Episode Transcript
[00:00:19] Speaker A: Welcome Back to episode four of the 45 left or right podcast.
If you hear a bunch of wind, wait one sec.
That is because I'm recording from Mammoth Mountain from the warmth and cold. Wait, warmth of my lodge room while Jeff and Devin ski.
Now, why is Therese not skiing today? Because yesterday I got hurt, which is not uncommon when I go skiing, yet.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: I still do it.
[00:01:02] Speaker A: So I am here in the warmth and safety of our really lovely hotel room at Juniper Springs Lodge here in Mammoth, which is a really, really cool ski resort. It's lives up to its mate, its name, it's huge.
Really nice. Ski in, ski out place.
But I made it about halfway through our first run, which was a blue run, and I just, I hurt my knee and I had to be. I had to be dragged down by ski patrol. It was horrible. But I'm here now. I'm safe and they're having a good time.
Welcome to 45 Left or Right podcast. Episode four. What do you want to be when you grow up?
Oh, I have a lot of thoughts on this one.
So to start with a story, as usual, when I was honorably discharged in March of 2007 from the Army, I had both hope and fear.
I had spent seven years under the rules and structure of a 231 year old military institution and I was ready for some freedom.
But the outright freedom was also really scary. You mean I can do whatever I want?
What in the hell is that gonna be?
Jeff and I had been living in northern New York at Fort Drum for four years. Actually him for me three. Because I was in Iraq for a year and in northern New York, the temperature regularly goes below zero and the average Snowfall is over 100 inches. Oh, the Florida girl in me was not used to that for sure. So when I got out, we were definitely ready for a temperature change. And now we could go like absolutely anywhere.
That was daunting. Exciting, but daunting.
We were pretty sure that we wanted to live in the south since we were both, you know, familiar with it and both had family there.
And so after many interviews and many discussions about this major life change, I accepted a job with idexx Laboratories as a diagnostic practice consultant, which is a fancy word for a hardcore sales representative.
So idexx sells veterinary diagnostic equipment. So it's lab equipment that can measure hematology, chemistry and that sort of thing.
It's actually pretty cool. So we ended up in Charlotte, which was absolutely ideal for us. It was near what we call the motherland of Davidson, our alma mater.
Alma mater where we met and it was about like six hours from my parents and then about two hours from his grandparents in Asheville. I mean, Yahoo. We had a direction and it felt good and it felt exciting.
So here's the thing.
I thought that I was going to be a good sales representative.
I mean, I was friendly and outgoing and generally I can establish a good rapport with people, but I didn't really know what sales entailed.
I thought, oh my gosh, wow. I mean, if I do well here, I could later do medical device sales. I have a direction, but it's sales is like much more than just getting along with people.
I would drive to all of these, like, really far flung places all over North Carolina, mostly the western, like the mountains.
And I was trying to sell these rural country vets equipment that cost over $60,000. And it's well over that now.
So how can I ethically sell this expensive equipment to a vet who is bartering with his patients because they can't afford his care?
It would be like, I'll do this surgery on your cat if you bring me five chickens and a goat for my farm.
It was insane and I just hated it. I felt like it was soul sucking.
So I left that job, and for the next 10 years or so, I tried lots of jobs. I tried more sales jobs, and then I was a customer service rep for Sprint.
That was terrible. It was 10 hours of talking to irate people who did not know that most problems on a cell phone are solved by just turning off and turning on their phone.
No, thank you. Now, I did learn that I was really good at talking people off the ledge, as in, I had a knack for calming them down.
But what confused me about that job, and I think a lot of, you know, customer service jobs over the phone, is that they want you to at least make them think you were solving their problem while also getting them off the phone as quickly as possible. You were measured on both customer satisfaction through their surveys and then how long you were on the phone call. I think that the measure is they wanted you to be on the phone and solve their problems for under three minutes. But, you know, don't give the customer any money back either, which is honestly, that's all the customer wanted.
It was terrible.
I tried all these things and I just had absolutely no direction.
I enjoyed writing and I'm a good writer, but, you know, it wouldn't be very profitable. And that was kind of how I was measuring what I would do next. And by the way, it still isn't Profitable.
I did stand up comedy for a year or so, but. And I enjoyed it, but it is hard, but the lifestyle just was not conducive to the family life that I wanted. I would take care of toddler Devin all day and then go to bars and restaurants to do open mics.
And, you know, I'd come home at 2 in the morning and then have to be up at 6 in the morning.
And at the time I was dealing with a lot of mental health issues and also addiction at the time. So I was just lost at this time in my life, as in at age 45, I have, I have more direction in my professional life, but barely.
