OT what would you have been IF??

I have often thought what I might have done differently once I got out of college in May '73? I did think about the military oh man all we thought about was rice paddies, no thanks. Totally respect what our military, the fighting guys have done and are still doing today.
I have done a bunch of different jobs since I could not find a job in Geology with that oil crises in '73. So I worked as purchasing and traffic mgr, purchasing agent in NYC office over looking central park, buyer in LA aero space, marketing to military contractors, got a job req a EE to become a integrated component design specialist and the list goes on..and on and on.
Caught in down sizing 7 times. Now retired and fighting stage 4 for 4 years. I often reflect "What IF"

I would like to have either worked real estate in Jersey (I took classes in NJ, LA and Milwaukee) never had time to take the test or become a train engineer retired after 35 and have a great pension. Commercial pilot would have been cool.
What would you have done job wise differently?

I can say with absolute gratitude that the fates smiling kindly and Gary and I both feeling the drive for pursuit of happiness and less about money, we would both have done nothing differently in the job realm.

I graduated HS in '68, the summer MLK was shot, and went straight into engineering college. Smoked a lot of dope and eventually dropped out, drew a low number in the first lottery, was sent overseas and smoked a lot more dope. Did my four years, ETS then another attempt at engineering college, dropped out again and transferred to business college. Found I had a talent in writing programs... Fortran, then COBOL. Yes, that's right, big ugly COBOL. That plus my military skills of fixing stuff presented me with a career path that lasted for nearly forty years, never staying at any one place more than a decade (they folded up, not me) and often wondered what if I had stayed in the military and retired with full pension. I never would have met my beautiful wife and enjoyed my totally wonderful sons.

There are a few small things I might have done differently, but nothing major. With one exception. An early childhood trauma... something I vividly remember, but was totally helpless to have prevented... probably set me on the course that ended up being my life. Without that, my life might have been totally different. But that apparently was not meant to be.

No, I wouldn't change anything, up until when I started having urinary problems three or four years ago. When one doctor did little about it, I should have gone to another, and another. No one ever mentioned the word 'cancer' until less than a year ago. By then it already had a life of its own.
.

I always hoped that I would be to Andrew, what Spock was to Captain Kirk

I would still have worked in the medical field, but instead of becoming a lab tech, I would have become a pharmacist, which required the same amount of education for twice as much pay. Then I would have had more time and money for hobbies.

I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. If I hadn't been so convinced I couldn't do the math, I should have majored in engineering rather than biology/chemistry. But then I would never have met a certain young lady who has hung with me for nearly 40 years.

Did 'Nam and all that. Sold radio systems. Had business with wife writing and selling subscription-based newsletters. Now retired and spend much time managing conservation land and know many state rangers, wildlife police, biologists, foresters, etc. Who knew you could get paid to spend your days in the woods? If I had a do over, that's what I would do.
Jim

I worked in industry on the space program, with NASA, Edwards AF Base (Flight Research Center).
I enjoyed that but preferred teaching and pursued it as a career.
No regrets whatsoever!!

My dream, however, was to play professional baseball. The curveball had other ideas!

Mel

If anybody had ever told me when I was, say, a senior in high school, that my career would be spent as a university librarian, my response at that time would have been "No WAAAY! All librarians do is say "shhhh!" to people and shelve books!"

Turns out librarianship was a wonderful, fascinating career for me. A plumber's stock and trade is pipes and wrenches, a mason's is bricks and mortar, but a librarian's is knowledge itself. Facts, all kinds of facts, getting and sharing them with patrons, were my daily tools. I loved it.

My point being that so often, especially when we are young, we have preconceived (and frequently wrong) notions of what a certain profession is like. But if we actually get the chance to observe it for real, in action, our reaction to it changes, and we say "Hey, this is pretty cool!"

So my own answer to the thread question is: I would have gone into what I went into even earlier than I did, IF I had known earlier what it was really like!