# What's the most unusual career change you've ever seen? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 13, 2023, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-career-change-youve-ever-seen/981091 "2023-03-13T03:02:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2023, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-career-change-youve-ever-seen/981091/121 "2023-03-17T18:49:20Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Michelle Meyrink was a rising young actress in the 80s when she decided that Hollywood was a bunch of bullshit, and moved to Vancouver to practice Zen Buddhism. > [@Ulfreida](#): > > this is the I am going to become a priest/nun impulse. According to her [Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Meyrink), she got married, raised 3 kids, and started an acting school. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2023, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-career-change-youve-ever-seen/981091/122 "2023-03-17T19:19:00Z")
An impulse, not a lifetime career move necessarily. I’ve had it myself, and know many others. It’s a big viewpoint shift, but being a student of zen virtually never pays the rent. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2023, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-career-change-youve-ever-seen/981091/123 "2023-03-17T20:27:01Z")
Likewise, Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson has also participated in fencing, and came close to qualifying for the Olympic Trials some years back, and is a licensed commercial pilot. The band has its own plane, which he flies. ---
**Author:** ![mordecaiB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mordecaib/32/7725_2.png) [@mordecaiB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mordecaiB)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2023, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-career-change-youve-ever-seen/981091/124 "2023-03-17T21:09:14Z")
> [@penultima\_thule](#): > > [Mark “Chopper” Read](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_%22Chopper%22_Read) had a career change from being a violent stand over man to an author of children’s books. What’s up with sharing razor blades in prison? Just what it sounds like or slang? > [@steatopygia](#): > > I’ve had a pretty good variety. Carnival worker, cook, carpenter, bartender, ski shop manager, ER RN, race car owner/driver, college instructor, pro ski patrol. You forgot test pilot. > [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Also, Jesse Ventura went from professional wrestler, to Minnesota governor, to a commentator on RT, the propaganda network where old reporters go to die. We have a lake house in Minnesota so used to hear about him all the time. I thought he had retired years ago, but it looks like he just continued on his path of being a weirdo. Russian tv? OAN wasn’t hiring? ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2023, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-career-change-youve-ever-seen/981091/125 "2023-03-17T21:11:36Z")
One of my daughter’s besties spent many years at uni, firstly a degree in film studies and finally earned herself a doctorate in gender studies. Late last year, she decided to train to as a cabin crew member for a major international airline. Now she is flying high!! ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2023, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-career-change-youve-ever-seen/981091/126 "2023-03-18T01:06:27Z")
> [@glee](#): > > I was a lecturer in computing when I got a job teaching chess full-time. Huh. Coinkidinkally, I have a friend who left a PhD program in computer science to become a teacher and director for the American Contract Bridge League. But yeah, almost any career transition in which one end involves college or graduate study probably doesn’t qualify as really “unusual”. People can wind up enrolled in post-secondary education programs immediately after or before doing almost any other job imaginable. Individuals I personally know in that category include not one but two (current) Buddhist monks and one (former) scuba dive instructor in Thailand. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2023, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-career-change-youve-ever-seen/981091/127 "2023-03-18T01:08:05Z")
> [@kambuckta](#): > > One of my daughter’s besties spent many years at uni, firstly a degree in film studies and finally earned herself a doctorate in gender studies. Late last year, she decided to train to as a cabin crew member for a major international airline. And I’m betting one should NOT call her a “stewardess”. 🤣 ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2023, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-career-change-youve-ever-seen/981091/128 "2023-03-18T02:06:29Z")
One of the mayors in my fair multi-city got a BSN for her first degree, and eventually earned a doctorate in vocal music, which she also teaches at a local university. > **[SANGEETHA | Sangeetha for Mayor](https://www.sangeethaformayor.com/about-sangeetha)** > > Learn about Sangeetha's Background both personally and professionally. > **[Profile #761](https://www.augustana.edu/academics/faculty-directory/sangeetha-rayapati)** ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2023, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-career-change-youve-ever-seen/981091/129 "2023-03-18T04:25:11Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > > [@kambuckta](#): > > > > One of my daughter’s besties spent many years at uni, firstly a degree in film studies and finally earned herself a doctorate in gender studies. Late last year, she decided to train to as a cabin crew member for a major international airline. > > And I’m betting one should NOT call her a “stewardess”. 🤣 Oh damn no, she’d punch you right in the gob, after giving you a lecture on hegemonic sexism and all the other isms. Hahahhha. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2023, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-career-change-youve-ever-seen/981091/130 "2023-03-18T08:02:10Z")
Richard Coles was a member of the Communards band in the 1980s, an out gay campaigner when that was still controversial, became a Church of England vicar, and is now also a TV commentator/presenter on classical music, aming other things, and a novelist. > **[Richard Coles](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Coles)** > > Richard Keith Robert Coles FRSA FKC (born 26 March 1962) is an English writer, radio presenter and Church of England clergyman who was the vicar of Finedon in Northamptonshire from 2011 to 2022. He first came to prominence as the multi-instrumentalist who partnered Jimmy Somerville in the 1980s band the Communards. They achieved three top ten hits, including the No. 1 record and best-selling single of 1986, a dance version of "Don't Leave Me This Way". > Coles frequently appears on radio and te... ---
