I’ve noticed that, from what I can tell, there is a bigger proportion in many IT fields of people who daydream about going off grid completely and staring a farm.
What do You think about this?
I know it’s probably from out exposure to tech and people all the time we just want to shut down and do something completely unrelated to anything with computes, networks, coding and so on.
Also additional questions, what do you daydream about doing?
Mine is about having an animal farm.
Geese, pigs, chicken, cows, maybe a pond with fish.
Definitely dogs running all over the place, in some very very remote area.
It’s very low tech until you setup a WLAN for all your soil and water sensors, program / monitor your drone fleet for the day, setup your weather monitor networks, watch weather radar, CAD your layouts, big data your max yield crops, and your AI robotic weed remover gets stuck pinging your phone to pull or not. 15 hour days, on call 24-7.
If people think IT is hard, farming is infinitely harder. I lived on a farm for the first 2 decades of my life, I wasn’t even doing much of the heavy stuff, and it still sucked. I’ll take my sedentary, slightly-dusty, occasional-stupid-VIP job any day over that shit.
I’ve helped friends with hobby farms, it’s a lot less fun than it looks I’m afraid. I do share the wish to get outside and do more physical stuff though. For me, I wish I had more skill with woodworking. I’d spend all day in my shop just making all kinds of crazy things.
That being said, there’s no reason any of those wishes can BE hobbies without quitting your job. Find places to volunteer, just about anything is out there. Love nature? Volunteer for a trail maintenance team at a local preserve etc.
When I met my current tattoo artist some years ago we bonded over a mutual love of permaculture and natural gardening/farming methods. Years later he’s went from a small garden in his yard to tattooing only a few times a month and having bought a massive plot of land and is now a full time farmer. He’s living the dream every day while I sit here worrying about how insane the office is going to be when I get back from my PTO.
My daydream is more about being insanely rich and, then, having some sort of farm-like resort that only looks like a farm from outside, and maybe has low-stress farm-like facilities and activities. Basically there are dogs going around, maybe some goats. It would be more an excuse to have a place in the Pyrenees.
But the “being rich” is key for lowering the stress part
After son is out of HS, moving to somewhere to buy land. I don’t necessarily want to farm, but we do want a big garden for food. Some of the kids of land we’ve looked at had stand running through them so a good source of water for garden, and I’d like to do an outdoor pond/aquarium thing for fun.
I’ll still have my tech, but I want the ability to go full hermit if I wanted.
After seeing the pictures of the dog bus, I think I would enjoy driving around and pickup and dropping off dogs for daycare. I mean how can you have a bad day if you are dealing with dogs all day ? Dogs > People.
Farming is awful. Do you think farming robots program themselves? Imagine writing code in a new domain where you’re not a domain expert and the vendors are ten times worse but charge ten times as much, and nobody puts their code on Github.
I honestly thought it was just me. Though, I dream more about like a family homestead rather than a farm, per se. I want to raise food for me and my family, and then maybe learn to make a commodity that is in demand for bartering. My reality however is likely that I am stuck in an HOA neighborhood mowing mine and my elderly neighbors yards because sitting at a desk for the last 12 years, I would struggle mightily to just jump into a homestead. So, for now, they are only daydreams.
The more realistic outcome is in a few years, both of my kids we be starting their adult lives, wife and I will no longer need this big house. I may end up with a nice house in the county, a few acres of land and if Im lucky, I will have a garage for my wood working and tinkering. Maybe get an old truck to mess with to pass some time.
For me, when I get the chance to get out of this field, I will likely not walk, but rather run. I am tired of solving other peoples problems for them. Yes I understand its my job, but that doesnt mean Im not allowed to be sick of doing it.
So, full disclosure, I’ve never been a proper sys admin, but the majority of my IT career has been enterprise support so I’ve worked with a lot of sys admins and tech. Pretty early in my career I realized I needed to balance my time in tech with time outdoors. I got really into snowboarding, and that has kept me sane for over a decade in this industry. Eventually, in 2018 right before the pandemic, the large tech company I was working for gave me permission to work remotely from a rural area with awesome snowboarding in the winter. It worked great for me for 6 years. When I first moved, I admit I did feel out of place since there aren’t a lot of folks in IT around. I tried to dial back my use of tech in my personal life, but deep down I missed nerding out on tech stuff. I was laid off in Feb and now have a local hybrid IT gig in a small shop making a bit less than before, but a much more fun job that makes me happy and let’s me play with all kinds of fun tech toys.
I guess the moral of my story is: I don’t see why you can’t have both??? I think balance is important. Tech and the outdoors give me the perfect mind/body balance that I need in my life to be happy. That’s my take anyway.
we just want to shut down and do something completely unrelated to anything with computes, networks, coding and so on.
Hobbies. I rally race Mini Coppers, serve as the President of my Historical Society, like to bike,hike, and camp, in the mountains, and love to sail.
None of those things involve a high degree of technology, yet my very intense technology job pays for it all… and more!
I work for the money, now. I used to work to get experience and skills. Now, I think about doing the things I love to do with the people I love the most.
