My history is pretty wack. I have a graduate degree (MFA) in physical performance, and my work history until I was 40 was entirely in theatre: acting, writing, directing, and teaching. (And, you know, waiting tables, and selling shit, and all the other gig-work stuff actors have to do to get by).
Thing is, I was always a tech nerd, too. I put up websites for every project I worked on - and plenty for friends, too - going back to the late nineties. I programmed (and sometimes physically repaired) lighting and sound systems. I built plug-ins for lighting and sound software, to solve problems various shows had. I set up networking stacks for a couple of theatres. In 2004 or so I built what was basically Brown Paper Tickets (before Brown Paper Tickets existed) for a theatre company I was working for at the time - backed by an Access database, of all things, running on an old box in the office because that's all we had to work with without paying for it. Later I built effectively MailChimp, to promote my own show. Arguably I should have monetized one or another of those tech projects, and done theatre later, but that was never the point. I enjoyed messing with tech, but didn't want to do any of it, except insofar as it made possible something else I really wanted to do.
At 40 I lost my teaching job (enrollment dropped, and arts are always the first to go), and my wife and I didn't want to move, and were thinking of having a family, so I finally sold out. A restauranteur I'd worked a fair bit for in my twenties needed an IT Director for his growing company, and figured I could do it, which it turns out I can. I make three times what I did as a teacher, five or six times what I did in my best year as a working actor, and... Eh. I like my job. I'm pretty good at it, but it's what I'm doing in order to do what I really want to do, which these days is to support my family.
I don't recommend my career path to anyone as a way into tech (lol!), and I think our world would be a better place if there were less money in tech, and more in arts and education.
Comments
My history is pretty wack. I have a graduate degree (MFA) in physical performance, and my work history until I was 40 was entirely in theatre: acting, writing, directing, and teaching. (And, you know, waiting tables, and selling shit, and all the other gig-work stuff actors have to do to get by).
Thing is, I was always a tech nerd, too. I put up websites for every project I worked on - and plenty for friends, too - going back to the late nineties. I programmed (and sometimes physically repaired) lighting and sound systems. I built plug-ins for lighting and sound software, to solve problems various shows had. I set up networking stacks for a couple of theatres. In 2004 or so I built what was basically Brown Paper Tickets (before Brown Paper Tickets existed) for a theatre company I was working for at the time - backed by an Access database, of all things, running on an old box in the office because that's all we had to work with without paying for it. Later I built effectively MailChimp, to promote my own show. Arguably I should have monetized one or another of those tech projects, and done theatre later, but that was never the point. I enjoyed messing with tech, but didn't want to do any of it, except insofar as it made possible something else I really wanted to do.
At 40 I lost my teaching job (enrollment dropped, and arts are always the first to go), and my wife and I didn't want to move, and were thinking of having a family, so I finally sold out. A restauranteur I'd worked a fair bit for in my twenties needed an IT Director for his growing company, and figured I could do it, which it turns out I can. I make three times what I did as a teacher, five or six times what I did in my best year as a working actor, and... Eh. I like my job. I'm pretty good at it, but it's what I'm doing in order to do what I really want to do, which these days is to support my family.
I don't recommend my career path to anyone as a way into tech (lol!), and I think our world would be a better place if there were less money in tech, and more in arts and education.