New Job Directions

[laughingstone]

The writing is on the wall. I've begun dusting off ye old resume. But before I can get my laser focus on and begin to manifest my destiny, I need to search my mind. There are doubts, detritus, questions.

I've done so many different jobs, in so many different industries, to varying degrees of success and happiness. I keep trying to get closer and closer to something that will be sustainable for me. Even though sustainability is, in many cases, a thing of the past in our job industry.

And for all the jobs I've done, I've wondered about tons more. I've read that NYC garbage workers are reportedly some of the most satisfied with their jobs.

I've also worked for myself a fair bit. I like the flexibility. And I love working with and for friends. It's so fulfilling to work in community.

Soome cataloging is in order. Starting from the beginning.

Things I've gotten paid to do:



Retail: Always meet new people. Active. Physically tiring. Fast-paced. Low wages. Have boss, but they are usually peripheral.

Self employment/marketing & writing: Challenging to keep a full pipeline. Relationship-building. Project based. Feels helpful. Unsteady pay. No boss. Flexible.

Self employment/house cleaning: Active, project-based. Satisfying. Good pay. Physically tiring. Love doing it for friends. No boss. Flexible.

Self employment/house renovation: Loved the physical part of it. Loved the problem solving aspect of it. Gave me a new confidence in my abilities.

Self employment/music: Just started getting paid to sing vocals for a musician's recordings. I love it so far! The pay is good.

Higher education/student services: Typically boring with lots of paperwork. Only occasionally interesting. Non-flexible hours. Offices usually have fluorescent lighting which I hate. Okay pay.

Preschool/parent involvement: LOVED speaking Spanish and working with Latino parents. They're such sweet people. Hated my corrupt supervisor. Low pay.

Digital newspaper/video producer: Still my fave job so far. But I felt the company was moving too slow, lacked accountability, and sales employees were being treated unfairly. Didn't feel like the company listened to me. Creative. Relationship-building. Believed in the product. Flexible. Low pay.

Yahoo!/Online editor: Lots of flexibility. Not an editor type, so didn't quite fit with the group. Boring work. Didn't believe in the product. Like working for a technology company.

Current company: Company does listen to me somewhat. Have lost faith in product. Social environment is tense, which is harder when there are so few employees. Can't get funding. Like some things I do: creating webinars. Don't like others: cold-calling. Generally like working around social media and in technology though. Somewhat flexible, but that flexibility is frowned upon by the CEO's daughter, who works harder than everyone else, but probably has hella stock. Sucky pay.

So my doubts right now are:
1. Will I ever find anything I enjoy and that pays well?
2. Should I keep trying to create a "career" or should I try to work for myself?
3. Should I write a book on my endless career search and make a lot of money? :)
4. If I feel that my purpose is to add beauty and spread happiness to the world, what is my career?

Comments

[acydrayn.livejournal.com]

Based off #4, which I feel should be #1, unless you get a recording contract or start a successful house cleaning business where you hire employees to work for you years down the road and then franchise it might make you a lot of money

In reality, I think a combination of your music (now with inconsistent pay) in conjunction with house cleaning/renovation and freelance writing marketing sounds like a plan that will keep you moving and busy. It'll involve being creative to add beauty and cleaning to add god(ess)liness which will make people happy and physical exercise. I think with the hydra approach, there will always be something to do and many ways for you to actually get money. The downside which most self-employed people find as not being a downside necessarily is that you will have to work a lot harder to maintain contacts and keep bookings for all the different things coming in and managing the different hats in your head-space. If you go the route of self-employment head first it will be your career.

I have a really hard time imagining you working in an office for an extended period of time and being happy there.

[laughingstone.livejournal.com]

I think with the hydra approach, there will always be something to do and many ways for you to actually get money.

Yes, I like this amalgam approach and do see myself enjoying it. When I am busy, I am happy. The downside is the time it may take to steadily accrue my income and build my channels.

I guess it's the same for a start-up, except I could ideally learn more if there are experienced business people running it.

[acydrayn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the path I layed out would be a lot of hard work for little returns at first if ever. It's the kind of road you really have to be dedicated to. People who run their own business are known to get very little sleep and even the CEO's/upper executives of some of the bigger companies I've worked with I found work 18 - 19 hours a day.

One problem for me with getting my own business going is my organizational skills are shit and I'm horrible at charging people for my services. i.e. I didn't realize my contractor fee I've been charging is about $60 an hour less than what I should've been charging. But at the same time my inner self has a really hard time raising that price because the work I do comes so easily to me it seems criminal.

[mikz.livejournal.com]

+1 on all this, and once again, I'd love to get together and talk about this in person with laughingstone.

The part that seems particularly attractive to me is not doing the same old thing day in and day out. That's one of the things about Corporate America that shits me the most.

The unattractive part, for me, is the schmoozing requirement. I wish I could hire somebody to do that for me. I guess that would be a contracting company, though, who'd then effectively be my boss instead of vice-versa, which wouldn't be so bad if there wasn't the pressure to work the hours I'd rather avoid.

book recommendation

[jhogan.livejournal.com]

You might get value out of the book "Your Money or Your Life" which examines the intersection of life purpose, vocation, strategy, and money. I think I might own a copy (not sure) if you want to borrow it.

