[John Doe]

Originally Posted by Sliver

By the time I realized how amazing teaching was I figured it was too late to get my teaching certificate. Around 27 or 28 it really dawned on me that the typical corporate route would take thousands of more hours and hundreds of days of my personal time over my lifetime versus my teacher friends. And as a taxpayer, I'd be one of the ones footing the bill for this luxurious lifestyle. Also, the salaries, benefits and job security teachers receive are well above the average I've come across in the private sector.

In retrospect, I don't think I was too old to go back. I already had a degree, so it really only would have been two years of school. My life already had a momentum that I didn't want to stop (mortgage, etc.) so I didn't worry much about it.

Once you have kids, though (for me at 29), it becomes increasingly obvious just how good teaching is. Your schedule is 100% in sync with a child's. My teacher friends have none of the childcare woes (and accompanying guilt) my wife and I have with arranging childcare for all of the holidays kids/teachers have. The cost is not small, either.

At 39 it is certainly too late now. Aside from the great career teachers enjoy during their working years, the real benefit is that killer pension. The opportunity cost is too high to go back to school now and I'd have to work too long and be too old to maximize the value of the pension, so it wouldn't make sense.

What do I do? My first five years out of university I worked for a public company in corporate communications. During that time I had two weeks off per year. The holidays I had during my combined first five years as a professional were less than every teacher gets in their first year of teaching. And I had to work one full year before I earned any vacation time at all, so actually the first year I didn't have any time off.

That may seem like BS to some of you guys that entered the job market during Calgary's recent booms, but when it is an employer's market, young people are just thankful to have a decent job, which I was, and you do not get showered with benefits like some people have experienced more recently. Employers give the minimum holiday amounts, and in Alberta that is two weeks vacation after your first full year of employment. Thousands of Albertans receive just that.

That was pretty evasive. You never did answer what you do, just vaguely what you did when you first entered the workforce. What do you do now? Not only the industry, but what kind of duties do you perform during your workday. What hours do you work? What is the pay? I would like to know so that I can avoid such a job, as it is so much harder to do and so poorly compensated for.