#34
Should I quit my day job and become a cabinet maker?  There is a local shop hiring,  I currently have a backyard shop where I do it as a hobby and to clear my head after a long day. 
But, my job has been stressing me out and I am thinking of a career change.  I travel 75% of the time now and this would be a big change. 

What concerns me is that would I lose interest in woodworking because its my job?  Also, what is usual starting pay?  I guess I could show them my original furniture designs and what I have made over the 20 years.
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#35
Good luck with whatever decision you come down to.

I know I wouldn't enjoy making things for a living. I hate to part company with my labored and one of a kind pieces. One or two may be fine, but selling most of them after so much work and care having been put into them? No way.

Simon
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#36
(04-08-2022, 12:18 AM)Handplanesandmore Wrote: Good luck with whatever decision you come down to.

I know I wouldn't enjoy making things for a living. I hate to part company with my labored and one of a kind pieces. One or two may be fine, but selling most of them after so much work and care having been put into them? No way.

Simon

I don't do it as more than an ad hoc side thing, but I can tell you that a piece designed and built from the start as somebody else's has never held a particularly special place in my heart. I would never want to part with a humidor I made for myself, but the ones that I made for others I don't really care about that much. It's not as though the workmanship is any different, though it does help that nobody else on the planet holds us to the same standards we hold ourselves. That's just my $.02 though.
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#37
(04-08-2022, 06:44 AM)FS7 Wrote: . It's not as though the workmanship is any different, though it does help that nobody else on the planet holds us to the same standards we hold ourselves. That's just my $.02 though.

Workmanship may be the same on pieces I make for myself and for someone else, but the approaches are likely different. For example, if someone wants a cabinet from me or I'm giving one away to someone, Id choose a joinery method done by machine rather than by hand.

Woodworking for a living as a creator and builder on a full time basis is definitely a challenge for many people, but there are some who keep up with it and raise families.

Simon
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#38
I'd been a fairly prolific hobbyist for 20 years when I happened into an opportunity to build furniture part time that morphed to full time.  Left an IT job and 'lived my dream' for 4 years.  In my case, the money was good enough... but I what I made for somebody else was more.  Eventually, creative differences and direction of the business drove me away.  And I had a bad case of burnout.  Didn't do much in the shop for several years after my return to IT.

Looking back, it cost me a lot of money (career wise) to leave IT.  At the time I was a contract worker for the Air Force, and my woodworking break delayed my entrance to Civil Service by seven or eight years... and that was significant at retirement time.

Doing it again, I might have kept on with the part-time.
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#39
Thanks its a lot to consider.  I think I'll go down there and talk to them, see if I can work Saturdays.  This place seems to specialize in cabinets and restaurant furniture.  Booths. tables, etc.    Mainly cabinets though. 

I mean it would be great to get paid for what I love doing, but do I love doing it because it clears my head?  Its a stress reliever, so would the job just cause stress in woodworking?
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#40
(04-08-2022, 07:54 AM)bmich Wrote: Thanks its a lot to consider.  I think I'll go down there and talk to them, see if I can work Saturdays.  This place seems to specialize in cabinets and restaurant furniture.  Booths. tables, etc.    Mainly cabinets though. 

I mean it would be great to get paid for what I love doing, but do I love doing it because it clears my head?  Its a stress reliever, so would the job just cause stress in woodworking?

From what you describe, I have doubts that this cabinet shop does the work that you love doing.

Sounds like production schedules, utilitarian pieces, engineered materials, and very little in the way of "creating" that draws many of us into this craft.

I'm not saying it's a low-quality manufacturer, not at all.  But the reality of what they make might be very different from what you envision.

Certainly go and speak with them.  You won't know or have any insight unless you do.  But go into it with your eyes wide open.
Ray
(formerly "WxMan")
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#41
I got up to about 60% travel for a couple years back in my corporate career.  I hated it and thought about a career change, too.  Then I thought more about why I was unhappy and it was clear it was the travel, not the job.  So I talked with my boss and we figured out how to transfer much of the travel related work to a couple of colleagues who liked doing it and that allowed me to spend more time in the lab doing what I was good at and enjoyed.  I finished my career there, all 32 years of it.  

John
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#42
(04-08-2022, 07:54 AM)bmich Wrote: I mean it would be great to get paid for what I love doing, but do I love doing it because it clears my head?  Its a stress reliever, so would the job just cause stress in woodworking?

This.

Plus Seventeen.
Carolyn

Trip Blog for Twelve Countries:   [url=http://www.woodworkingtraveler.wordpress.com[/url]

"It's good to know, but it's better to understand."  Auze Jackson
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#43
I love being a hobbyist.  I enjoy the design process as much as the build.  Since I started keeping records in 1994, I've completed 117 "projects"; about half were for the house or shop.  The rest were for family, friends, and church.  I take my time and enjoy what I'm doing...and I design and build what I like.  There is the "rub".  Profit is not my goal.  Satisfaction, the smile on their face at delivery.

Somehow, I doubt production cabinet work would give me that kind of satisfaction.

Good luck, I also changed career path years ago, it is not an easy decision.
"I tried being reasonable..........I didn't like it." Clint Eastwood
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