I was intrigued by the recent Numbers Guy blog post in The WSJ which takes on the “they say” received wisdom that claims “that the average U.S. worker will have many careers—seven is the most widely cited number—in his or her lifetime.”
The notion of having seven careers is preposterous, but, of course, it all comes down to what you define as a career.
Did I have a career as a waitress before I went to business school?
Well, maybe I did: it was actually a job that I held after I had graduated from college and dropped out of PhD school. So I guess that, while my more career-driven (or, at any rate, sensible) classmates were teaching, social working, going to law or med school, becoming librarians, climbing the ladder at John Hancock-New England Telephone-Shawmut Bank, reporting, politicking, or not dropping out of PhD school, it was my career
After I stopped being a waitress, I was an office temp.
Was that a career, too?
Personally, I’d say that, pre-business school, I had a boatload of jobs, but nothing that really resembled a career.
Post-business school, I’ve had a number (not a boatload – more like a dinghy-load) of jobs, but one career: technology related product management-marketing, which has now (gasp) lasted nearly 30 years.
If I’ve got another six careers in me, I’d better get cracking.
Job change, as noted, is another matter:
What researchers do know is that job changes are common early in a person's working years: Three in four workers age 16 to 19, and half between 20 and 24, have been with their current employers for under a year, the BLS says.
One might ask why the BLS is studying the job histories of high school and college students, which – presumably – a lot of 16-24 year olds are.
Wouldn’t you kind of expect at 16 year old to have been with their current employer for less than a year?
If memory serves, between 16 and 24, I worked in a combat boot factory, as a Big Boy waitress, Kelly Girl, research something or other doing something or other with computer printouts, customer complaint taker at Sears, grill cook, banquet waitress, clerk in a hospital emergency ward, administrative assistant, cafeteria slop server, sales clerk, Union Oyster House waitress, Durgin-Park waitress, and some things I’m sure I’m blanking on. I suppose I could add to the above list tutor, baby-sitter, and collection counter at my church. Oh, and I worked one shift as a Valle’s Steakhouse waitress.
Okay, in examining this list, I know believe that I have to count waitressing as a career.
Which means that now, at age 60, I’ve had two careers.
If I’ve got another six five careers in me, I’d better get cracking.
In truth, even if I were half my age, I can’t fathom the notion of seven careers. There just aren’t all that many things I’d rather be doing. One or two, surely – I can come with those pretty quickly. (Maureen Rogers, professional blogger….) But seven distinct careers, requiring different education, skills, and training? Nah… even if I were 30, there’d be no Maureen Rogers, pet neurosurgeon on my horizon. Maybe I’m just a shallow, stunted, unimaginative person, but there aren’t all that many things that I’d be all that interested in doing.
As I go through the checklist of people I know, I’m hard put to come up with all that many people who’ve switched careers. And the ones I can think of have switched careers once of twice - teacher to business person, teacher to something else, social worker to lawyer – not five or six times. And those shifts haven’t been all that dramatic. No accountant to cowboy, no funeral director to opera diva, no carpenter to hedge fund manager. Or vice versa – although I think if you picked a mega-lucrative career first, and were successful at it, you have a better change of radical career change once your lifetime nut is covered. If only I’d been a successful hedge fund manager, rather than a pretty darned good waitress, I could be doing something else at this very moment.
Not that there’s anything not to like about product marketing. No sirree Bob.
Still, sigh!
2 comments:
I love your blog. In fact, it was one of the early influencers to my entering B-school (Simmons SOM, in town!) ... I always ran screaming from the notion of trading my soul and personality for a skirtsuit and power pumps - but reading your posts, which are so sharply funny, well-considered, and real, made me realize maybe I don't have to. Excited to hear you're working on a book -
Suzanne - Thanks for letting me know - and good luck with B-School. I've worked with a number of women who went there, and they loved it. It definitely sounds like an environment where you don't need to be a "suit."
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