In short I went from a small company position with very little growth and constant paycheck delays to a job with very clear monthly metric goals and a manager that lets me pursue projects for our office and client that actually help and improve everyone’s experience.

My field is really small and most hiring managers/HR people frankly have no clue how to hire for it, so I have a genuinely great resume and still got ghosted for many positions I was easily qualified for.

So hopping from a low paying position I was very tired with, to a job with daily activities I actually enjoy, that pays way more appropriately, was a several year process when it would be a 2 month process in a bigger field.

Realistically if I had to attribute anything in particular it’s these two things:

1: knowing what kind of work would actually fulfill me, which turned out to be fairly repetitive grunt work with 10% special projects.

2: learning our primary software VERY well. I have not met any other analyst who knows the quirks and tricks as well as I do, but that mostly just comes from 8 years of struggling with it and their nonexistent customer support.

The low standards are important for this as well because I am making 15% over the median personal income, and many people on here have ambitions WAY higher than that. But my partner makes double what I do, we have no kids, and we have cheap rent for our area so I really am thankful for what we have.

Pursuing what actually interests me is easy as well because I’m happy with a job that’s 90% assembly line work and 10% actually novel project work.