I do consider myself a freelance journalist, but the field has really changed. Even before COVID online publications were laying off their journalists and then they were then flooding the freelance market and it was just really difficult for those that were just getting started, which was me. And it was just really hard to make any headway. I mean, you submit pitch after pitch after pitch after pitch to these editors and usually you just never hear anything. And though. So you assume it's a no or you get I got a lot of this is a really good idea for a story, but we're gonna pass.
It's so frustrating, but it is part of the job.
So for me, this podcasting thing is the next thing.
But I'm not ready to call it a career quite yet. But I'm really enjoying it so far and hopefully you're enjoying my podcast.
So here we are, middle age. And at this time in our lives, we can't just follow our passion. We can't just decide to go from being a lawyer to a doctor or a business man or a woman to a poet. We have mortgages to pay, mouths to feed, time constrictions, and then usually just a family lifestyle to uphold.
The question is, can we still be happy in a career we don't love, or can we be happy feeling like we haven't found our passion yet?
That elusive passion?
Can we still be happy not knowing what we want to be when we grow up? When we are, without a doubt, grown up?
Welcome Back to the 45 left or right podcast.
I want to talk about what it's like to be a Gen X or millennial and how you relate to the idea of a career. I was born in 1978, so I am a fringe Gen Xer. I think I'm considered a Xennial in some places. So if you are middle age, you're either a Gen X or an elder millennial.
You Most likely grew up with Boomer or silent generation parents who chose careers and stuck with them.
My father was a lawyer and then became a judge, and my mom was a legal secretary for 40 years. Can you guess how they met?
Now, my parents didn't pressure me to pick something, which I appreciate, but that was just what I felt I was supposed to do, according to everyone else around me, which included my peers.
I remember being in college and my classmates and friends just seemed to have it figured out. I'm going to law school, I'm going to medical school, I'm going to divinity school, I'm going to business school, et cetera.
I later learned, though, that the ones who went to law school weren't necessarily like, wanting to be lawyers, but they were just picking something that they thought would be useful.
Now, I was grateful that I had the army because I could put off making this big decision.
I had at least four years where I did not have to think about what I wanted to do because I did not know what I was going to do. I barely knew what I wanted to major in.
I chose English, not because it was going to lead me anywhere, but because I was good at it and I liked it. There is absolutely nothing else behind that decision. Nothing.
I have had 24 years of a professional life and not one career.
I have done. You know, I've done some professional writing, and I do consider myself a journalist, but not necessarily a prolific one.
If you have listened to my podcast at least the first few episodes, you know that I like research and statistics. So let's talk about some statistics concerning Gen Xers and Millennials and job satisfaction or career satisfaction. Gen Xers are between the ages generally of 46 and 59. And millennials, who are, by the way, unfairly blamed for everything, are between the ages of 28 and 44.
Note, 45 is not in those statistics because we're on the bubble, but I'm gonna kind of consider myself Gen X.
Here are some Gen X and Millennial statistics when it comes to careers. So the first bit, it's a little sketchy of a source. ApolloTechnical.com and they are selling trade jobs or trade education for jobs. So it's a little sketchy source, but let me share that with you and then I'll talk about it.
So they say of the American surveyed, 53% use half or less of their education and 15% use none of their education. So again, I'm putting just a little bit of faith in this source, but I kind of can see that these Stats can be probable, so I don't doubt all this information.
It's hard to actually find good stats for careers and career changing and career satisfaction. The Bureau for Labor and Statistics doesn't even track career satisfaction, which I'm sure it's just because it's too hard to measure.
How do you measure someone's satisfaction? And also what is a career and what is a job? So Apollo technical it is. Personally, I do use my education generally, but not in the way that I expected. And honestly, I don't know what I expected because I didn't choose my major with any career goal in mind, even my degree in literary journalism, which I got in 2019. So I was whatever age that was late 30s, early 40s, you know, that education. I certainly had more of a direction than what I wanted to do as a journalist.
If you aren't familiar, literary journalism can also be known as creative nonfiction. And it basically takes true stories and tells them in a more creative or in a. In a fashion that has a narrative. Personally, when I read the book Seabiscuit by Laura Hildebrand, I was like, what is this kind of writing? This is what I want to do.
So I definitely went to school and got my degree in literary journalism for a reason, but I'm still not really using it in the way that I envisioned I might in the future, but right now I'm not. My husband is one of those rare people who seemed to know what he wanted to do pretty early on. He liked working on the computer and was really good at it. But he majored in chemistry and certainly had an emphasis.
Like, I think he got a concentration in computer science from Davidson, but he has not done any sort of chemistry work since he graduated from Davidson and only works on computers. He does something about network security for a major mapping company, but I cannot eloquently explain what else and how what he does. But he really likes it, so I'm proud of him for that.
