Success after 30?
October 24, 2019 10:56 AM Subscribe
Asking for a friend: You spent your 20s beset by addiction and mental health issues, working shitty service industry jobs. You have a few semesters of a an unmarketable degree under your belt, but never finished. In your 30’s, you became stable, happy and healthy. What did your path to a career and financial stability look like? Tell me your success stories of starting Adulthood after 30!
Bonus complications: you’re smart as a whip but have no clear career passions to direct you.
Bonus complications: you’re smart as a whip but have no clear career passions to direct you.
OK! It boils down to finding a therapist you can afford who you can work with. I graduated with a useless fine arts BA and got good at shitty service jobs while being a mediocre abstract painter/suicidally depressed which is a crap combination for creating work and marketing yourself; my therapist helped me sort out gender feels and also helped me narrow down a path to a career I wouldn't hate, in my case online library school and then getting recruited at ALA. I would say it's 50% getting the help I needed to figure out what I wanted to do, 49% actually doing it and damn everyone else to hell, and 1% a brilliant stroke of luck.
Your results may vary, but my advice is to find a sliding-scale therapist who can work with you on the career stuff. If you're in the SF area I can refer you to a practice.
posted by blnkfrnk at 11:50 AM on October 24, 2019 [4 favorites]
Your results may vary, but my advice is to find a sliding-scale therapist who can work with you on the career stuff. If you're in the SF area I can refer you to a practice.
posted by blnkfrnk at 11:50 AM on October 24, 2019 [4 favorites]
Bonus complications: you’re smart as a whip but have no clear career passions to direct you.
My escape from shitty mental health and underemployment involved a lot of family privilege, so I don't think the story is super relevant here. But one thing I learned in the course of it is that being a smart person in a boring job is a way different experience if you're white-collar.
When I was a call center temp, if I'd seen a way to write a spreadsheet to automate something I was doing, the response would have been "Stop fucking around, you're just trying to avoid working." If I did the same thing at my current job, I'd be allowed to do it (at least as long as my other work all got done), and people would be happy.
This is basically how I tolerate having a job I don't have strong emotions about where I find a lot of the tasks boring. I'm allowed to apply my intelligence to streamlining things and making them run more smoothly, and to communicating with my coworkers more effectively, and things like that.
It's not perfect. But it's tolerable, and having a call center job this boring wouldn't be tolerable, and the difference is 100% in how people treat me when they see me as A Professional.
posted by nebulawindphone at 1:03 PM on October 24, 2019 [9 favorites]
My escape from shitty mental health and underemployment involved a lot of family privilege, so I don't think the story is super relevant here. But one thing I learned in the course of it is that being a smart person in a boring job is a way different experience if you're white-collar.
When I was a call center temp, if I'd seen a way to write a spreadsheet to automate something I was doing, the response would have been "Stop fucking around, you're just trying to avoid working." If I did the same thing at my current job, I'd be allowed to do it (at least as long as my other work all got done), and people would be happy.
This is basically how I tolerate having a job I don't have strong emotions about where I find a lot of the tasks boring. I'm allowed to apply my intelligence to streamlining things and making them run more smoothly, and to communicating with my coworkers more effectively, and things like that.
It's not perfect. But it's tolerable, and having a call center job this boring wouldn't be tolerable, and the difference is 100% in how people treat me when they see me as A Professional.
posted by nebulawindphone at 1:03 PM on October 24, 2019 [9 favorites]
An acquaintance became a massage therapist and found it a good career, if physically demanding. While I don't necessarily recommend it for you, jobs that are certification/training but don't require a bachelor's is an area to search.
posted by typecloud at 1:37 PM on October 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by typecloud at 1:37 PM on October 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
1. get away from toxic people even if they are related to you.
2. find solutions to physical health issues, especially pain management.
3. get sober, get the right mental health support, this means different things for different people
4. enroll in an affordable, shorter-term training program for a specific career, forget about the college degree for now unless you can get a degree without incurring a lot of debt. a certificate program at a community college (cheap) or an apprenticeship in a trade (get paid to learn stuff) would be good. look for things that are not super long, don't cost a lot upfront, and are in demand in the area you live, hiring now
5. work for a bit in the new career, become a bit more financially stable, learn some new skills, meet new people.
