technical team. It raised the expectations on me, but helped reduce the unrealistic side of those from impacting my team.
It worked brilliantly for a while, but since things were getting done fast, well, and cheap, the expectations increased. I gave notice two weeks ago without a job lined up.
My position is that I've been in a failing start-up for years. Public company, but has burned through all their investment and has reached its ending days spiral. Small amount of equity has declined to be worth next to nothing, passion for the work has declined, both myself and more broadly.
On a week of vacation leave, I went and helped an extended family member in their home business. It combines the best aspects of my past three jobs. High tech, optics, design and manufacture, it's hard, and it's fascinating. There's a clear path to profit, with demand. Might be weeks, might be months, but in the meantime I can't make enough to cover my costs.
I can't risk my family's security. Having loved out of my car while studying, despite over a decade passing, the memory is fresh.
A pay cut would be fine, worth it, but the risk feels so high.
I guess my only question is how do you keep yourself from going broke while starting these projects. I've a chance to do some great work now, but it would lower my pay beneath what I can live on.
Yes indeed, though not necessarily the cause in this case. While it could be coincidence, magnetization of components can result in reduced accuracy. Some companies have started to release watches with silicon springs, though very expensive.
A demagnetizer is on the shopping list, but at the same time, a quick adjustment every now and then is easy enough. I also love my watch, so a switch to antimagnetic isn't high on my priorities.
I've been using the same mechanical watch, more or less every day, for a little over 12yrs now. Miyota movement, stainless body, Sapphire window, about $300. In years of machine shop work the movement survived fine, and has one scratch on window from some tungsten carbide.
Has kept brilliant time, maybe a minute a month, and taught me that my watch being accurate to the second was something that, for me, just didn't matter. I started working around pulsed high voltage last year (100kV+) and now it loses a couple minutes a week.