The Career Clinic Blog

Did you hear the one about the attorney who tried to teach his son how to read?

Mike Wood was using a little wooden alphabet puzzle to show Matt that letters represent sounds. “I held up the B,” Mike told me, “and I said, ‘So what sound does this make?’ And he said, ‘Bee.’ And I said, ‘Well, that’s the name of it--but the sound it makes is buh. Got it?’ And he said, ‘Yeah. Got it.’ So I picked up the B again and I said, ‘What sound does it make?’ And he said, ‘Bee.’ And it dawned on me that looking at a letter and thinking of it in terms of the sound it makes is really a tough concept.”

Mike was working with venture capitalists at the time, and one of his clients made talking greeting cards. What if he could take those little chips and put them into squeezable letters? When a kid squeezed a B it would go, “Buh.”

Mike decided he really wanted to launch a company of his own. “It’s either going to work or it won’t,” he thought. “And if it doesn’t work I can come back a year from now and still be the same attorney I was before.”

Did it work? Join me next time for the exciting conclusion of The Attorney Who Tried to Teach His Son How to Read.

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A few years ago when I started blogging, I was excited to tell a couple of my sisters about it. They never commented on a post, or even let on they’d read one.

No big.

A few months ago when I started blogging for the Huffington Post, I was excited to tell my sisters again. And guess what? Now they’re reading.

No big.

Well, except for how much that tickles me. Should I be offended the same material is worth perusing only on this new platform? Are you kidding?

Whatever it takes!

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Take one civil engineering graduate, add a job as a cocktail waitress, and you get one confused parent. “Confused” is probably too kind. “Exasperated” is more like it.

Some of the people closest to me weren’t able to see the logic in how I navigated my career transition. I was taking too long to grieve the loss of my old life, and I was staying too long in a job that--quote--should’ve been temporary.

 “How much would I have to make somewhere else before I’d want to quit waitressing?” I wondered. And the answer came back: “I don’t want to quit waitressing.”

I was having fun, whatever that meant. Waitressing wasn’t a requirement for writing or radio talk show hosting, but it was helping me heal--and I apparently wasn’t finished, not that you ever are.

The same thing happened when I was a radio news reporter. When I got married and had a dandy excuse to move somewhere else and get a--quote--better job, I dug in my heels. I found almost zero meaning in reporting the latest city council news, but I wasn’t ready to quit.

I was still having fun.

Having fun, I now realize, meant being challenged. I eventually got as bored waitressing as my parents had expected me to be, and was as bored doing local news as I’d expected me to be.

But I couldn’t embrace a new life until I was ready to let go of my old one.

So if you’re conflicted about a career change, it isn’t necessarily the wrong move. Maybe it’s just the wrong time.

You might never be eager to disrupt what amounts to, well, everything. But you can be ready.

Playing out where you are will help. Take thicker slices. Stick with something long enough to learn, really learn, something about yourself.

Then give yourself the time to realize just how much you did.

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“What’s at stake?”

That question’s been buzzing around me ever since I noticed it on--where else?--Twitter.

Instead of answering, I’ve been asking myself a different question: “What would happen if I don’t do this?”

Maybe I should be embarrassed to admit how often the answer is, “Nothing.”

Usually I move on to the next thing on my to-do list. Not always. It’s difficult to resist fluffing those proverbial couch cushions another time. But thanks to a book by Jonathan Fields, Uncertainty, I realize how much a certain order to the day helps me cope with the mostly uncertain nature of my work

I’m the kind of person who finds it difficult to concentrate until my desk is clear. I used to feel guilty about that.

Now I don’t.

Pitchers don’t feel guilty about rubbing the ball into their glove that magic fourth or fifth time, or adjusting their cap yet again.

Do they?

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“My stomach isn’t bothering me at all.”

That was Darrell’s report after we’d been at a conference for a few days, away from home and our routines.

“Okay, what’s different about how we’re eating?” That’s the question that popped into my mind immediately. The answer came almost as quickly: “No milk.”

And that’s how we discovered Darrell was lactose intolerant.

We went from a six-gallons-of-milk-a-week family of three to much, much less. Darrell misses cheese and ice cream, but not enough to indulge so much as a taste of either for the most part. He feels so much better, now.

Let’s say you’re at a conference. You’re working as hard as ever--maybe harder--but you’re having a great time. It isn’t the change of scenery, you’re sure. You don’t like to travel, and the food sucks. But you’re having so much more fun than you do back at the office. Maybe you even think, “My stomach isn’t bothering me at all.”

So you ask yourself, “What’s different?” And you realize, “My boss isn’t here.”

The thought of going back to that office--heavy with tension--makes you more than a little sick to your stomach.

You’ve isolated the problem, now.

What you do about it is up to you.

