Working where your values lie
Lately I've been thinking about what it would be like to work in a co-op or similarly democratic, value-driven workplace. They are obviously in the minority these days but they do still exist. Finding open positions at them is not as difficult as I had thought either. Not like I'm gonna uproot my life just yet. I don't think I have the experience to get in many places either. But it is something I think I'll be looking for in the future. The hard part will be finding a place that can match a corporate salary. Maybe some might come close in software engineering but I don't think many could match it for IT tasks.
Of course, less pay might be the cost of more control and fairness in the workplace - somewhere you spend a majority of your day to day life. In theory, pay shouldn't be lower because eventually you would get a share of the company's profits. Working up to that, however, takes a while. And even then it might still not match what you could get in corporate jobs. Maybe that's too broad of a judgement though. I'm not sure.