6. take a moment to step back and reevaluate your priorities and life goals from a place of stability, where you feel confident in your job and feel more mentally healthy. what feels like a good next step? what's important to you? what makes you feel excited at work?
maybe you started as a medical assistant after attending community college, or you got a massage license, and now you're ready to go to nursing school. maybe you got an HVAC certificate from community college and now you could do a plumbing apprenticeship with a union, or you want to get on with your local utility company. maybe you got a CDL and worked for a shipping company, and now you're interested in getting some education in supply chain logistics so you can work in an office rather than drive a truck. maybe you got a bookkeeping certificate, and now you want to study accounting or statistics. there are always branches off every branch of the tree you started at, life is always changing!
posted by zdravo at 2:19 PM on October 24, 2019 [5 favorites]
2. find solutions to physical health issues, especially pain management.
3. get sober, get the right mental health support, this means different things for different people
4. enroll in an affordable, shorter-term training program for a specific career, forget about the college degree for now unless you can get a degree without incurring a lot of debt. a certificate program at a community college (cheap) or an apprenticeship in a trade (get paid to learn stuff) would be good. look for things that are not super long, don't cost a lot upfront, and are in demand in the area you live, hiring now
5. work for a bit in the new career, become a bit more financially stable, learn some new skills, meet new people.
6. take a moment to step back and reevaluate your priorities and life goals from a place of stability, where you feel confident in your job and feel more mentally healthy. what feels like a good next step? what's important to you? what makes you feel excited at work?
maybe you started as a medical assistant after attending community college, or you got a massage license, and now you're ready to go to nursing school. maybe you got an HVAC certificate from community college and now you could do a plumbing apprenticeship with a union, or you want to get on with your local utility company. maybe you got a CDL and worked for a shipping company, and now you're interested in getting some education in supply chain logistics so you can work in an office rather than drive a truck. maybe you got a bookkeeping certificate, and now you want to study accounting or statistics. there are always branches off every branch of the tree you started at, life is always changing!
posted by zdravo at 2:19 PM on October 24, 2019 [5 favorites]
i would also like to add that i think a lot of addicts in their 20s were self-treating actual physical health problems from youth. i know someone who didn't find out he needed to be on blood pressure medication every day, twice a day until he went to rehab for opiate addiction in his mid 20s. his heart was racing which made him feel anxious and panicked, and using opiates and cannabis was in part how he handled that for years. i also know people who had severe ADD/ADHD and smoked meth because they never had an opportunity to get diagnosed or treated for that in any other way.
sometimes you just need the right health care to get a physiological solution, and that makes the mental health part easier, giving you the bandwidth to think about career stuff.
posted by zdravo at 2:30 PM on October 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
sometimes you just need the right health care to get a physiological solution, and that makes the mental health part easier, giving you the bandwidth to think about career stuff.
posted by zdravo at 2:30 PM on October 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
How about starting around 28? I had a few semesters of Physics, then Computer Engineering, then Computer Science under my belt before running out of money and basically taking classes to keep my work-study status so I could work for the university while constantly failing whatever class I was taking. Then the rest of my 20's was roaming about like a wild person doing random jobs in random places... Until by 28 I had been homeless for a couple of years (lotsa stories there).
After a couple of years, I got bored and hit up the people who always came around saying they could help... Help was shipping you off to ghetto rehab so they could suck up any government money they could get their hands on. (snark) BUT here's the important bit, they do want success stories to keep the money flowing in. A homeless to paying taxes again is a BIG gold-star when the next year comes around.
This is where 'smart as a whip' comes into play. They sent me to another government thing, some sort of Displaces Workers Job Retraining Program. I went off to the local community college to talk to some people who sorta sussed out my category of skills and interests and what programs were available and sent me off.
I ended up with a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer, Novell Netware, and A+ Hardware certifications after about six months or so.
