Fwied Wice

The mechanics of career change

There are some practical things one can do also to change into a new career; it’s not just about the internal self-battling struggle (though I do find that’s a large part of it). One of the hardest things is applying for a new job in a new field when everyone is looking for experience. How do you get the experience if you can’t get a job in the new field? Some things I’ve tried:

• Informational Interviewing – Talking to people currently employed in the field you want to get into really helps to get information on what education, experience, career path these people took to get to their current position. Informational Interviewing doesn’t have to be long, 20 minutes, 4 quick questions, and emphasis that you are not looking for a job: How did you get to this point? What do you like about it? What do you dislike about it? Where do you see the field going? And then ask if there is anyone else you could talk to in the same field. I am always very shy asking people to talk about themselves, but I got over the shyness and made myself talk to some of the librarians at my local branch which was very helpful.

• Volunteering – Unfortunately, in order to be paid to work in a new field, sometimes you have to start with being unpaid in the new field. The public library is very open to volunteers; other fields may be harder to break into. This is why it’s helpful to talk to people in the field currently (see above) and see where they got started. Volunteering provides you with experience and an opportunity to evaluate if you really do like this new career path.

• Career Counseling – Sometimes it’s helpful to get some outside advice. I went to a career counselor for a year before I realized I wasn’t implementing any of her advice and decided I needed some time to actually do what she had been advising. I enjoyed going to the career counselor to get another opinion outside of my own head and from someone who had experience changing careers. I didn’t actually follow all her advice until a year later, but the steps she outlined in changing careers was very helpful. You don’t have to see a counselor every week and it’s not the stereotypical sit-on-the-couch-and-tell-me-your-feelings type of counseling. It’s just a way to get another opinion, which may or may not be valuable to you.

Even if you’ve tried and dismissed all these things, ask your friends and see if they have any ideas. You never know what knowledge someone has that they don’t even know they have that could be the nugget of a great idea for the next step in your career change! Good luck! And leave a comment to tell me how it’s going!

It’s the economy, stupid

Career change when the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 21% in the last week and a half or so does not seem like very good timing on my part. Every time I watch the news (which is not often) or see a headline online, I start to get those fluttering feelings in my stomach and I can feel the panic setting in. What if I can’t find a job in something I like? How will we pay the rent, pay for food?! I remember working in 2003 as a programmer as the economy got worse and feeling relatively safe in a university job. Nothing is ever that secure, but I had enough work to do and a university never seems to fail miserably as a private company can. Those safe secure job feelings are long gone.

What I end up asking myself is, is it worth it, to have feel insecure job wise but to have the time to explore things that I enjoy? Most of the time the answer is yes. Yet there is still A LOT of insecurity and uncertainty, even while relishing in learning things that I want to learn or teaching origami to small children as I’ve been doing at various library branches around town, the first two this week. I love the opportunity to be out during the day, learning something new, meeting new people, experiencing new things. Like taking a trip to the local prison to witness women telling the stories of why they went to prison. Interacting with 8 and 9 year olds and hearing their insightful comments about origami (“It looks like the British flag!” or “Math is everywhere!”). Thinking, writing, processing my own emotions. I know I wouldn’t be experiencing any of this while still working as a programmer, but I wouldn’t be panicking every time I heard the news and worrying about money.

It is certainly a trade-off, I can totally feel it. Will it be worth it? I don’t know for sure. Maybe I just have to get used to the uncertainty, which I have to some extent. I have been feeling recently that life is like a movie, a drama where you watch the main characters struggle to get to a point and then the writers leave you hanging as the screen fades to black and you wonder what’s going to happen next. Except in life there’s no flash forward to the happy ending at the end. You really don’t know what is going to happen, ever.

But for now I’ve been enjoying this time, even if I do pay with panicy feelings more often than before and the stress of not having regular income. It’s been great learning and stretching in directions I want to stretch. I hope someday I can stretch and feel passionately about what I’m doing AND get paid for it. Everyones mission in life, it seems.

You are not alone

When I first started researching other career possibilities, I talked it over constantly over lunch with many colleagues from work. Most of the people I called friends were people I had met at work, but they were not sympathetic to career change possibilities. They were working in the same job I was working in as a computer programmer. They liked it. It paid well, the benefits were good, the job security was better at a public sector job than a private sector job. They were not highly sympathetic of changing jobs into another field. They were happy where they were. Thoughts of changing didn’t occur to them as it did to me. Or if they did think of it, they were pretty comfortable where they were and didn’t act on it. Most of these lunchtime conversations often left me frustrated, thinking why should I bother to change, since everyone I spoke to was very happy where they were. I felt like I should be happy there too.

