Still trying to figure out what color her parachute is...

October 18, 2009 12:20 AM

I need help helping my wife figure out what to do with her life. I am a very lucky person who has known for a long time that I wanted to be an engineer. I love math and science, and truthfully I can think of lots of jobs that would probably satisfy me. However, I recognize that I am in the minority in this position, and my wife, sadly, falls into the other group. She has been feeling particularly down about finding her purpose for quite a while now, and I need to figure out how to help her. Read on for the details!

My wife is a business major (communications), which makes things especially hard for me; my peers and I spent much of our college years mocking business for being a "fake major." I am somewhat wiser now, but I struggle with the fact that I personally would probably find almost any businessy, non-technical job to be completely boring and unsatisfying. Like many others, my wife didn't really know what to do when she entered college. She started off as a geography major, but was persuaded by her parents that this would not be useful, and switched to business instead. She still talks wistfully of her geography classes, and I find this story a bit upsetting.

She worked sales for a short while, and then got a job at a high-powered consulting firm. She rose through the ranks quite quickly, and I always tell her that one of her most amazing skills is that she actually cares about doing a good job at work, even if she hates the job itself. She is dedicated and takes pride in what she is doing, but she often hates the environment she is in. She eventually left the consulting firm because she felt sickened by the fact that they were advising people on issues that they had little knowledge about, and also because any further career progress would have required her to "sell her soul" to the company - a huge percentage of the people above her were divorced and routinely working 80 hour weeks. There were other reasons for leaving, but for now I'll leave it that big-name consulting was not for her.

She is now working in project management, but is becoming dissatisfied again. I have trouble getting her to articulate all the reasons, but among them are:

1) She feels that many of the people she works with are bad at their jobs, and she winds up picking up the slack.
2) She has never felt that she has ever developed a specialized skill set. When job searching, she usually feels unqualified for most positions, or doesn't even know where to start looking.
3) In general, she just doesn't enjoy the work very much and dreads the idea of doing this same old thing for another 20-30 years.

I'm sure that part of the issue here is self esteem, and I'm trying to help her with that. However, I don't really know what other advice to give her. She has read through "What Color Is Your Parachute?", "What Should I Do With My Life?", and done various online tests that are supposed to help you find your calling, but to no avail. It seems that a major issue is that she doesn't have any particular passion that translates into a job. What she is good at:

1) Organization. She is highly frustrated by people that don't think ahead and plan for the future. She likes making lists, speadsheets, and databases.
2) Research. Back in the day, she joked about being a travel agent because she like researching vacations. However, she doesn't have much experience with academic research, and isn't crazy about reading through papers all day long.
3) Editing/Proofreading. Goes with #1. She has previously handled "style guides" for various writings done at the consulting firm, and helped manage the publishing of large documents and reports.

Again though, she isn't really passionate about any of those things. She has considered working in editing or publishing, but feels she has very little experience. She is also very prideful, and already took a significant salary decrease to switch to her current job. Taking some "simple", entry-level position in a new field will be very difficult for her to swallow. She does have education benefits in her current position and is very interested in going back to school; the problem, of course, is that she has no idea what for!

My own job choices will always be really obvious. I have specific technical skills that are in high demand, and will likely one day go into technical management of some kind. I have a lot of trouble with the nebulous, vague world of business, and confess that I often wonder what all these people really do all day. I think my wife is confused about her own skill sets and how to find a job that she can enjoy. So what can I do? What can she do? Help me help her, hive mind!

posted by RobotNinja to work & money (14 answers total)

She might find the book I Could Do Anything If Only I Knew What It Was by Barbara Sher useful. It was the one that I found most helpful when I knew I wanted a career change and had truly no idea what to do next.

In addition, here are some thoughts that might be helpful:
- There is a place in the business world for people who are generalists and also for people who are good translators - who can bridge between marketing, engineering, legal, accounting etc.
- The quality of the people and the quality of the company make a big difference in the job experience. She might need to get a new job. Based on my own experience, I would suggest that she consider doing it sooner rather than later before she gets so burned out at her present job that she can't imagine doing similar work anywhere else.
- Just because she is doing a job now doesn't mean that she needs to do it for another 30 years. Lots of people make career changes later in life - if the career is OK then she can take her time deciding what she wants to do next.
- Her job does not need to be the center of her life - there is nothing wrong with having a job that is mildly interesting and pays enough to support her lifestyle and other interests. Passion is not always a job requirement although it helps a lot if she believes that the mission of the organization is worthwhile.
-She might find working with a professional career counselor or life coach to be helpful - particularly giving her an outside perspective on how her skills might translate to different jobs and where her experience would actually make her a qualified, even desirable candidate.