By 29 I was back working: running cables, desktop support, troubleshooting, hacking about, deploying my smart as a whip nature. About 9 months later I was force promoted to Network Administrator and became the one that got the calls in the middle of the night (instead of being the one making the calls in the middle of the night).
In the next 17 years or so (just up to a couple of years ago) I pretty much went sideways on the work scale and ended up doing fun things for decent deals of money.
I think that's mostly a seconding on the idea of getting yourself a bit more stable (mentally / physically), then finding something you're capable of that's interesting, that you can easily get some basic sort of credentials (that piece of paper) so you can get the foot in a door somewhere, and then let the smart as a whip take it from there. And a good bit of avail yourself of any sort of progam / help you can get from people who's job it is to get you settled down and paying taxes. You want to somehow let them know that you'll be that gold star on their report card after all is said and done.
posted by zengargoyle at 3:57 PM on October 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
After a couple of years, I got bored and hit up the people who always came around saying they could help... Help was shipping you off to ghetto rehab so they could suck up any government money they could get their hands on. (snark) BUT here's the important bit, they do want success stories to keep the money flowing in. A homeless to paying taxes again is a BIG gold-star when the next year comes around.
This is where 'smart as a whip' comes into play. They sent me to another government thing, some sort of Displaces Workers Job Retraining Program. I went off to the local community college to talk to some people who sorta sussed out my category of skills and interests and what programs were available and sent me off.
I ended up with a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer, Novell Netware, and A+ Hardware certifications after about six months or so.
By 29 I was back working: running cables, desktop support, troubleshooting, hacking about, deploying my smart as a whip nature. About 9 months later I was force promoted to Network Administrator and became the one that got the calls in the middle of the night (instead of being the one making the calls in the middle of the night).
In the next 17 years or so (just up to a couple of years ago) I pretty much went sideways on the work scale and ended up doing fun things for decent deals of money.
I think that's mostly a seconding on the idea of getting yourself a bit more stable (mentally / physically), then finding something you're capable of that's interesting, that you can easily get some basic sort of credentials (that piece of paper) so you can get the foot in a door somewhere, and then let the smart as a whip take it from there. And a good bit of avail yourself of any sort of progam / help you can get from people who's job it is to get you settled down and paying taxes. You want to somehow let them know that you'll be that gold star on their report card after all is said and done.
posted by zengargoyle at 3:57 PM on October 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
There's no trick to turning your life around if you're unhappy, but if there was, it might look something like: "Be Open To The Possibility of Change". Change is always stressful, so it's natural to want to resist change, even if it's a change for the better. If you can overcome that, then hard work & luck also helps.
posted by ovvl at 3:59 PM on October 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by ovvl at 3:59 PM on October 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
FWIW my partner is a college drop-out, used to be a stoner, and has had some depressed periods where he was unemployed and built up some debt. We met in our mid 30's and he was working two crappy survival jobs that he hated (bad bosses or terrible hours/shifts or both), 7 days a week between the two. I encouraged him to find a 9-5 service industry job (they do exist), managing a restaurant and that's what he continues to do but he's moved around a couple times. It's not ideal but better than working all shifts as a waiter or bartender (sleep is much more important to him now in his 30's than his 20's so late shifts were making him miserable, he realized he thrived working consistent hours and by going to bed earlier), and for now he's happy in his comfort zone making progress on his debt, plus his bosses seem to appreciate him which goes a long way. He is doing a bit of book-keeping and enjoys managing people, we've discussed him eventually completing his college degree (he's not keen on the cost/time involved) or doing a book-keeping certificate, and his boss has mentioned him moving into doing more training of other managers. We moved in together which helps both of us financially. I encouraged him to quit another job he hated when we moved in together because I wanted him to be able to breath a bit and get some perspective on his next step (plus I hated seeing him so unhappy), I think that helped give him the confidence to keep looking for a job that was a better fit and to convey that in his interviews. So anyway I think he qualifies to a lesser extent as having found some happiness and stability in his 30's compared to his 20's, he is doing something similar to what he did before but with more autonomy and control I think, and he's putting more into the relationship side of his job and actually thinking about the next 5 years.