Re: book recommendation

[laughingstone.livejournal.com]

I actually have read it, but not in a long while. Why were you thinking that it would be relevant to my situation?

Re: book recommendation

[jhogan.livejournal.com]

Because it seems like you are working through questions related to the intersection of life purpose, vocation, strategy, and money :-)

Re: book recommendation

[laughingstone.livejournal.com]

That makes sense! Thanks :)

Re: book recommendation

[mikz.livejournal.com]

Can I borrow your copy some time?

[crasch.livejournal.com]

If I feel that my purpose is to add beauty and spread happiness to the world, what is my career?

Host Cuddle Parties! :)

Just listened to a talk/interview with BJ Fogg, head of the Stanford Persuasive Technology program. He said that he took 7 years to complete his undergrad (among other things, he was an English major, then premed), followed by two masters (4 years) and a PhD. So, you're not alone in taking some time to find a good fit.

Some suggestions from his talk:

* To stand out from the crowd, it's much easier if you focus. The more focused the better. For example, rather than trying to become an expert on all the possible uses of Facebook (a difficult, if not impossible task), you might choose to become an expert at explaining Facebook to parents.

* To help identify what you're passionate enough about to become an expert, imagine that you're planning an extended vacation. What books would you bring?

* Once you've identified your niche, ask yourself, "What would success mean? If I hit a home run, what would it look like? Who would be my customers? How would I help my customers achieve their goals? How can I help people to do what they already want to do?

* if you decide that you want to work for an existing company, start acting as if you already have the role you want. Start sending a report every week to the person for whom you want to work. At first, they're going to be "WTF?", but eventually, they're going to realize you're already doing the job, and will find a way to fit you in.

* Success leads to success. Initially, set tiny goals that you can meet every day. What's the littlest step you can take? As your confidence grows, you will naturally want to expand them.

* Choose to hang around friends who make you feel awesome, who promote you to others.

* Take the time to identify and feel gratitude about the good things in your life. When you feel gratitude/appreciation, your ability to hope will increase.

* What are the barriers to getting the results you want? How can you remove those barriers?

[laughingstone.livejournal.com]

Host Cuddle Parties! :)

Grand idea! Wanna come? ;)

In general, I love all the tips BJ shared. Thank you for your awesome synopsis. I want to noodle on them all some more.

And for some reason, this one stood out to me most:

if you decide that you want to work for an existing company, start acting as if you already have the role you want. Start sending a report every week to the person for whom you want to work. At first, they're going to be "WTF?", but eventually, they're going to realize you're already doing the job, and will find a way to fit you in.

[don-negro.livejournal.com]

I spent T-24 months->T-9 months asking myself the same questions. I've struggled most of my life trying to find work that felt worth doing. I don't expect that I have any answers, but I can share my experience.

I'm currently the sole person doing software engineering (which I have experience doing, but no formal educational qualifications) for a department of about 50 people at Apple.

I really enjoy what I'm doing every day; the problems are fun, and they give me insight into the questions that underlie my super-secret research project. The existence of a super-secret research project is what makes it less a job, and more of an adventure. That's been key a to my happiness. I'm working my way toward a deep understanding of how information flows through systems made up of both humans and machines. At this point, I experience many aspects of my day-to-day job as the actions of an archaeologist, sifting through the dirt, finding the intriguing clues.

Working for oneself is awesome, but there are things that have to be in place to make it work well. It requires either excellent marketing skills or an existing network of people who appreciate your work and have the desire and means to procure it. That's the part that I've never been good at manufacturing, so I don't have anything useful to say about it. But I've always leaned toward the types of work that people I knew needed, and that's helped tremendously.

The only other thing I'd say is this: if you don't have the freedom to not earn any money for six months to a year, it's very hard to start any kind of self-employment. If you don't have that freedom, then it's really very much a matter of cold, hard dollars. How low can you make all of your expenses. As anyone in the startup world will tell you, the main factor for success is the length of your runway. How long can you spend gathering customers before you run out of money.

It's a problem I've spent a lot of years thinking about, working within the confines of, and restructuring my life to better address the realities of. It's not easy, especially at first, but in my case, the upsides have proven to be huge.

Good Luck. Let me know what I can do to help.

[laughingstone.livejournal.com]

The existence of a super-secret research project is what makes it less a job, and more of an adventure. That's been key a to my happiness.

That is really interesting. Not just the specifics of your project but that fact that there is a larger mission that floats your job satisfaction outside of anything the actual job provides you. I imagine this is a very valuable approach to coping with the annoying stresses of every job.

Apes attempting to organize can be so complicated.

I am curious to hear everything you have to say about how you developed your concept, not just the specifics, but the general.

I have okay marketing skills but a fabulous network. My cost of living is very low so that is a good thing for starting my own business.

[mikz.livejournal.com]

I've asked myself similar questions for years. One strategy I've been considering (and trying to make happen) is to do traditional work, which may not quite be my life's calling, but I won't hate, especially if I can do it less than fulltime, and have time to additionally do what I really want. This is what you tried a couple of years ago, though, right? What made you decide to go full-time in the end?