What do you think about work in politics? You’re in Lansing, aren’t you?
I had a couple of other ideas. First, one thing to keep in mind is that you have some freedom to experiment, since you can probably get a job as a security guard again if some of your experiments don’t work out. You might start by seeking a lateral move as a security guard in an area with a better economy.
Another thing you might consider is a lateral entry teaching program. IIRC, Michigan is not a state where that is common. But quite a few states have programs where you work as a teacher while getting certified if you already have at least a bachelor’s in something. It seems like an M.S. in criminal justice and experience herding teenagers could make you a good HS teacher, maybe in social studies.
Have you considered setting up your own security company? You would probably be able to fairly quickly end up in a fairly standard hour administrative capacity.
Mine was similar - although the path started 20+ years ago. I started doing secretarial and data entry - which made me “good with computers” I then did network administration and systems administration. Did some systems engineering work. I worked with vendor relations and contracts. Eventually, I became an IT project manager. I had majored in Art History.
But it wasn’t like I went out and interviewed for jobs - nor did it happen overnight - though there were a few jumps I made that were pretty significant - the one from being a sys admin to being a consultant was a huge jump - and then from there to managing the practice was again big (but that was the end of the 90s, when there was plenty of opportunities if you were willing to take some risks. I fell from one job into another, looking for opportunities and saying “I can do that for you.”
Do you have a family yet?
If not I would strongly suggest you to reconsider your demands…the time to put in the extra hours and crazy travel and stuff is BEFORE you have kids. Seriously. Get that stuff done NOW and then you can reap the rewards once you do have a family.
If you do have kids already, disregard.
And if you have kids already, it may be time to realize that other people delay having their kids while they turn their entry level jobs into careers and work a lot.
When I was moving from temporary data entry worker to secretary to network administrator to consultant to practice manager, I didn’t have kids. And I worked until midnight. And I got my executive on a plane on Sunday afternoon from home on two hours notice as a secretary. And I upgraded servers on the weekends.