Okay, so the average age people change careers is 39, which tells me that people become dissatisfied around that age or they didn't like their chosen career to begin with, or they have changed, as we tend to do, and the career just doesn't suit them anymore.
60% of Gen X feels quote, used up at the end of the day and 44% expect to leave their companies soon. And this was a survey done in 2021 by a company called DDI. They are a leadership development firm, which is basically a human resource firm. And I take some validity in this, these statistics, because the report examines responses from 2,102 human resource professionals and 15,787 leaders spanning 50 countries and 24 major industry sectors. So it's pretty valid.
What's the word? It's pretty valid. Statistically.
According to a Gallup poll conducted in 2021, millennials are three times more likely to have changed jobs in the past year than non millennials. Now, some would say, oh, millennials are flighty. But I do not believe that to be the case in general. So this stat tells me a few things.
One, when we hit middle age, we have enough life experience to know what we want. At least know what we want as compared to what we what we thought when we were in our 20s.
Two, when we hit middle age, we have complete identity crises because of terms like middle age, as in we only have so much time left to live. What are we going to do now? I've sort of been experiencing that, but I don't like that term.
Number three, we never wanted our chosen careers in the first place, but had to choose because that is what we're supposed to do.
Number what am I on now? Four, we never figured it out and we might never will. And number five, we have been looking for our passion as a career and maybe that is not realistic.
I was on Indeed.com, which, if you don't know, is a website for job seekers and job finders. Is that the word? No, job seekers. And it was entitled how to find your passion in life. 2023 Secrets you've been missing. And I groaned like, come on, these kinds of articles just set us up for dissatisfaction, as if you need to find something that fulfills you in a career.
Personally, I am very fulfilled with seeing Devin grow up.
I mean, right now he's off skiing with Jeff, and this year we have seen he's really become a great skier. He's always been fearless, but now he's got a little bit of the skills to back it up and he's matured in his resilience. I would say that has been so cool to see.
I am fulfilled with my 22 year marriage and I know that isn't the case for everyone, but I feel very fulfilled and very grateful that I have that.
I take a lot of joy in my close friends. I get to spend a lot more time with them and I'm very fulfilled by all of my hobbies and I do have a lot of those.
With all of that and with all the things that do make me feel fulfilled, there is always something inside me that just feels like I am inadequate because I haven't found something that earns me money that also completely fulfills me.
I'm sure you all have heard the term or something similar. You won't work a day in your life if you find something you enjoy.
If that were true for me, I would be a career jiu jitsu practitioner, gym rat paddle boarder and baseball mom. Will anyone hire me to do those things? That would be great.
And it also ignores the fact that some of us will be working every day of our lives and that should be okay.
Setting aside the reality that many people just don't have the luxury, like me, of having the time and the room to career or job hop, many people in middle age, I think, begin to find satisfaction outside of their careers, whether it's through their kids or hobbies or something else. I think this is just a time in our lives that, you know, they say, like when you hit your 40s in particular, you get to know yourself better. But I think we are starting at this age to start to say what am I doing and what makes me happy and how can I accommodate all of those things? And it is a lot, right? It is a lot to think about, but I think we all have our own realities.
When I am driving in my car and I am zoning out while my son talks to me about Minecraft or the many details of airplanes, which is his current obsession, my mind wanders to thinking about finding what I want to do when I grow up.
I am still going to continue to drive around thinking about this, especially since my son will still rattle on about these things that I feign interest in. But maybe there are some truths that I and we need to accept about our careers and our life's passions.
Number one, you are amazing if you have a career that you love.
Many people are jealous of you, including me, but that should never take away from your joy.
Number two, you are amazing if you have a job that you tolerate.
Number three, you are amazing if, like me, you are still trying to figure it out and it's okay if you never do.
Number four, you are amazing if you are thinking about a career change and you are brave for even considering it.
So let's free ourselves from feeling inadequate for not reaching this largely unattainable standard. You are not inept. You are not aimless.
You should not be insecure about this.
So that is where I am headed, but I am definitely not there yet.
[00:28:59] Speaker B: Thank you for listening to the 45.
[00:29:03] Speaker A: Left or right podcast.
[00:29:05] Speaker B: I hope you enjoyed this one.
If you happen to listen to this.
[00:29:12] Speaker A: On a podcast app that allows you.
[00:29:14] Speaker B: You to rate, review and subscribe. I would appreciate if you did that. And then please share with any of your friends you think might enjoy it. I hope you've been enjoying it. I sure have been enjoying making it and I'm going to try to publish weekly, but I will most likely miss next week because my son is on spring break. But I'll still try. But thanks again for listening and bye for now.
