I had 8 different jobs in 8 years. I’m embarrassed, but I wouldn’t change it
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Two recently published articles about work made me reflect on my career, The Atlantic’s “Workism Is Making Americans Miserable” and BuzzFeed’s “How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation.”
I work hard, but not too hard. My work is rewarding, but seeing my children grow up is more rewarding.
I’m 34-years-old and finding a job I love has been a complete disaster.
While most of my friends followed more traditional paths in finance, law and medicine — I had a hard time staying at a job for a year. I found myself embarrassed to talk about work, and I don’t get embarrassed easily.
Seven years ago, when I resigned inside of an exposed brick conference room, I had a boss look me in the eye and say, “Ted, I just want to let you know that you’re a job hopper.”
Ouch.
This stung because it was true. And it stung because I felt like it didn’t represent who I am — I think of myself as a longterm guy — but of course, actions are a much better measure of truth than self-thought.
I could tell you about the contextual circumstances that led me to taking each new job, but you don’t care. No job is perfect.
Most of the job hopping came down to my impatience. And I thought that if I was successful, my employer wouldn’t pay me exponentially, instead they’d just give me an incremental raise.
I was the typical millennial brat. Guilty.
I cringe when I look at my own LinkedIn profile.
After graduating college, here’s the first 8 years of my career (if you can even call this a career):
- Ad Product Manager at Health Central Network (digital publishing) — 1 year, 2 months
- Founder at GrouperEye/InternshipKing (digital publishing) — 1 year of failure and I sold for $5k
- Social Strategist at BooneOakley (ad agency) — 11 months
- Product Manager at LendingTree (digital marketing) — 11 months
- Product Manager at TradeKing (online brokerage) — 9 months
- Director of Digital Strategy at BooneOakley (I went back) — 1 year
- Director of Digital Strategy & New Initiatives at Charlotte Observer (newspaper) — 1 year, 11 months
*Note: I also had a one month stretch where I rode in the back of a Fuel Pizza van and hung pizza flyers in certain neighborhoods. But I’m not counting that.
That resume embarrasses me. But now, looking back, I can see how each of those experiences helped us build the Agenda.
I understand management, technology, sales, teamwork, advertising and perhaps most importantly — I have a deep understanding of digital publishing because I’ve worked on all sides of the media business: client, agency and publisher.
I also understand how public failure feels. In the span of a few years, I went from final round interviews at Google in Palo Alto to handing out pizza flyers from the back of a Fuel Pizza van. My major takeaway: nobody cares as much about you as you do. Seriously, nobody cares. It sounds depressing, but it’s actually liberating.
Humans want to grow. We all want to feel like they’re getting better and better.
For the lucky ones, they can achieve this through traditional paths.
For the rest of us, it may require job changes and failure — and that’s okay.