It's hard to have stability when you're struggling to pay your bills so at first I'd do whatever I needed to do to keep costs low and build up a cushion for emergencies. Working a couple of jobs or a bunch of holiday overtime hours in a temporary retail job can help you build up that cushion and doing that for a year or two can make a big difference. I find most boss types in the business world respect drive and motivation and work ethic as much as any degree and often got to where they are by being willing to work hard and make sacrifices.
I think having a good relationship of some sort whether it's a roommate or a romantic partner or a walking buddy is important for happiness, more important ultimately than any career succses. That requires continually putting yourself out there and making connections. It's hard in your 30's because most people work and go home or are too busy with their own careers or kids or everything, so don't take it personally when people don't have time, but keep trying.
posted by lafemma at 7:47 PM on October 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
It's hard to have stability when you're struggling to pay your bills so at first I'd do whatever I needed to do to keep costs low and build up a cushion for emergencies. Working a couple of jobs or a bunch of holiday overtime hours in a temporary retail job can help you build up that cushion and doing that for a year or two can make a big difference. I find most boss types in the business world respect drive and motivation and work ethic as much as any degree and often got to where they are by being willing to work hard and make sacrifices.
I think having a good relationship of some sort whether it's a roommate or a romantic partner or a walking buddy is important for happiness, more important ultimately than any career succses. That requires continually putting yourself out there and making connections. It's hard in your 30's because most people work and go home or are too busy with their own careers or kids or everything, so don't take it personally when people don't have time, but keep trying.
posted by lafemma at 7:47 PM on October 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
At 28 I moved across the country after working in retail throughout my 20s and struggling with my mental health. I taught myself web development and got some consistent freelance work.
Then I got hired at the big fish in a small pond business in town and have moved up from junior graphic designer to brand manager & creative director. This was through a combination of good luck, privilege, courage, and extremely hard work.
Staying dedicated enough to work so hard is easy for me as I work in the renewable energy industry and find it very rewarding, and I also deeply believe in the company I work for (we're employee owned and the culture is very healthy).
The benefits there are such that I'm able to easily afford healthcare, a gym membership, and therapy so my mental health and resilience is by far the best it's ever been. The pay is good enough to live comfortably with my partner and two kitties.
In many ways I still feel that I "wasted" my 20s so I'm "behind" for my age, but whenever I hear stories about people who didn't figure themselves out until their early 30s it always makes me feel like "Oh, looks like this is a very common experience for people my age."
posted by moons in june at 9:06 PM on October 24, 2019
Then I got hired at the big fish in a small pond business in town and have moved up from junior graphic designer to brand manager & creative director. This was through a combination of good luck, privilege, courage, and extremely hard work.
Staying dedicated enough to work so hard is easy for me as I work in the renewable energy industry and find it very rewarding, and I also deeply believe in the company I work for (we're employee owned and the culture is very healthy).
The benefits there are such that I'm able to easily afford healthcare, a gym membership, and therapy so my mental health and resilience is by far the best it's ever been. The pay is good enough to live comfortably with my partner and two kitties.
In many ways I still feel that I "wasted" my 20s so I'm "behind" for my age, but whenever I hear stories about people who didn't figure themselves out until their early 30s it always makes me feel like "Oh, looks like this is a very common experience for people my age."
posted by moons in june at 9:06 PM on October 24, 2019
This is very similar to me! I had a BA in Philosophy, but besides that, yep.
I got sober when I was 27, and I found myself in a job that I didn't like. As I got healthier, I fell in love with recovery, and decided I wanted to work in substance use disorder counseling. From there, it's been a series of tiny steps with some giant leaps, but 6.5 years later, I have a masters-level job in mental health doing exactly what I set out to do.
Caveats: I had a lot of privilege and a lot of family support, but even with two arrests and a ton of bad choices and failed relationships and times when I didn't really care if I stayed alive, I have found happiness and stability and it's awesome.
The other thing to keep in mind is that a lot of our peer group graduated in the midst of an economic crisis, so even folks who didn't have co-occurring disorders are behind. I'm not sure if it's comforting or not, but you're right on track with your peer group.
