outing myself on the real

[lobelia321]

For those who don't yet know: I've been off-line a lot lately because I have decided that 2007 will be the year to face my fear, that the only thing that has been keeping me in my present job is fear (of losing the salary, of not getting another job), and that I must leave that institution.

I have been pondering the possibilities, potentials and pitfalls of a career change. I've bought books from Amazon about career change; I went to see a careers counsellor (who was prohibitively expensive and useless); I have sent away for prospectuses for MBAs from Business Schools; I have been borrowing and reading books on (yes!) 'Creative Management' and 'Accounting for Non-Specialists'.

I have also been thinking (if not writing) about the novel I want to write (orig). I want to post thoughts on character and plot invention when dealing with orig and not fandom but I haven't got round to it yet.

Tonight I have gamelan and I want to do the cashflow exercise from my accounting book -- yes, you may fall over at this point because I myself am certainly bruised all over from all the falling down I've been doing recently. I mean: cash flows? I can't even add beyond ten without using my fingers and have a mortal fear of anything numerical -- but, as I said, the motto of the year is to face the fear so I am looking into the dark heart of maths. And I do like learning and mastering new things. I also am applying for an academic job (keep all the irons in the fire) and applied for a post with a charitable arts foundation in Jakarta, Indonesia (11).

Just so you know why I'm never here.

In my spare time: I see movies and listen to the radio (Just a minute! The Archers! Five Live's football commentaries!).

T'sons are now big enough to babysit themselves so t'h and I have seen Apocalypto, The Last King of Scotland and Babel.

On DVD, I am working my way through all the Christmas presents. So far: A 1936 Cary Grant film whose title escapes me; Porco Rosso, Fanaa, Krampack, Sommer vorm Balkon, a 1936 Hitchcock whose title escapes me, Die Wilden Kerle 3. And I'm going to order Rang De Basanti from Amazon because in the wake of Fanaa I am now an Amir Khan fan. And Kajol is still the most breathtakingly beautiful woman in the world.

:-)

Comments

[junalele.livejournal.com]

You really are amazingly brave to do this. Face the Fear...maybe I should try to do that, too.

*rolls eyes at useless counselor and falls down with the accouting* ;)

See, I really have to get that dvd of Sommer vorm Balkon. I love Andreas Dresen movies but when that one was in the theatres, I was swallowed by work and the final exams. Memo to me: Get mother to buy the dvd since she most probably wants to anyway and then watch it.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Oh, you can borrow mine. (Sommer vorm Balkon.) I thought it was okay but not fabulous so it's unlikely I'll watch it again in the near future. I just like hearing the German, really. :-)

Today it was very hard to face the fear. Reality was horror.

[junalele.livejournal.com]

Oh, okay, then. :)

Today it was very hard to face the fear. Reality was horror.
*kicks your reality*

[laduchesse.livejournal.com]

I was wondering where you went! You usually post at LEAST once a day, but now I see it was for a good reason!!

That's so hard to face your fear and I admire you. I remember the problems you said you were having at your current institution and I think you should definitely go for a new path.

You've obviously opened yourself to a lot of options... would the post in Jakarta require that you live there?

Also, I'm way horrible with maths, but accounting isn't so difficult for those of us who are mathematically-inclined. It sure is boring! But if I can understand some of it, you can too!

Though I'm secretly rooting for you to get a book deal!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I can't do maths at all but today I completed two of the exercises in my accounting textbook and actually made the books balance! Thank you for your kind words. And hm, I used to post once a day? How nice to note I'm missed a little. :-)

[laduchesse.livejournal.com]

Yes, you were certainly missed!!

Damn, I need to study for my accounting exam tomorrow.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

You do accounting? I borrowed a book called 'Accounting for non-specialists' from the library and am trying to teach myself. I am currently stumped by double-bookkeeping. Do you understand it? Could you enlighten me about it??

[laduchesse.livejournal.com]

ah yes! i learned that last semester. precisely what is it that you're stumped on? i'm sure you already know about the debit and credit columns. my teacher taught us a great trick known as AED LRC: AED stands for Assets, Expenses, & Drawings, which are increased by debit; LRC stands for Liabilities, Revenues, & (Owner's) Capital, which are increased by credit. this is also known as the normal balance or the side on which the account is increased.

Let know if there's anything else i can tell you or if i confused you more...

[andolinn.livejournal.com]

Hurray! That's wonderful. You don't like your job, you're not happy, so how can a new job be anything but better? Provided that you work out what will really make you happy and pay attention when job seeking. It worked for me and, believe me, my last job was killing me. And it sounds like you are working through what you want to do.

