My boss at the PMC was such a flim-flam man, he kept saying he was a helicopter pilot in Panama and that he ran guns and drugs for Noreaga and Ollie North. Except when I filled out paperwork for him I found out he was a logistics sergeant based in Montana. When I quit, he trying to help some guy buy a submarine base in Lithuania to convert into a commercial port, so he could run “security” for it.

Depends on what level. Starting pay vs longevity vs education vs certification. For me, it would be 5k less.

Looked it up, I’d make even less in dc than suburb. Yeah, 10k in 7 years is pretty lame.

No. Where I am, I make slightly more than I would in dcps and I would lose my pension. Also, I’ve got friends who teach dcps and they don’t recommend the switch.

Yeah. It was kinda an accident. I took an office job for a white hat NGO stopping human trafficking on the recommendation of a college bro. But I kept getting projects in former Soviet states doing research, marketing, and very little anti-human trafficking work. After a few months I realized anti-human trafficking was just a smokescreen for a bunch of mercenaries trying to get their small PMC off the ground. I quickly left that company and became a tour guide to pay bills. Almost joined the navy but had a bad car accident and needed to switch career paths. 2011-13 was a wild couple years for me.

Edit: the PMC even sent me to the Hill to get money to “save girls” that was totally going to be used to buy airplane tickets to “security” projects. Thank goodness I was bad at my job.

Teaching? It’s a fun job, which I’m passionate about, but I’m struggling financially. Can’t afford appropriate housing for my family. I’m making substantially less than my peers with similar education level in the non profit sector. It’s also an increasingly demanding job, every year the workload increases but the pay does not, or if so, by very little.

I’m 7 years in and making 10k more than day one. Which is being torn to shreds by inflation and increased costs with a growing family. I would only recommend teaching to the idle rich. It’s an unsustainable career.

I worked for a PMC for a few months and switched careers to being a high school a teacher.