Thinking of you. It's going to get better and better!
posted by superlibby at 9:20 PM on October 24, 2019
I got sober when I was 27, and I found myself in a job that I didn't like. As I got healthier, I fell in love with recovery, and decided I wanted to work in substance use disorder counseling. From there, it's been a series of tiny steps with some giant leaps, but 6.5 years later, I have a masters-level job in mental health doing exactly what I set out to do.
Caveats: I had a lot of privilege and a lot of family support, but even with two arrests and a ton of bad choices and failed relationships and times when I didn't really care if I stayed alive, I have found happiness and stability and it's awesome.
The other thing to keep in mind is that a lot of our peer group graduated in the midst of an economic crisis, so even folks who didn't have co-occurring disorders are behind. I'm not sure if it's comforting or not, but you're right on track with your peer group.
Thinking of you. It's going to get better and better!
posted by superlibby at 9:20 PM on October 24, 2019
I have a friend that struggled a bit early on, no addiction issues though he was involved with someone who did and had some years of tremendous stress because of it. He had to pivot his career to something related to what he was already doing, but part of a larger company (food service, moving from low-paying high-demand restaurant work to corporate grocery chain food prep). He studied management techniques, watching TED talks and reading books from the library and free ebooks online. He consistently showed up and saved his bosses from disaster, being vocal about wanting to move up in the company. He went all in. He decided he wanted stability and more money, and he is now in management and really cares about his workers. I am so proud of him.
posted by domo at 7:34 AM on October 25, 2019
posted by domo at 7:34 AM on October 25, 2019
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The big problem with service industry jobs is that they can be hard to escape if they're lucrative, like waiting tables was for me. Any way out that I had necessitated a major decrease in income before I could move forward. Fortunately, I was able to move back in with my parents, though that meant I had to leave the city and move back to the suburbs.
While it was very difficult to be 30 and living with my parents again, it gave me the support I needed to really tackle my mental health issues, which included therapy and trying different medications until I found one that truly actually worked after ten years of unsuitable medications (turned out I was misdiagnosed all that time).
I took a job that was vastly outside of any field of interest I had because it was available. It was unpleasant and I worked with people I didn't particularly care for, but it was clearly a good resume starter for something outside of waiting tables, so I forced myself to tolerate it.
While I worked there, I tried to make as many community connections as possible. For me this ended up being through fitness classes. I bumped up to an assistant manager job at the gym I went to.
While in that position, I found a healthy and supportive relationship- I didn't just randomly end up in one, I made emotional security and good communication the foundation for what I looked for in dates. Wanting to make a relationship work caused me to smooth a lot of my own rough edges and deal with some things, but I became a better and more reliable person because I love him so much. I left my parents' home and moved in with him.
Then, and this was pure luck: someone I know recommended me for a managerial position at his organization, where I still work 3 years later. It's only average pay but the work/life balance is amazing and the job security is as close to 100% as you could ask for. The recommendation was luck but the work experience I had got me the job, and it was because I was willing to work resume-builder jobs I didn't have any interest in.
A big component of happiness is finding out what's important to you and making it work. At this point in my career I could definitely find a job that pays a lot more than what I make now, but having a healthy work environment is vastly more important to me than making more money. I've already worked longer in this job at 3.5 years than any job I've ever had in my life. And it's not something I'm passionate about, except insofar as I'm passionate about the good life the job allows me to have.
At 36, I have a spouse, a house, and we're in the middle of the adoption process right now. Towards the beginning of my 30s, even as I was improving my situation, I was always worried that something would happen and I'd fall back into despair. I am actually now at a point where I know that things are going to be OK, and that if something goes wrong I will work through it with my support network.
I had a lot of privilege and luck along the way, but if I could emphasize one single thing to you, it would be do not ever give up trying to make your life better. When I was in my 20s I 'knew' I would never be happy and that I would probably end up committing suicide. It's not easy to get through the problems you're describing, but let me be your proof that it's possible.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 11:42 AM on October 24, 2019 [40 favorites]