Left healthcare after 9 years, took a $12k pay cut for a library job

I worked nights as a pharmacy tech in Austin for almost a decade. Burnout hit hard after the third holiday shift in a row, no family time. My cousin got me a clerk position at the public library last month, half the pay but no more screaming patients. What convinced me? A regular told me she remembered my name and my smile, first time I felt human in years. Anyone else trade salary for sanity and regret it or not?

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skylerm559d ago

The quiet is the thing nobody warns you about. Not silence exactly, but the absence of that constant low-level alarm in your chest. My buddy switched from ER nursing to a school nurse gig and he said the first month he kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, like someone would inevitably burst in screaming about a toe fungus emergency. Now he gets summers off and actually eats lunch sitting down. The pay cut stings on paper but you stop noticing it once you realize you're not spending money on takeout every night because you're too dead to cook. Plus libraries have that whole "fines waived for staff" perk, which is honestly a bigger deal than it sounds.