I enrolled in a solar installation certificate at NAIT during an off-rotation. Finished it. Took …
T=0: The Decision
Six years on 2-weeks-on/2-weeks-off rotations at Fort McMurray. CAD $142k, hazard pay, and a growing conviction that I was spending the most physically capable years of my life installing infrastructure I increasingly believed was wrong. I watched the Jasper wildfire coverage during an off-rotation in 2022 and couldn't make myself go back with the same detachment I'd managed before.
I enrolled in a solar installation certificate at NAIT during an off-rotation. Finished it. Took a job at a Calgary solar company for CAD $82k — a $60k pay cut. Told my crew at Fort Mac on my last shift. Two of them are now in my program intake at NAIT.
Work I can describe to my kids without changing the subject.
6 Months Out
The pay cut hits harder than I calculated. Mortgage on the Calgary townhouse was sized to Fort Mac income. We refinanced. My wife went back to work earlier than planned. The sleep-in-own-bed-every-night reality is exactly as good as I imagined. The bank account is not.
“Do the full financial remodel before you resign — not just salary comparison but the total lifestyle cost of commute, food, accommodation at site, and what you spend on decompressing after rotations. The gap is smaller than it looks.”