But I wasn’t, as I’ve explained in previous posts. And now that I’ve gotten out and met a lot of other people no working in computer programming, I am surprised by how many people I meet that can relate to career change. Almost every other person I talk to responds positively to my “career transition” answer to the question of “what do you do?” I hear stories of packing up everything to move to another city, encouragement to do what you enjoy, thoughts of working in a field that you love, not just a job. I am surprised by how many people are out there that are trying the same thing: trying to find work they love and that they find fulfilling.

So I think back to these lunches with people who were my friends but could not relate to wanting to change out of a job they liked very much. And I remember what a career counselor told me but that I didn’t understand at the time. That you have to try to surround yourself with people who do understand, because sometimes your current support system of friends and colleagues is not going to understand doing something different. Sometimes you have to find other avenues of support. If you’re reading these career change posts at all, then you looking for other people who can relate and support what you’re doing. And we are out there! But I just want you to know that there others who want to change too, you just have to find them! And part of finding them is admitting to yourself and to others that you want to change too. Please leave a comment if you have any stories or comments relating to your own change! Thanks for reading!

So what do you do?

Ah, this ubiquitous question. Asked just about everywhere you go. I went to the dentist, the hygenist asked me while cleaning my teeth, leading to a garbled answer. The nurse asked me at the doctor’s office. Po Bronson talks about it in his book, “What Should I Do With My Life,” the ubiquitous cocktail question. I have problems answering this question.

I got obnoxious at the doctor’s office. “I just live. That is what I do.” Since when have we all become defined by what we do to make a living? We all do lots of things. We eat, poop, sleep, buy groceries, volunteer. What we do to make a living does not define all of us. But it’s an easy question and an easy answer for most and it breaks the ice and spurs conversation. I understand it, but I don’t like it.

When I first was willingly unemployed and was asked this question, I usually answered, “Nothing.” I didn’t feel good about my first bout of voluntary unemployment and was embaressed by not having a job. I was critical of myself in trying to explore something new, and I thought everyone would be critical of me. All this self-doubt came out in my answer of “Nothing.” My continual answers of “Nothing” made me feel worse and worse about what I was really doing: taking time off, exploring other opportunities, volunteering, organizing my life. “Nothing” is a terrible answer.

This led to me taking a part-time contract at UT as a programmer again. At least I had an answer to this question: “I work as a programmer part-time.” That usually shut people up. I didn’t have to reveal that  vulnerable part of me that was unsure about making a career change.

Then, a year later, my head finally told me I had had enough of programming. I have given a good second chance, checking and rechecking this was not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life to make a living. I liked everything about my contract work – my boss, the arrangement, the pay – but I just did not want to do the work anymore. The job is great and the people are great but I just could not bring myself to do the work. I wished I liked it, but I found I really didn’t. Hence my second period of unemployment, which I am in now.

I answer this question differently now. I am much more confident in what I am trying to do and I have picked a direction. I still bristle at this question, but I have an answer: “I am career transitioning into library work and writing. I’m just getting started.” People perk at “career transition.” They often share a story of their own transition, their own desire to transition, their experiences starting out, something. It has opened many conversations and I have had very positive experiences framing my life this way, instead of retreating behind my own self-inflicted shame.

Of course people told me starting out 2 years ago that you do have to put yourself out there before you’re ready to. And I didn’t quite get it. Now that I’m on the other side, now that I have more confidence in what I’m trying to do, I see how right they are. I learned that you don’t have to tell everyone the whole story. You can tell them what you want them to know. You can share a part of yourself that isn’t so vulnerable and that you feel good about it. But sometimes it takes a while to get there. And I learned that a lot of people are sympathetic to career change, to exploring. Humans do like to learn, and even complete strangers will either not comment or encourage you, but rarely criticize you the way you criticize yourself.

This question will not go away, but now I have an answer. And my goal is to get to a career where I am proud of my answer and proud to be defined by what I do to make a living. Where I enjoy going to work each day and love what I do, despite the annoyances that all jobs have. Yes, ultimately I want to be defined by what I do for a living because I went out and explored it, researched it, and ultimately chose “what I do.”

How I am like my dog when it comes to changing careers

I love dogs. I have a small rescue from the pound, supposedly a Finnish Spitz mix, but really she looks like a cross between a golden retriever and a chihuahua. I adopted her when she was 6 years old so she had a pretty well developed personality that I haven’t tried hard to change, though I know dog trainers would say I could. Part of her personality is a palette like a restaurant critic.

