Here’s another inspiring story about a person who left their tech job to do something meaningful to both themselves and their community.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Dan Szymanowski has been a UX and web designer for 15 years. But five months ago, he decided to pull the trigger on an entirely different career path, one where he can use his mind and his hands to help real people in real time.
Dan retired his resume and hung out a shingle. It hangs outside his brand new custom picture framing studio. It’s an analog extension of his digital work and allows him to get back to doing something real, tangible, and supportive of his passions, his standard of living, and his community.
Most of us got into tech for a handful of reasons. It was a creative outlet, it allowed us to solve real problems for real people, and it paid the bills. It was a good gig while it lasted.
But something happened in the last decade or so. More and more, tech work became about extracting value out of our communities to deliver it to a handful of elites. The promise of using our talents to serve humanity was gone. Call it the new Gilded Era, the latest Industrial Revolution, or the relentless march of capitalism, whatever is happening, it’s not good for us or for our communities.
So people like Dan have decided to opt out of tech, and to opt in to a vibrant, thriving, and exciting world that is happening not behind a screen, or between some pixels, but out in the “wild,” on our downtown streets, in real brick and mortar spaces where actual human beings interact to, once again, solve real problems for one another and make our environments better for each and every one of us, one transaction relationship at a time.
We can continue to try to find bright spots behind the crumbling facade of the corporate headquarters, the veneer of once shiny, now cloudy, glass office towers, the abandoned foosball tables and stale pizza crusts, or we can decide that we’ve had enough. It was a good run. Now it’s time to turn our attention back to the spaces that so desperately need our skills and attention — the places where we live, shop, and interact with our neighbors. Our small towns, downtowns, and retail districts. Our homes.
Dan made the leap and he’s not looking back. When will you follow his lead?
P.S. If you live in Dan’s neighborhood of San Diego’s North Park, stop by his new shop. Bring that art or keepsake that’s been taking up space in your closet. It sounds like he’s got everything you need to finally get it on the wall: https://raystreetframes.com/
nicolederr.com 