TRUERockyTop

Vols&Shaft
RobertGoulet
InVolnerable
DavidRicky
NorthGAVol
PhatPhil

Tldr incoming, but I hope it helps a little bit.

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I would not go help desk. Those jobs suck, barely pay money and you work a lot of hours dealing with grumpy people and their problems.

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This. At minimum you'll want to try and find a Desktop Support or Infrastructure Support role if you completely get out of finance. Like another poster mentioned, if you can blend your financial experience with software and find a niche so you don't have to start over from scratch that would be ideal. If you do start from scratch, try to start past an entry level Helpdesk position given your age, family size and financial obligations.

At the most basic level - IT is divided into two broad buckets. Software & Infrastructure. There's a million different roles within each of those buckets.

I started on the Infrastructure side with roles like Desktop Support, Infrastructure Support & Jr. Systems Admin from the time I was 20 until my late 20s. I was then offered a QA Analyst role in our QA Dept and transitioned to the software side of the house. I did QA work for 1 year and soaked up as much as I could on the software side of IT. I got lucky & networked with my former companies Salesforce team after QA'ing one of their big projects. They offered me a Salesforce Admin position where I did that for 6 years. Fast forward another 2 years & I'm managing a Go To Market stack for a software company where I admin/manage our CRM, Telephony, Scheduling, Sequencing, Lead routing software, etc for multiple sales teams. All from starting at a Desktop role. I'm sure a lot of the guys without and maybe with degrees have similar stories

I say all that to say this - if you do start over, give yourself time to learn as much as you can about the various specialities under the IT umbrella. Remind yourself that these entry-mid level roles are just you paying your dues along your way until you figure out what you want to do. Come up with a game plan for a position that you think you'll enjoy and is going to pay a salary that will allow you to give your family a good life. Then aggressively go after it. There are amazing earning opportunities within IT with the right roles. Overtime and after exposure, you'll find that you'll gravitate towards specific specialties. If you can find a niche within IT (believe me, you can and will with enough time) that has a mix of what you're good at and what you enjoy (relative) that's of course the sweet spot. Don't be afraid to explore different areas after you have some equity built up with what ever company gives you a shot.

Don't forget that there are tons of non building/configuring/developing roles within IT that pay well too. Roles like Business Analysts, Scrum Masters, Quality Assurance Analysts, Financial/Revenue Operations Analysts, Change management, Coordinators, Project managers, etc. that are vital for Software & Infrastructure teams to function. That's on top of the Admins, Devs, Engineers and Architects that do the heavy lifting. If you're looking to go on the Infrastructure side, you're probably going to want to shoot for a System Administrator, Server Admin, Network Admin/Engineer, Security Analyst/Engineer, Cloud Engineer, etc. type role. All of the positions listed above are going to pay well and give you a comfortable life, but you're typically going to have to pay your dues before you get offered them just like any other industry. Good luck my friend

I appreciate the kind words.

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Btw, my wife and I have always taken the position that the kids need to do 1 sport/physical activity. My oldest bounced around from baseball and soccer but it was the same story with yours. This past fall, we put him into golf lessons and he enjoyed the hell out of it so you could give that a try. Look up Operation 36.

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That's awesome to hear. This is exactly where we are with sports. His mother and I want both of the kids to be active and moving. In this world where children are consuming screen time at unhealthy levels - we want them to have a balance. That's awesome to hear you bring up golf. He's mentioned it multiple times over the last year and at first we thought it was just a fad, but he's been consistent in wanting to give it a shot. My wife and I are talking about surprising him with lessons. We've got a golf course less than half a mile from the house which would be great for him to grow up at if that's what he enjoys.

For those saying we are trying to force him to live through us. I get it, but that's also not the full picture. He's in the Beta club / future leaders club at school & is a straight A student and has been since Kindergarten. We have tried to really set the precedent with both of our children at how important both intelligence and emotional intelligence are. I have done my best to encourage them with confidence through intelligence and let them know how important that is in life. I'm very proud of him for what he's been able to do academically. He also just started working out with me in the gym on his own volition and loves to play video games. I probably game with him more than his friends. I do my best to be a very involved Father and do everything I can to spend time with him and try and guide him. I'm human though and didn't think kids sports would be something I got hung up on. I'm learning though and doing my best to adapt as I go.

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have you done a paternity test yet

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He's my clone. There's no doubting he's mine :lol:

Thank you. There's been a lot of good advice in here. Appreciate you guys

He's 11.

And for the Fishing is a sport guys - he does love to fish :lol:

This is tough :lol:

We've got 2 wonderful children. A preteen son and an 8 year old daughter. Both are great, kind humans. Our daughter is the athlete & our son is more of an academic. My wife and I were both active and athletic growing up and played most sports imaginable. We've both got competetive dispositions and have always enjoyed training of some kind to kind of set the story and give more context.

Our son is in his 3rd year of basketball and it's just not clicking for him. He likes basketball the most, but he's played multiple sports. So it's not like he hasn't tried different things. I think we're finally realizing that he doesn't enjoy them and as much as it breaks my heart to say, he's just not very good at them. I hate to admit this, but lately it's been a struggle for me to make it through some of his games. There's no passion, desire or heart when he plays. He's timid & plays scared regardless of what sport it is. And he's not a small kid. He's bigger than a lot of the kids he's playing against. He's the opposite of me and his grandfather who were outside playing sports with the neighborhood kids from sun up until sundown and pretty wild.

He had a double header this morning and it was the same performance that he's had all year. Lethargic is a kind way to phrase it. It was to the point my wife went down at half time and talked to him and tried to give him some tough, but encouraging love because I was too frustrated and didn't want to make it worse and I would have. I know myself well enough to know that I wasn't in the right head space to give him the talk like I typically do. I love my son and never tear him down, but we've had some tough, man to man talks about hustle, playing brave, want to, team work, etc. the same way that most fathers do with their boys as they try and guide them while they grow.

I'm struggling though and it's starting to hit me that he just doesn't have the same disposition as the older guys in his family. I love him more than anything on the planet, but he just doesn't have that spark that you're either born with or your not. Has anybody else experienced this? I'd love some advice on navigating this because it's kicking my arse.

Arthur Smith's ineptitude made Todd Haley look like a HOF candidate. That may be the shittiest scheme I've ever watched at the professional level. Maybe it has more success in college, but if I was OSU, I wouldn't want to be the program to put it to the test.

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Take the mic away from him

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I don't disagree at times, but have some integrity and take your own advice. You're awful too.

This and the Knowles hire caught me by surprise. Nice grabs by Heupel & White

Blowing a 17 point lead to Kentucky to end the streak..