Over the last month, I’ve been adjusting to working part-time, coding a php-based web application, getting my family into a routine around my girlfriends school schedule and my work schedule and felt a cold hitting me literally as I walked to my car after my job interview. What a great way to start a new job!

People have thought me crazy over the past two or three years saying that I wanted to quit my corporate desk job to go work in a coffee shop where I could learn more about coffee – I no longer wanted to be chained to a desk, I wanted to interact more with people face-to-face on a daily basis and get more exercise. There are websites in my portfolio on coffee and it’s from doing research and my love of coffee that the interest in becoming a barista came.

I have to admit, I almost cried when I got my first pay cheque for my first week of pay. I made close to half my first week of 15 hours of what I used to make in one day as a programmer – my last pay cheque as a geek, I cleared just over $1,500 for two weeks pay. Other then the financial end of things, I am loving being a barista.

Since meeting my girlfriend 3.5 years ago, I knew she would have to move away to do her Phd in a city where there wouldn’t be a lot of jobs in my field. I started mentally preparing for the lost pay by paying off my car and down as much debt as I could. We were planning on having a child between her MA and Phd with me being daddy daycare and finding part-time work to pay my remaining debt off while also taking the time to work on my web projects.

I took this to be a great time for me to explore new things. I moved from Vancouver to Kelowna this past summer where the main industry appears to be tourism. When I saw that my favourite coffee shop with free wireless was hiring, I put in my resume and was hired almost instantly but made the mistake of not asking the pay until my first shift and was a bit disappointed that they are paying less then most places here in Kelowna.

In all honesty, I have turned down interviews for low paying geek jobs and was happy to have not been offered a promising position in a company that I was a bit put off from the initial phone call for an interview to the point that I almost phoned a half hour before to cancel. I would rather be a barista, work on my own projects and be happy then get paid less money then I started out making as a web developer eight years ago for some dipshit that pays peanuts and expects the world. I justify it to myself as me paying myself to work on my own projects without any cashflow occurring.

In my career as a web developer, I have always questioned whether or not I enjoyed what I did. It was through discussions with my counsellor that I came to realize that I do love what I do – just not in the environment I was doing it. I would work miserably eight hours or more a day to go home and code for several more hours on my own project. Who would do that if they didn’t enjoy what they did?

For now I am happy – I see people on a daily basis, I’m learning more about coffee and I’m getting to work on projects I want to in the capacity I want to. Now comes the time for me to work harder on my web projects and start making money from them so I can pay down my debt faster. Even when that does occur, I’m not sure I will give up being a barista because it’s a job I enjoy.