I remember once a couple of coworkers were amazed their dogs could eat the same thing day after day and be excited about it and really like it. This is not my dog. My dog does not like getting the same thing day after day. If we give her the same dog food day after day, she will eat it for two days, and then eventually turn her nose at it. I tried to rotate dog foods for a while, different flavors in the same brand, and this worked until we hit the second rotation, and she realized she was getting the same thing day after day, except the days were longer. I tried putting stuff on her dog food, like yogurt or ketchup, but she would only half-heartedly lick it up after the 3rd day. I tried cooking food for her with recipes from the vet, and adding boiled noodles or boiled eggs to mix into her dog food to make it more appealing. She started spitting out the boiled eggs and we discovered she’s lactose intolerant.

My dog was a stray before she came to live us so she’s very adept at begging. I think that’s how she made it out on the streets, being cute and getting handouts. So she knows what people food tastes like. And of course we haven’t made this any better since we give her lots of table scraps. I kept mixing in people food into her dog food to see if this would tempt her to eat the dog food, but she would give it a sniff, turn up her nose, and let is go gray and gross in her bowl. She was willing to starve a little to see what other goodies would turn up her bowl.

Of course this worked. She continued to lose weight, which my vet and vet techs gave me grief for, and I felt like a terrible dog owner with this skinny emaciated dog. So I finally started giving her leftover sloppy joes, spaghetti, processed breakfast foods, and she loves that. Now I don’t even try anymore with the dog food, I just want to see her eat. It’s not good for her, but it may put some meat on those bones. She held out and and was rewarded.

This is how I feel about my attempts to change careers. I could have worked my entire life in my computer programming job, eating the same dog food day after day that I really didn’t like, or I could hold out and wait for something better. I could starve a little, though financially in my case, to see if just maybe there was something better that was going to end up in my bowl. Life is too short to eat the same dog food day after day, especially if you don’t like it. I find this personality trait of my dog completely annoying but it’s certainly worked for her. She is eating much tastier food and making me cook more for her. I hope her success will be mirrored in my life too, but that is yet to be seen. Either way, at least one of us is happier through holding out.

Career change

Well, blogs need to be about something and mine really hasn’t been. It’s taken me a while get used to the idea of putting myself out there. But, I think I would like to blog about this career change I’m going through, prompted by an email I just sent a friend. I am trying to move from computer programming into library work, writing, and freelance writing.

I know, I know, everyone wants to be a writer. My dad had a great line about that. His story went, apparently some archeologists were digging up ancient Greek artifacts, and they came across an ancient scroll. They were very excited to discover a scroll and witness new found wisdom from the ancients. They opened it up and it took them a while to find someone who translated the text. In the end, the wisdom from the ancients was: Children no longer obey their parents and everyone is writing a book. Some things never change.

And how can I be a writer if the grammar on this page is terrible, I can’t spell, etc, etc. Well, my new philosophy of life is you will never know what could have been done if you’ve never tried. Sure, very cliche and people repeat it all the time. But when it comes to applying it to your own life, much easier said then done.

I certainly stutter stepped my way to this path. At first I went around asking everyone else what they thought I’d be good at. But ultimately, it’s an internal process, to be really honest with yourself as to what you really enjoy. I knew I was making progress when I wasn’t asking everyone what they thought I should do, but telling them what I enjoyed doing. Who knows better than me what I like to do? Same goes for any of you reading out there (all none of you.

Then I freaked out about quitting work and not having a steady source of income. It was very easy to go back to a part-time contract position in a programming job that paid very well but was not doing what I wanted to do. I wanted to have a job where I was learning more about things I wanted to learn about, not learning more because I had to learn for me job. In order to do my computer programming job better, I really needed to learn more about programming languages and concepts, but that was certainly something I didn’t want to learn more about. Letting go of the easy way to make money and coming to terms with not having a steady income was very very hard.

And I certainly discovered a lot about myself. I discovered, among other things, that I am a very impatient person. I wanted something to happen right away. *Blink blink*, I am a writer! I am famous and make lots of money! No, it doesn’t quite happen that way. It’s been a slow process with lots of internal struggles. I’ve been at it for almost two years now really. This post is just a summary. I will try to add more thoughts to fill in the blanks if anyone is interested in reading. Leave a comment if you are and tell me about your own career change attempts! Remember, every small step is a small victory.