Suggested Career/Job Hunting Ideas?

So, I'm job hunting and trying to think of good avenues to direct my searches. Looking for advice.

I've been working as a production brewer, and it just isn't a good fit for me. I'm just not great in a production environment. I want a position where I have a variety of duties, get the opportunity to learn new things, solve puzzles, and ideally even train or instruct people. I am a jack-of-all-trades type of person. I am pretty good with both technical things and interpersonal ones, although not an engineer or marketing type. Better as a go-between for those folks.

I also want something where I can work a more-or-less regular day hours. Say, not regularly earlier than 6am or later than 7pm. I spent a year working 2nd shift, then graveyard. Don't want to do that again. Also can't relocate now that we're in a good spot for her job.

I like the idea of starting my own brewery, but that is something that will take a while to put together, and I need employment sooner than that. I would also need to find a good partner who understands and could do well with the business administration side of things, while I handle technical, production, and some of the marketing.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Our Service Managers do exactly that. They know our equipment in and out, and receive a lot of training form the factory. They lead classes to get the field technicians certified, they are the factory reps who fly in and troubleshoot issues the locals guys can't solve, and they oversee larger installations. They have to know electrical and mechanical and computer systems, but none are trained engineers.

I suggest finding an equipment manufacturer or reseller, and look for openings for service technicians. For weird stuff like, oh I don't know, mail sorting equipment for example, there is no trade school. You have to learn on the job, so they just want people with a brain and some mechanical aptitude and they will teach you.

You could try doing analytical/technical equipment repair. I'm sure QA and R&D in the brewing industry uses something of the sort.

What I am looking for in a job, in order of importance:

1. Open enough schedule to still spend quality time with my fiancee and friends, and to pursue some of my hobbies (e.g. dancing and auto-x). Having most evenings free. (I will miss a dance or an auto-x to work, but I don't want to have to give them up.)
2. Enough variety and challenge to keep me stimulated.
3. A reasonable wage. My fiancee makes good money, so I do not have to be the primary income, but I'd like to earn enough that I am genuinely pulling my weight financially.

TBH (1) screams self employed at me.

Technical Writer

BoxheadTim wrote: TBH (1) screams self employed at me.

Not necessarily. Sounds like a regular 9-5 job with paid vacation (in this case, probably 3-4 weeks, not the 2 week standard BS).

I know that in my 9-5 job, I almost have that. The only reasons I don't are

1. I live an hour away from work
2. I live 2-3 hours away from our families
3. I only have 2 weeks of vacation.

The fiance and I are working on fixing 1 and 2 in one fell swoop; that will alleviate some of the tensions caused by number 3 (we use vacation to visit family), and hopefully in negotiations be able to get more than just the 2 weeks when we land new jobs, whenever that may be.

But yeah, I think if I were in your position I'd be looking towards self employment. Maybe even a brewing class--I know I'd take one if someone offered it.

BoxheadTim wrote: TBH (1) screams self employed at me.

All of my self-employed friends work ALL the time.

Weren't you a teacher? Why not go back to that or teach brewing?

Maintenance? Perhaps maintenance at a brewery?

BoxheadTim wrote: TBH (1) screams self employed at me.

Perhaps it sounds like I'm looking for lots and lots of free time flexibility. What I'm really saying is, I want a day shift (8-5 or something similar), and ideally have it be M-F, but will settle for the option to request a full weekend off every other month. I do not want to be working nights and weekends all the time.

rotard wrote: Weren't you a teacher? Why not go back to that or teach brewing?

Looking into that. I worked at a private school and do not have a credential. Even if I did, as much as I love the teaching part of teaching, I hate the state of the education system and would not want to work at a public school.

Teaching brewing would be fun... but I can't imagine much demand.

Beer Baron wrote:

rotard wrote: Weren't you a teacher? Why not go back to that or teach brewing?

Teaching brewing would be fun... but I can't imagine much demand.

You live in a college town, right? There is your market. $100 for a 3 week class (or however long it takes to brew beer) meeting twice a week for 2 hours a night. I bet you'd do well.

mtn wrote: You live in a college town, right? There is your market.

College kids don't have money.

Beer Baron wrote:

mtn wrote: You live in a college town, right? There is your market.

College kids don't have money.

They have money for beer

Honestly, every Tom, Dick and Harry brews his own beer or has experimented with it. While it may be cheaper and more interesting than going out for your local draft, I don't think there would be enough interest at least in a class that taught "small batch" brewing.

If I was going to attend a class for brewing, I'd want to know about scaling up from just a few bottles every couples of months.

I do however think there is a market for a community bottling operation. Basically, for a monthly fee you can rent various sizes of brewing containers and pay a less expensive rate to bottle your own brew. Of course, there is always going to be someone brewing or bottling something, so free beer would probably always be floating around.

I think this style of "open brew-works community" would be great for the guy who wants to take his brewing to the next level, but doesn't want commit to a full operation himself.

In reply to PHeller:

The big issue with scaling up from homebrew size to limited distribution isn't packaging. That can be handled pretty easily, and there are already mobile bottling/canning services. The big issue for people to go bigger is to be able to rent time in a larger brewhouse with bigger fermenters.

That goes into either creating a Brew On Premises (BOP) shop or pub, or selling contract brewing services in a medium-small brewhouse. The issue with both of those, is that it isn't just a question of know-how. It is still a case of starting a brewing company. Again, It's going to take time before I'm ready to tackle that challenge.

BoxheadTim wrote: TBH (1) screams self employed at me.

Not knowing much about you, I have to say this: If you think being self-employed means you have most evenings and weekends free, you have another think coming.

Beer Baron wrote:

BoxheadTim wrote: TBH (1) screams self employed at me.

Perhaps it sounds like I'm looking for lots and lots of free time flexibility. What I'm really saying is, I want a day shift (8-5 or something similar), and ideally have it be M-F, but will settle for the option to request a full weekend off every other month. I do not want to be working nights and weekends all the time.

OK, fair enough - I suggested self employment more because of the scheduling flexibility than the ample spare time you won't have.

One option would be to see if you can get a boring office job somewhere and build up a brewery teaching/consulting side hustle to see if you can make it work.

Duke wrote:

BoxheadTim wrote: TBH (1) screams self employed at me.

Not knowing much about you, I have to say this: If you think being self-employed means you have most evenings and weekends free, you have another think coming.

I've run my own business several times in my life. I did manage to have better control over my time allocation - not necessarily more free time as I had to do the accounting on the weekend, but a lot more flexibility.

Either way it's not going to be all roses and unicorns.

Self-employed "working" hours are relative. One man's work is another man's pleasure. I'm sure being an adult film star is probably not the most steady, safe, or easiest to tell people about, and it probably requires lots of time in the gym, but the thing you are getting paid to do is something most people wouldn't define as "work."

BoxheadTim wrote: One option would be to see if you can get a boring office job somewhere and build up a brewery teaching/consulting side hustle to see if you can make it work.

This idea has occurred to me. I don't think being a cube rat would be conducive to my mental health, but I've considered like getting a job at the library or something like that.