Leave a Safe IT Job for Music Tour?

DecisionTime asks: "In this US economy, it took me a whole year to find my current IT job, where I've been for less than a year. It's fairly dull, but pays ok, and I believe it is relatively safe. Now, I've been given the chance to use my talents and tour full time with a band overseas. With the corresponding drop in expenses, my net income on this tour would remain about the same as now. However, music jobs are inherently risky, yet the touring could become long term. On the other hand, I could potentially be IT job searching again within four months with a dubious hole on my resume. I'm single and have no kids or major commitments, but I do not want to destroy my IT career either for the future. I can't get unbiased advice where I am, so perhaps Slashdot can lend me some wisdom?"

Take the tour.

[ObviousGuy]

God knows IT sucks. Go have fun and gain some interesting experiences.

The computer world will always be around, but music careers are notoriously short. Take advantage of it while you can.

I did a similar thing...

[PhyrePhox]

Just before the bust; I went to a performing arts center (with an inexperienced management staff) as "Master Sound Engineer" and by the time my patience ran out, my old CO was under a hiring freeze. Just the same, I think you should do it (but please send pictues and mix tapes). Seriously, do it. You know IT jobs can still be found; the market is in recovery (albeit slowly), but dream jobs only come by once in a while... Best of luck!

as someone who faced a similar choice

[Siniset]

i had the chance to move across country with a group of friends, where in all likelyhood, we would have continued our band, and lived the rock and roll life style, so to speak. Instead I stayed where I was because I had a girlfriend and a decent job. Now I'm currently looking for a new job as my contracts ending and am single. But I don't really have any regrets. Neither choice was the right or wrong choice. Who knows what would have happended if I had moved with them? i'm pretty happy right now, and have enjoyed the past two years, and they ended up moving back here.

You might never have another opportunity like this one come along. But that shouldn't make or break your choice.

The best piece of advice I can give is don't stress about it. My guess is that either choice would be fine. Choose the one that just feels the best, and go with it. Don't worry too much about the future, the future will happen.

I hate to be a wet blanket but

[Neop2Lemus]

Cash is what counts

Keep the job till you have a few years experiance and then take the world tour, with or without a band.

If you had the band sign a contract which guarantee you a job, and pay, then I'd do it for sure.

If nothing else, staying at your job would get you a few years experiance under your belt and it'd be easier to find a better job next time round. A one year gap on your resume is not what you want. And what do you tell your next potential employer, 12 months from now, espically if things don't work out?

P.S. You came here for wisdom?!? I like it (but am still humoured).

Do it

[mcowger]

You'll make yourself happier if you do, and never have to question 'what if'. I dont think the 4 month 'hole' is dubious, either. Write down what you did, its not shameful at all. You tried something new, it didn't work out. Big deal - if you are skilled technically, I dont think a company would hold the fact that you took a small risk against you.

Go for the Band~!

[nemeosis]

Even if it lasts only 4 months, it'll be an experience you'll never forget. Plus, it'll help make you a more well rounded person, as opposed to remaining a boring propellorhead geek clicking a mouse all day. No offense to those who do this tho. =P

Give yourself a meaningful and praiseworthy title, like a Systems Engineer - you have to know how all the electronics and computers work right? Or you can put on your resume that you were a Consultant working for 4 months, doing IT and systems work with an entertainment performance group. Come up with some creative engineering to fluff up your resume.

And most importantly, make friends with your band manager. Drink beers with him after work, so that when you need his reference, he can back you up.

Same for me!

