Friday, May 16, 2025

Go For It

I've been thinking a lot about careers lately, even though I no longer have one, because many of the people I care about still do. I don't know that much about other professions, but in my field, it usually goes like this.

First you're a rookie, maybe doing research or serving as an intern.

Then, at some point, you get to do a story and people discover you can report, you can write.

After you do this for a while, you become a much better reporter, reducing your mistakes and learning to better trust your instincts.

Somewhere along the way, you play a part in breaking a really big story -- the kind that makes the world sit up and pay attention.

Now you have started to make a name for yourself, so you win some awards, get some job offers, and discover that you had many more friends than you previously seemed to have.

If you're good, you start repeating the whole process, breaking more stories, getting scoops and even occasionally having a notable impact on society. Now you have lots of friends.

Just about when this starts sinking in, you turn some age or another, say 40, and your whole world blows up -- personally and professionally. Maybe your marriage breaks up, maybe you change jobs, probably both, but people start treating you differently. You notice some of your friends have drifted away.

It's not subtle. Employers are telling you it's time to transition from worker to management. "Time to grow up, kid." In journalism you go from reporter to editor, from telling stories to facilitating other people telling stories. Now you have fewer friends for sure but a new level of respect.

If you're reasonably good at managing, that new track of editor carries you higher in your field, you earn more money and they add more titles to your job description -- senior editor of this or that. Now you have a new set of friends (frenemies), and a growing list of outright enemies.

This second stage of your career probably will carry you straight through to retirement unless you mess up big time (which does happen) or you're the type driven to rise higher in management to the point you actually run things somewhere.

God forbid you become the boss, the person everyone talks about behind your back. Lots and lots of enemies and absolutely not a friend in the entire world

At this stage anything might happen, for better or worse. If you're a good boss, you really impact some group of people somewhere, and they're truly grateful for that. You may not exactly be able to be friends with your employees, but something pretty close to that comes into play.

Then one way or another, the day approaches when you will retire, perhaps voluntarily or circumstances (other people) make the decision for you.

And then it's over. Completely. You are officially retired. Nobody controls your time, you no longer have to dance to anybody's tune. And people start having trouble remembering whether you are alive still or maybe you have passed on. They're just not sure.

But assuming you remain very much alive, you finally may change direction altogether, and try doing something you always wanted to do, but never quite got around to when you were on somebody else’s clock. And at this stage you discover you really did have a few real friends all the way along, because they show up in your new life.

And now younger people ask your advice as they hit the various turning point stages of their careers. "You've been there, what do you think I should do next?"

So you hear them out and then answer something like this, "You already know what you want to do, my friend. Otherwise you wouldn't be asking me."

"Just go for it."

(From 2021.)

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