Finally, I'm not sure that you actually need to help your wife solve this problem. This is her problem and she will find her own solution to it. The two of you are sufficiently different that it will be very hard for you to evaluate what will work for her (and might drive her crazy). My recommendation is that you focus on being a sounding board, just listening to her talk and reflecting back what you are hearing without adding too much of your own opinions. Suggesting resources might be helpful (if she is open to it) but give her plenty of space to solve this in her way - even if it drives your engineering soul crazy to see her wrestling a problem without jumping in to help solve it.
posted by metahawk at 12:54 AM on October 18, 2009

This is a huge subject and I bet you get lots of good answers. I'll go with the aspect I'm familiar with, a little: project management.

It seems like the big project, soulless corporation thing isn't satisfying for her (and I'm not surprised!). Has she considered doing the same work but at a different scale, maybe for a small, specialist business? Some place that's got people who are excellent at their profession, but have grown the business to the point where they're spending more time doing meta-work like scheduling and so on instead of doing their actual job?

Because people like that would be extremely grateful to have someone like your wife to handle that stuff for them, and she might be happier working for people who appreciate her skills and don't need to dump their own tasks onto her. If their skills are very different from her own, there's much clearer boundaries about responsibilities.

Another book to look at, if she's not sick of them already, is I could do anything, if only I knew what it was, which is about how to figure out a life path when you don't actually know what you want yet.
posted by harriet vane at 1:02 AM on October 18, 2009 [1 favorite]

Your wife might enjoy becoming a certified change management consultant. Although many business have dramatically cut back their spending on consulting in the current recession, others are in the process of change, and are spending for outside consulting help in managing downsizing, mergers, and asset re-allocation, as never before. It's an especially important skill set for organizations facing major structural change, with a workforce that may already be frightened by general economic news, and fear of job loss and earnings decline.
posted by paulsc at 1:17 AM on October 18, 2009

Try and think of something she would love doing even if she made no money at all.

Another clue: Remember what she was interested in when she was very little. What games or toys were particularly fascinating to her? I used to cut up my father's socks and design dresses for my dolls.
posted by AuntieRuth at 2:27 AM on October 18, 2009

It may help to work out if she needs to find her purpose at work or if she can be happy working a job to earn a living and find her purpose outside work. The answer to that will determine what she does in terms of finding her next job.

If she's happy to find her purpose outside work then just finding another job in project management that is a better fit for her may be enough.

Another way to approach it would be to worry less about skills and competencies and more about what she likes to spend her time doing because it makes her feel energised and then find a role that allows her to do that. It sounds as if her background is generalist enough to have a go at a wide range of things so it really comes down to finding something that plays to her strengths and will therefore make her feel energised when she does it.
posted by koahiatamadl at 3:10 AM on October 18, 2009

Two things that I think is very important to remember when thinking about these kind of things:

1) Vocation, thank god, is a river you can step into twice, or three times, or as many times as you need or feel. A change doesn't have to be forever and many people now have many different vocations over life. Also: you can always change back. How glorious; if only we could revoke or alter so many other decisions we make in life where consequence sits much heavier 'pon our shoulders.

2) Because work, for better or worse, ties with consumerism as such a fundamental part of a the western life experience, I think it's very easy to internalise and identify with our jobs far more than is probably healthy. And thus, when you're having a bad time at work, it's easy - so easy - to say, "the problem is the vocation. The problem is me. I am not enjoying this job, therefore I am not XYZ person. Maybe I'm ABC person. I don't know, I always thought I was XYZ. Oh God, what kind of person am I?!?!!!"

But the reality is, sometimes a job is shit. It's not the vocation, it's not a reflection of who you are or what you like. It's just a shit job, mainly cause you have to work with dickheads. When you're actually enjoying your work, it's amazing how easy it is to disassociate those identity questions. I'm a corporate shmuck that gets a big (to me!) salary now, was an exciting and dream-living freelancer in the past, but you know what? The two best jobs I've ever had, one was after-school care. And the other was cleaning out plastic tubs that used to have chicken fat in them. I loved that job.

Now, I didn't think, "I'm the kind of person that loves chicken fat!", or "This job is challenging me and making me grow, blah blah blah", or "Man, I left some fat on that tub, this must not be my calling!". I didn't give a shit about any of that. I just thought I worked with a really lovely bunch of people, who cared for and respected me - not based on my work - but because they liked me, and I liked them. What a wonderful feeling. I looked forward to coming in every day, never called in sick when I was well, and was honestly sad when the business was sold and we all got fired. I left my job (as a film studies major!) at a video store so I could pull more hours cleaning out tubs of chicken fat.

What I'm saying in a long, roundabout way is, sometimes the job doesn't really matter, it's the environment. Find an environment that suits you, and you may be surprised by how little those questions of identity and sense of value matter.

So changing vocation may not be the answer, working with the right people could be a better ticket.
posted by smoke at 3:44 AM on October 18, 2009 [35 favorites]

Perhaps she should start taking geography courses again. She might not want to pursue a whole degree, but maybe she'll be able to figure out what she loved about them, and transfer to something more practical from there. Or maybe she'll just love taking them, and the fact that her job is what allows it will make the job feel more worth while (I have a friend who has been doing this for years, just taking classes for enjoyment, and finding that the job is more bearable because its what gives him that opportunity).

