Work, job, career: Was it what you thought it would be?
Two questions asked of me recently gave me pause.
The first question came from a young neighbour who stopped by the other evening to ask, not for money for some fundraising effort, but a question as part of an assignment for her math class related to surveys, statistics and graphs. She asked, Is the job you did as an adult what your child-self thought you would be doing when you grew up? My short answer was, No.
The longer answer is that, as a little girl, I had fantasies of being a corner-office corporate boss — a Big Wig who had plans, gave orders, and commanded respect from everyone by virtue of her position in that corner office. I’m pretty sure this fantasy was more about telling boys what to do than it was about any specific work or skills! Fifty years on, I can say with assurance that I have never come even close to fulfilling this fantasy.
The second question came from a writing friend who asked if I would follow the same career path if I could do it all over again. My short answer was, Yes.
The longer answer is that, from my vantage point of retirement from the world of jobs, I would happily wander in the same territory of work, but I likely would not follow the exact same path. Rather than meandering my way into teaching, I would fast-track my way into that creative and rewarding world.
Mind you, I say that as someone who only ever landed a teaching job because of the skills and experience I picked up along the career path I had been forging. I started out studying literary translation, detoured into a degree in journalism, found myself in the trenches of corporate communications, and ended up teaching college students only because a friend of mine suggested I could, not because I ever planned to earn a living in the classroom. Once I landed there, I trained as an adult educator.
The thread that weaves my career together is ‘communication’, though the barking of orders to underlings that I fantasized about as an 11-year-old manifested itself over the years more as polite requests to do as I ask, first of employees, then of students. Barking orders rarely works, and certainly doesn’t ever work in a professional setting reliant on mutual respect and willing collaboration.
I feel fortunate that my career developed out of my skills and interests, rather than being tied to a job title and its associated ladder of progression. But think about it: This is what we tend to do with kids when we ask them, What do you want to be when you grow up? The answer to that question is not really, I want to change the world or I want to help people or I want to work with my hands. Those are descriptors of interests and inclinations not jobs. The answer we’re looking for from kids is doctor or fire fighter, chef or truck driver (or whatever). And those answers are fine and maybe cute, but they are also finite. They do not so much fire the imagination as they draw convenient lines around boxes that may or may not fit as the child grows up, then chooses studies and then finds work.
While a five- or 11- or even an 18-year-old may not be able to easily answer the question, ‘How do you want to spend your time earning your living?’, I wager the ensuing conversation might be both more interesting and more productive over the long term for all parties involved. Probing questions might include, Do you want to work at a desk or be outside for your working hours? Do you like being with people or do you prefer working alone? Do you like the big picture or prefer to work with details?
I’m no guidance counsellor, but my own experience tells me that a satisfying career is built from more than a job title; it evolves out of a somewhat mysterious combination of interests and talents, out of luck and hard work, out of persistence and daring. Above all, a career will be satisfying when it evolves in real time as we, as a person, evolve in real time, too.
Becoming fully ourselves is more career than job, and we are the lucky ones when the doing of our work informs the being of ourselves.
To receive my weekly blogpost in your inbox, email fiveyearsawriter at gmail dot com. Simply put SUBSCRIBE in the subject line.
Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.
Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash
If I had to choose today, I would still want to be a nurse. Through my forty-plus years of practice, I had many jobs. Some jobs I hated, but I always loved my work. My coast-to-career began with birthing babies and ended with end of life care. Being present when a new life is born or an old soul departs this world is an indescribable privilege.
ReplyDeleteAnn — you make such an important distinction between ’the job’ and ’the work’. When those two coincide and give us satisfaction, we can count ourselves fortunate indeed. It's too bad when it's the job that drives us away even if the work continues to call us. When that point arrives, the worker with options leaves.
DeleteThank you for this thoughtful post. It caused me to reflect on my life as an earner or shall I say learner. I consider those who had a plan, a career path even an early inclination of what he or she might like to do for a living, fortunate indeed.
ReplyDeleteThen there are those whose parents recognized and nurtured interests and talents. They too I considered blessed. As a child I longed for what and who they are and as and adult who and what they became. I was neither. My path has been a series of missteps, pot holes, at times luck at being in the right place at the right time. Yet here I am at sixty-six trying something new, again. I doubt anyone would consider me a great success. I can use no one job or career to professionally describe me.
I keep telling myself it is not too late girl you will hit the mark one day. So meanwhile I just keeping moving. Now perhaps that is who I truly am. I never give up. I love learning. I am pretty cool and an interesting person. I enjoy my own company. Heck I am my own company. I could not resist the pun. Thank you for giving me the opportunity for this reflection.
Marguerite: A whole other blog post would be about how 'career' can mean a multitude of different things to different people. What it used to be -- climbing the ladder in one organization over the entirety of one's working life -- is no longer possible. Instead, one's career is built out of exactly what you describe your working life as having been: a series of discoveries (aka, missteps, potholes and wrong turns) out of which we make sense and earn a living over the long term. Equally true is that it is never too late to try again or to learn something new or to take a job purely for interest or the experience. So many 'retired' people are finding fulfilment in new lines of work that is related to interests rather than formal education or training.
DeleteOh, Amanda - I'm glad you never ended up "barking orders". That would not have been YOU at all!
ReplyDeleteAs a child, all I ever wanted to do was write stories, draw pictures, and "make things". But life's twists and turns had me bouncing off walls for my entire career of work and raising a family. With the benefit of hindsight, I would certainly have taken a different path - many times. Regrets are pointless, though, because everything that happens is meant to be, simply because it happened - and it's all the stuff that has created YOU.
I consider myself very fortunate at my present stage of life to have finally gone back to doing what I always loved, and even supporting myself with it. I recognized that my child self was wise in knowing who I really was all along.
My advice to anyone seeking their path, at whatever age, is to take some risks, get out of your comfort zone, keep up with technology, and listen to your heart. Nothing original there, just some wisdom that has been helpful to me personally.
I appreciate what Marguerite has said, above, and your reply, Amanda. :)
I really appreciate your response, Pamela, and particularly appreciate your inclusion of the need to keep up with technology. It can be daunting, some days, to do what I already know how to do, never mind stretch myself to add something new into my tech mix. But unless I do that, I'll be left behind. So I keep clicking and exploring and who knows where I'll end up!
DeleteThank you for this article. I wanted to be a scientist, now I'm teaching painting and caring for others.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this, my life path looks more like a drunken 2 year old rather that a straight upward line. I know that I'm where I'm supposed to be and doing what I'm meant to do because I'm loving every minute of it. My original goal was to be a marine zoologist, I couldn't be farther from that if I tried.
ReplyDeleteI didn't have an exact path in mind, only that I wanted a job, a place of my own. As time went on and I settled into a job/career so to speak for the next 33 years, I still considered 'my job' as secondary. This job allowed me to share and pursue interests that were more valuable. Thank you, Amanda, for these wonderful thoughts on jobs.
ReplyDelete