[codeboost]

It's kind of funny, but I'm in exactly the same position right now.
Except, I'm offered the opportunity to start a comedy show on tv.
I'm a (hardcore) c++ programmer and I actually like what I'm doing.
I also run a dark comedy web site (with a partner) which has suddenly become 'The next big thing' in my country (radio stations started playing our scenes, invitations to talk shows; my phone never stops ringing).
Two tv stations offerred us a contract and we must choose one of them by the end of this week. It's really tempting, but I know how show-business is, you can burn really quickly if you're not careful or good enough to handle the stress.
On the programming side, I'm the dev lead on a project which we've been working on for 2.5 years (full time) and will launch the public beta in two months.
This only makes things harder for me - I don't want to abandon the project at this stage, but the show-biz opportunity is very tempting.
I guess I'll try (really hard) to work on both jobs, at least until the final release of our project. By that time, If i'm not dead or in a mental institution, I will hopefully be able to decide what to chose.
Eventually, I think it's best to listen to your heart and go with that.
Even if you fail, it's not the end of the world - you can always start drinking.

Don't worry about the resume

[jonesvery]

On the other hand, I could potentially be IT job searching again within four months with a dubious hole on my resume. I'm single and have no kids or major commitments, but I do not want to destroy my IT career either for the future.

Obviously you're the one who's going to make the decision: how averse to risk (because there is risk of unemployment) are you, and how much do you want to go on tour? As long as you're considering both sides of the question, you'll come to a good answer.

Where I can offer some (probably) useful thoughts, is regarding the "dubious hole in [your] resume" that you mentioned. Short version of my thoughts: what hole?

Longer version: if you're looking for an IT job again in four or six months, just put the tour on your resume. Unless you end up on the road for years, then your tech experience isn't going to seem outdated, expecially if your spot on the tour is on the tech end. When somebody asks about it during a job interview, you say "I'd always wanted to do this, and the opportunity presented itself; I decided to make the leap and see whether I liked it, while I was still young, single, and didn't have too many commitments. I enjoyed it but, I found that my real interest is in [whatever IT gig you do]."

I've got a couple of even more suspicious gaps in my resume. They appeared when I went from living in the upper half of a converted church in a cool neighborhood of a relatively expensive west coast city, to living the the bottom half of a small house in a student neighborhood in a small city in western New York. (My wife was going to school in the small city in New York.) Basically, I found that the money we had budgeted to live went a lot further that we had anticipated, so it was six months before I actually had to get a job. After working for a year or two I had more money saved up, and when one contract ended I just didn't look for another for four or five months.

I've been at the same company for a while now, so haven't interviewed much, but when I was interviewing and people asked, I just gave them the background and told them a little about what I did during those "gaps" -- I did some stuff that was a lot more interesting than the average 9-5 job during those periods, and I think that helped during interviews at least as much as it may have hurt me.

Choose the sex, the drugs, the rock'n roll

[Anonymous Coward]

You can alway get a real job for real grown ups when you grow up. Worked for me. Got welleducated and goodlooking wife and 2 bright and beautiful kids, a third on its way. Good IT job. Steady income. A bright looking future.

However, sometimes when i am alone i can still smell the sour beer, the stingy smell of cigarettes, sense the dampness of moist pussy on my fingertips, feel the disorientation after to much to loud music... ahh the memories. Wouldn't be without them. Kinda makes me stay at home you know... i lived "the" life, still do but its a different one. Other people, other values, more wise perhaps?

Do not grown up to early. Enjoy your youth. Relish in the fact that you do not have to work and help support a family from age 6 like in some development countries. Enjoy or else one day you'll be one of those pathetic 30's something men who abandons wife and kids to live a life that they are way to old to live without beeing an embarrasment to anyone including themselves.

Anyway i live Europe, so this might not apply to silly amercans.

hj

dubious hole?

[techstar25]

I won't go into the many reasons why you should do it because several other have already. However I disagree that it's a dubious hole in your resume. I work in IT and everyone here knew I was in a band. We toured twice taking a week each time, and my boss knew where I was going and what I was doing. They thought it was cool. Also when you come back, put it on your resume. You can leverage it to mean that you work well with a team, you are extremely creative, and you enjoy travel. You can also mention that you prefer work that you enjoy and that's why you followed your dream. Any manager would then say "..and you want to work here?!" They'll be flattered you want to work for their company after living the life of a "rock star".