Or, she may find that with all her consulting and business experience, a specialization in geography opens up a less soul destroying branch of consulting/business. She could visit a department and ask about what kind of options geography might give her with her skill set. She might be surprised at the options. Even if geography no longer appeals, graduating with some sort of humanities/social science degree and gobs of work experience is really different than graduating with some sort of humanities/social science degree and nothing.

On preview, smoke is wise.
posted by carmen at 5:52 AM on October 18, 2009

It sounds like your wife is an intelligent generalist who can pretty much turn her hand to anything and broadly "get stuff done". In my experience, generalists can struggle because business (especially big business) tends to reward specialists - management consultancy can appear an exception but in fact prospering at a management consultancy is quite a specialist skill.

If they want to, a generalist can choose to specialise in one skill/profession (e.g. programming or change management), but that can be frustrating because of their skills which go unutilised. I think it's more satisfying for a generalist to specialise in a particular industry sector (e.g. healthcare or IT) that they really care about on a personal level, and then find a company (probably small-to-medium sized) which doesn't require them to specialise too much.

To speak personally, I've worn various different hats (developer, management consultant, project manager, business owner) in various different sized organisations but I've always enjoyed it because I've been in a sector I really like (broadly, digital/IT/online/telecoms). And generally the smaller the company I've worked for, the more different hats I've been allowed to wear at once.

Maybe your wife could start from a short-list of industry sectors where she'd really like to make a contribution, and go from there?
posted by runkelfinker at 5:56 AM on October 18, 2009

I agree with metahawk that this isn't really your problem to solve. Also, you probably can't really help with her self-esteem issues - that's really something that each of us has to figure out for ourselves, preferably with the help of a qualified therapist.

That said, one thing that pops to mind is geographic information systems (GIS) work - she could become an analyst to start, and go from there. GIS is sometimes used in epidemiology/public health - work that is meaningful and goes beyond just helping some business make a buck.
posted by acridrabbit at 7:15 AM on October 18, 2009

Am I your wife? Seriously. Sounds like so many things I could say about myself.

The parts about picking up the slack for others who are not good at their jobs (or, sometimes that really means "not good at the things I am good at or think THEY should be good at") sound like me. Project Management, when handled by companies who don't truly know what it is- just that they need it- leads to exactly the dissatisfaction she describes.

If she is working for a company like this, they will start to rely more and more on the characteristics that make her the fallback guy in PM scenarios and she'll end up a glorified nagger. She also sounds like me in that "Never mind, I'll just do it myself" comes out of her mouth (or runs through her mind) much too often. Frustration results and that builds up to unmanageable levels REALLy fast.

Smoke IS wise because once you find the Thing, it pretty much doesn't matter where you are or who you're around. You are happy to get up and do it every day. I was very lucky to have this happen.

Someone, somewhere, wants what your wife can offer and not so they can exploit it. I wish her and you the best. Good luck!
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 7:26 AM on October 18, 2009

My job, which I love, requires me to be highly organized, to do a ton of research, and to edit and proofread my own and others' writing. I'm an IT industry analyst.

My colleagues include folks with degrees in philosophy, journalism and music theory; mine are in literature. So with a geography minor and a business major, your wife would practically be overqualified.

It's not easy out there right now but IDC, Gartner and Forrester are showing open reqs.
posted by rdc at 12:38 PM on October 18, 2009 [1 favorite]

I second the IT industry. She could try to get a position as a project manager for an IT project and when she's comfortable she could move into an analyst position. This could be sort of 'high-powered' without involving sales or marketing (it sounds like your wife finds those areas soul-sucking). As someone above mentioned, from there she could get into change management, knowledge management, strategic planning, etc. Or, she could get into technical writing.

On the other hand, maybe she should be considering something radically different, like a trade. Maybe getting unstuck will require her to shed some ideas about who she thinks she is, what she thinks she's good at and what she thinks she wants. It's ok to loosen our grip on our so-called indentities and start over at any time in life.
posted by kitcat at 5:41 PM on October 18, 2009

Is there a field that she think has an important "big picture". Health care? Environmental research? Town planning? Politics?

It sounds like she's a person who "gets things done". Maybe she would be less likely to want to poke her eyes out if the work she was getting done (however painfully and slowly) made a positive difference to the community at large.

And I don't believe in finding "your perfect career path". It's not a puzzle you have to solve for the one perfect answer, but more an optimisation exercise, where there are many maxima, some of which can't be predicted even with the best modelling and data available.
posted by kjs4 at 6:57 PM on October 18, 2009

honestly...I think you need to stay out of it. If she doesn't like her job than she needs to figure out for herself what she wants to do with her life. I just don't think this something you can "help" with. When she tells you she's unhappy with her job, let her know you'll support her if she wants to find a new job. If she asks for your help, then I think you can jump in. But I think she really needs to do this on her own.
posted by bananafish at 12:09 PM on October 21, 2009