Odd jobs vs The One Chosen Career

I’ve never worked at McDonald’s, or been a waiter, but I’ve done many strange jobs while being out of my chosen industry of Information Technology.

How it happened was this: after retrenched from my programming role in 2001, I struggled to find other IT work in 2001 and couldn’t find it in 2002 either. After a period of several months of unemployment I realised I had better seek work in other fields!

I spell out what happened in more detail in my post What I Learned From Unemployment. Basically, I held two door to door sales jobs, spent 18 months doing courier work, tried my hand at high school teaching and even spent time filling cigarette vending machines.

After being fired from a job making announcements on railway stations due to this blog(!), I finally wound up back in an IT role waaaay back in 2007. That was a nice turnaround, but this series is called What I Learned From so let’s get onto that, shall we?

In describing this, it is hard to put tangible points on what I learned, but basically, I believe my life today is much richer for that period of struggle, than if I had remained in my IT role of 2001 and built a solid career in that industry, as was my intention.

Sure, I like being in IT, but how would I even have known how much, without the points of comparison I have had along the way? My colleagues who I left behind in 2001 always seemed discontented, perhaps from being in the one place too long, whereas during the same time period I worked outdoor as well as indoor jobs, working with many different interesting people, and got the chance to start a new business. I now have a much better idea of what I’m good at, what I can cope with, and what is truly important in life.

Although I haven’t made a fortune, I have many “life skills” that I believe will serve me well in years to come.

(This is part of the What I Learned From group writing project at Middle Zone Musings.)