I haven’t posted much lately but thought I would post an update. I don’t know many of you personally, but have been on this site for over 20 years and am familiar with many of the names.

I was in the industry for just over 30 years with the same company. I was loyal to a fault and it took me a long time to realize it. Finally an opportunity came that I thought would come earlier but it finally came.

I now work for a family office for a family that it did a lot of work for. It has been almost a year and I don’t regret the decision for a minute. Sometimes the grass really is greener on the other side of the fence.

I may actually work with some of you personally now as there are homes in approximately 10 states and 4 countries.

My advice to others. Maybe you are worth more than you your employer leads you to believe, that depends on what type of employer you have. Don’t be too afraid of change.

I will still be on this site and hope to work with some of you in the future.

good for you. I left thus industry about 10 years ago. Im now in aerospace /gov mil electonic component sales/ manufacturing and love it.

I've tried to leave twice so far. Been pulled back twice.

I left a long time back, and now I do nothing but tweak my own personal stuff....

Honestly it was a great, and very profitable, run. Don't miss the shi**y clients though.

Dealing with an asshole now who made every excuse not to pay his final bill after he missed the progress payment. Finally got payment and now bitching about his Verizon network extender that I have nothing to do with. It's been running find for months since the upgrades I did but still bles me. I still told him what he needs to do to fix it and told him how to enable wifi calling, all via email off hours. He's pissed off cause I didn't get on the phone and threatened me with bad reviews. Ironically lives two doors away from the worst nightmare client I ever had. I'm sooooooo done with this garbage industry

There once was a rumor that a high profile national celebrity had purchased a penthouse in town. I knew that this guy didn't pay bills and it was likely that he'd badmouth me if I declined to do business. For a while I thought about quoting a high price, attempting to scare him off, but this would not have mattered because he never intended to pay. I fretted for weeks.

Ultimately, the rumor was false and he never called. I considered this a great win.

There are some good times with "those" clients. When you get to turn it around on them.

The no payer needs service, and NO ONE will do it, since I put word out. He relents and call me. I promise that if I get paid, I'll take care of his issues. I get a check, cash it, make sure it clears so I'm good. Then time rolls on, and he asks when I'll be by.

I tell him in about 8 months, and only then if he pays in advance in cash.

I got called all kind of names, and loved it.... Never heard from him again. :-)

Did you end up firing him?

Sounds amazing. I was offered a similar job with a family that has multiple homes. My wife said no so i didn't take it :D. It would have required me to relocate to Florida which would have been fine by me but my wife wanted to move back to Springfield where she is originally from. She works in government.

I left residential a few months ago. New job "audio visual specialist" is for a division of an Illinois university. I loved my job in residential but at 48 the crawl spaces and attics and suitcase living got to be a bit much. I still perform side work for two of my former employers but most of the time it's 8:00-4:30 with an hour lunch and the option to work from home whenever i want. Hopefully i can spend the rest of my career with them.