I was telling Mlyn about the time before hubby was t'h and when he first started working in the trade and job prospects were terrible and we were terrified he would be laid off and he was a couple of times, but each time we made it through and something else came along. And eventually, I developed this faith that things would work out. And lately I have also come to believe that the way you think you want things to go is not always the best way for them to go. *shrugs*

As for the fear...as I sat there crying at the Trevi Fountain on a Friday night, amidst hundreds of merrymakers, terrified of having to go find a dentist in Rome, it occured to me that I was really destroying myself with the fear. Sure enough, the dentist was lovely and nothing compared to my own fear.

So I wish you the very best of luck. This is a marvelous undertaking for the new year.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your encouraging words. It's exciting but also terrifying and today I felt quite down about it. Could you tell more about how you changed jobs? Or careers?

[andolinn.livejournal.com]

Yes, of course it's terrifying and I wish I could tell you that I was a paragon of virtue and went boldly out and wrestled down that new job. It was more a sideways approach over a period of time.

There are things about my career that I enjoy & things that bore me to tears. I work a lot with numbers, but I also have to communicate adeptly with clients, so verbal & social skills too. In the 90s I was in a very abusive job & I fully intended to leave when I became pregnant. Then I couldn't get pregnant & went through years of that...

What I did do was to find a career center to assess & look at skills (as separate from any specific job), both in terms of which ones I have & which ones I enjoy using. I have also, subsequently, continued to develop other skills, such as public speaking & the art of persuasion. So don't just go with what you have now; think about what you would like to learn to do.

Then you really need to think about what you enjoy doing. What aspects of your current job appeal to you, which do not? What about other jobs or volunteer projects? If you think you might like something, you can try volunteering at it first to see if it's for you.

So, a lot of self-analysis conducted over many months. It won't all be clear to you immediately.

Then money. You and I are both in a position where we make a certain amount & have grown into that lifestyle. However, flexibility here is good. I have a friend who left the corporate world to become a high school teacher. And she spent a lot of money. Somehow, she has managed to make the changes. So you need a certain amount, but you could probably adapt to less for a while.

My initial conclusion was that I am very socially minded & want to make a difference in the world, so I began looking for a position in a non-profit using my math skills. I was very picky though, wanting to go to a non-profit whose mission appealed to me. I got several interviews. Then the baby thing erupted and when I came out of the quagmire three years later, it became clear that I couldn't stay at my current job, but that I was too stressed and brain fried to look for anything else immediately. So I just quit and lived on savings.

After a few months, I decided that my current career makes me enough money, but doesn't provide for all my needs, so that if I perhaps did it part time & then volunteered at my non-profits or pursued artistic goals the rest of the time, I could be satisfied. So I told a friend that I needed to make 80% of my needed income at my new, part-time job and she said, "Why don't you just find something that makes you 100% of what you need to live on?" Oh. So I did. Yeah! I went back to work 60% time and then devoted a good deal of time to a variety of experimental projects (artistic and business) and eventually evolved back into 80% work, with a lot of volunteer work on the side.

That said, I will probably reinvent myself again in the next year or so, taking my skills and going to work for a non-profit (or for profit) focusing on global warming, habitat preservation, organic food of something else that I am passionate about. The difference is that I have done it before and know I can transition again. And that I will be happier for having done so. Now, trust me, I will have bad days on this too!

You have excellent language skills that you could use in a variety of arenas. (Do you speak German as well as English?) There is editing in any number of fields, from publishers to private companies and that could be done part-time so that you had time to do your own writing. Ditto with writing - pamphlets, TV shows, corporate literature etc. Tourism industry, translation for a corporation etc. So a lot of job possibilities. You need to decide if you want to work with people, by yourself etc and which skills you want to use. Perhaps, if you're going to work on your book on the side, you want to do something different for pay.

Ask for what you want. I applied for several full time jobs and asked for part-time hours. Some of the employers got it, some interviewed me, but seemingly did not understand the pat-time bit. Pay attention when interviewing to what they really want from you.

Does this help at all?

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

This is phenomenally helpful!! Forgive me for not replying as fulsomely as this deserves but I am just absorbing it all for now. When you say career centre, what sort of institution was that? Was it public and free, or a private organisation? And what country did you do this in? I forget what country you live in.

[andolinn.livejournal.com]

I went to a private organization that offered career classes and skills assessments and informational interviews with people already in various fields as well as job listings. I was told that they are extensively on line now, but I cannot seem to locate them! *curses softly* But I think you need a local outfit, particularly for something like informational interviews.