Ask HN: How can I best assist my wife with a career transition?
10 by bluesroo | 4 comments on Hacker News.
Some background first: I've been a software engineer for ~7 years now. I have a decently paying job, but we're definitely in the first base stretch of home ownership and have 2 children (~1 and ~4 years old). My wife has a strong academic background in pedagogy and LOVES teaching high school, but with the pandemic teaching has really affected her relationship with our girls due to the sheer amount of work being dumped on her. Teacher and admin attrition at her school was suffering terribly and it was leading to her being forced to pick either continuing to work as a teacher and sacrifice all of her time with our kids or figure something else out. I was in awe of my wife's capacity for work and the number of plates she can keep spinning while still getting the highest teacher evaluation scores at her school... Only to be met with blanks stares when asked for assistance or any sort of compensation or promotion for the amount of work she was picking up. So she left. After some reflection, we're both worried that teaching in general is at a place where most schools will be similar. On top of this, she originally went into teaching thinking that I'd take mornings (get the kids ready and to school/ daycare) and she'd get afternoons since schools are usually out ~3pm. But since the pandemic school hours continue to stretch, further cutting down on what little time she can be with our children. So, back to my question: She's at a crossroads, but my professional experience doesn't overlap much and most of my connections are not adjacent to education or instructional design. I'm poking my network and friends and family, but it's pretty difficult to find anyone willing to give her a chance outside of education. My gut is that she needs to talk with people because throwing resumes into the void isn't going to work if you're switching industries and don't have the right key words. I'm very open to any advice, both to help her with some direction or for me with how I can best support her. Up until this point her career has been fairly straight forward, so I can tell it's weighing on her that she's not getting calls back from applications or much positive feedback.
10 by bluesroo | 4 comments on Hacker News.
Some background first: I've been a software engineer for ~7 years now. I have a decently paying job, but we're definitely in the first base stretch of home ownership and have 2 children (~1 and ~4 years old). My wife has a strong academic background in pedagogy and LOVES teaching high school, but with the pandemic teaching has really affected her relationship with our girls due to the sheer amount of work being dumped on her. Teacher and admin attrition at her school was suffering terribly and it was leading to her being forced to pick either continuing to work as a teacher and sacrifice all of her time with our kids or figure something else out. I was in awe of my wife's capacity for work and the number of plates she can keep spinning while still getting the highest teacher evaluation scores at her school... Only to be met with blanks stares when asked for assistance or any sort of compensation or promotion for the amount of work she was picking up. So she left. After some reflection, we're both worried that teaching in general is at a place where most schools will be similar. On top of this, she originally went into teaching thinking that I'd take mornings (get the kids ready and to school/ daycare) and she'd get afternoons since schools are usually out ~3pm. But since the pandemic school hours continue to stretch, further cutting down on what little time she can be with our children. So, back to my question: She's at a crossroads, but my professional experience doesn't overlap much and most of my connections are not adjacent to education or instructional design. I'm poking my network and friends and family, but it's pretty difficult to find anyone willing to give her a chance outside of education. My gut is that she needs to talk with people because throwing resumes into the void isn't going to work if you're switching industries and don't have the right key words. I'm very open to any advice, both to help her with some direction or for me with how I can best support her. Up until this point her career has been fairly straight forward, so I can tell it's weighing on her that she's not getting calls back from applications or much positive feedback.
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