**Author:** ![ZonexandScout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zonexandscout/32/544_2.png) [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2023, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-career-change-youve-ever-seen/981091/131 "2023-03-18T12:19:20Z")
From about 1998 to 2002, I worked with a younger guy who left the military and went into private security. He was a contract security manager and consultant for a few years and then left to become a security director for a medium-sized company. I recently had lunch with a buddy who worked with us during that period. He told me that “Eric” had become a train engineer. He had decided that he didn’t need the hassle of managing anything and he learned that some railroad company offered a 6-month (?) course to drive trains. Been doing it for a year or two and loves it. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2023, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-career-change-youve-ever-seen/981091/132 "2023-03-18T15:41:21Z")
Lots of examples exist, and I don’t really know what’s particularly unusual. I know someone who taught special education classes for two years after college and then went to a university to get a Ph.D. in philosophy. She’s now a professor of philosophy and the head of her department. I knew a woman very well my first time in graduate school. She was getting a master’s in music performance because she played the cello. I dropped out of my first time through a Ph.D. program, which was in linguistics, after getting my master’s in it. I haven’t seen her since then. Meanwhile, I changed to another university where I started on a Ph.D. in mathematics, which is what my bachelor’s degree was in. I dropped out of that Ph.D. program too after getting my master’s in it. I also took some computer science courses because I was told that I should get another master’s in that if I wasn’t getting a Ph.D. in mathematics. I didn’t even finish a master’s in that. Recently, decades after never thinking about the woman who studied cello, I happened to look her up online. She worked as a cellist for awhile, but it became clear that she would never would be a very well paid one. She then went to graduate school in mathematics, got her Ph.D., and spent the rest of her career as a mathematics professor. I had thought of her as the least intelligent of my gang of friends at my first graduate school (who were all quite smart, I admit) and was baffled to find that she got a Ph.D. in mathematics. All of which just shows that I can’t judge people’s intelligence at all. I know someone who got a bachelor’s degree in fine arts and photography. He then worked for two years as a wedding photographer. He got tired of that and joined the army. They trained him as an analyst. He left the army after six years. He now works for a contractor to an intelligence agency doing similar sorts of analysis. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2023, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-career-change-youve-ever-seen/981091/133 "2023-03-18T19:46:25Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Michelle Meyrink was a rising young actress in the 80s when she decided that Hollywood was a bunch of bullshit, and moved to Vancouver to practice Zen Buddhism. I remember her. She seemed to be everywhere for a while. Then, she disappeared. Now, I know why. Leonard Cohen also was a Buddhist monk for a number of years. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2023, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-career-change-youve-ever-seen/981091/134 "2023-03-18T20:49:10Z")
I used to work in a marketing department for a chain of retail stores. The previous person in my position wanted “a less stressful career”–and became an air traffic controller. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2023, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-career-change-youve-ever-seen/981091/135 "2023-03-19T00:06:38Z")
One thing that’s so common that it’s hardly worth mentioning is spending about twenty years in the U.S. military and then moving on to another job for another twenty years or so. After twenty years in the U.S. military, you’re eligible for a pension. It’s not quite enough to live on for the rest of your life, so most people after that time get another job until they’re read to retire. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2023, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-career-change-youve-ever-seen/981091/136 "2023-03-19T01:45:41Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > read to retire Ahhhhhhhhhhh! Why can’t I ever avoid typing mistakes? I meant “ready to retire”. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2023, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-career-change-youve-ever-seen/981091/137 "2023-03-23T14:30:24Z")
> [@Kelevra](#): > > A friend of mine placed advertising on bus stop benches, delivered pizza, **tried and failed to get a job at a video rental store** … Amidst all the success stories here, that line (my bolding) really stood out. @Kelevra, Where’s he now? Still doing maintenance at a golf course? ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2023, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-career-change-youve-ever-seen/981091/138 "2023-03-23T16:48:58Z")
I always thought the story of actor Daniel Day-Lewis was fascinating. When the producers of _Gangs of New York_ sought him out, they found that he had retired from acting and was working as a cordwainer in Italy. He apparently became interested in the subject when he had a pair of custom shoes made in a shop, and asked the proprietor to train him. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2023, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-career-change-youve-ever-seen/981091/139 "2023-03-23T23:50:45Z")
Today I learned … > **[Cordwainer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordwainer)** > > A cordwainer (/ˈkɔːrdˌweɪnər/) is a shoemaker who makes new shoes from new leather. The cordwainer's trade can be contrasted with the cobbler's trade, according to a tradition in Britain that restricted cobblers to repairing shoes. This usage distinction is not universally observed, as the word cobbler is widely used for tradespersons who make or repair shoes. > The Oxford English Dictionary says that the word cordwainer is archaic, "still used in the names of guilds, for example, the Cordwainers... ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2023, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-career-change-youve-ever-seen/981091/140 "2023-03-24T01:50:54Z")
I had never seen the word “cordwainer” before, either. There’s a woman on another website who was an RN for many years, and she left that career, as in literally walked off the job one day, in order to pursue her retirement dream, 20-plus years earlier than expected. What is that dream? Being a luthier, a maker and maintainer of lutes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-career-change-youve-ever-seen/981091.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-unusual-career-change-youve-ever-seen/981091.md?page=8)