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The manager of the lounge where I worked as a cocktail waitress was out with a friend one evening, complaining about his job--as usual. “But one thing good has happened,” the friend couldn’t wait to tell me he’d added. “Maureen came to work here.”

I was thinking of that as I listened to still another report about how much the kids at Katie’s high school miss one of the teachers. He was Kate’s favorite--she had him for AP European History last year--and she was looking forward to another year of sparring with him between classes. History isn’t really Katie’s thing, but she loved that class--because she loved him. Teaching was a calling to him. That’s all there is to it.

Waitressing wasn’t exactly my calling, but I got a ridiculous amount of pleasure from faking people out on that point. It was my first job on the way to a brand-new life, and I was all finished half-assing anything the way I’d sometimes done in the past.

My manager in the lounge had--what else?--a drink with me after my last shift. He said he’d miss having someone so consistent about showing up on time and looking sharp, for one thing--adding that was getting more difficult to find. I wasn’t going to miss waitressing, but it meant a lot to be told I’d be missed.

I almost miss Katie’s AP Euro teacher, and I didn’t even know him.

But I’m tickled for the kids he’s getting to know.

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Have you ever finished something for no reason other than you started?

When it’s optional--a book, a movie--I cut my losses. I bail early, and often.

I made an exception with Shall We Dance?

I’d just interviewed Elizabeth Fournier--who teaches ballroom dancing as part of her combo platter career--and I thought, “What the heck?”

I’ve been a sucker for Richard Gere ever since An Officer and a Gentleman, but I still felt silly watching this movie.

“I don’t know why I started it,” I told Darrell. “But by God, I’m going to finish it.”

I’m glad I did, too--because it answered the question I think we’ve all asked ourselves on a bad day. Why do people get married?

Consider this: “We need a witness to our lives. There are a billion people on the planet... What does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you’re promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things... all of it, all of the time, every day. You’re saying ‘Your life will not go unnoticed.’”

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Take one big, empty water bottle. Fill half of it with water. Put the cap back on. Lay the bottle on its side in the freezer. If you wait long enough you’ll have an ice cube that runs the length of the bottle and keeps your water colder, longer.

Why is this tip in a career blog? Darrell said I owe it to people to pass it along. He kind of makes a career out of telling me what to do!

It’s only fair. I’ve been known to slip him a few suggestions once in a while.

Speaking of which, why do people get married anyway?

I’ll tell you in the next post.

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The secret to life is showing up. Notice I said “showing up,” not “phoning in.” Show up, do the work, have a slice of pizza. There’s magic in them there routines.

Tama Kieves is a Harvard-trained lawyer who realized early into the partner track she hated the work. So she quit. Now she’s a career coach and a bestselling author, who credits much of her success as a writer to showing up.

Irwin Yablans created the Halloween series of films. He grew up so poor in Brooklyn his parents put him in first grade when he was four partly to get him out of the teeny, tiny apartment they lived in and all the stress that came with it. What made him think he could become a success in Hollywood? He’s asked that constantly. His answer is always some variation of, “Show up.”

Another filmmaker, Woody Allen, said eighty percent of success is showing up.

Darrell Anderson is the producer of The Career Clinic and a somewhat unlikely source of inspiration for writers because writing is the least favorite part of his job. No, wait. That’s selling. But writing’s a close second! And yet I’ve learned so much from Darrell about how to be a writer. I call it The Magic of Keeping Your Butt in the Chair--and while I probably got the wording from someone else, I’m getting the example from him.

Darrell’s a big reason I’ve been showing up, here, four times a week for three years. This blog started on Labor Day in 2009. We don’t have a lot of proof it’s working--whatever that means--but we’re working on that.

Meanwhile my commitment to it deepens, daily. I’m not sure what that means, either. It may be a while before I can explain my devotion, before I can understand it in the larger context of my life.

For now I’m honoring what feels like a need--to offer you up this “thought thingy,” as my friend Chris Shea calls it, on a regular basis.

For now it’s enough I show up.

There will be time for context later.

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“Katie’s Mom!” “Katie’s Mom!”

What? Did not a single one of Katie’s friends in this swarm of kindergarteners know my name?

Is that what the past twenty years had led up to? Calculus classes, corporate climbing, careful consideration of creative careers--and now I was just…somebody’s mom?

Cool.

It’s actually a pretty good gig if you can get it. I got the news eighteen years ago today, and I’m happy to report Katie’s done a really good job of helping me grow up.

That’s what you’re signing up for as somebody’s mom, right? There’s no faking it with kids. No pretending you’re happy when you aren’t, fulfilled when you’re not, brave when you’re scared. They can smell it on you. So you save your breath and mind your own business--knowing that, for better or worse, they’ll learn how to live by watching you.

And you’ll learn how to live by watching them. The comedian Paula Poundstone said adults are always asking kids what they want to be when they grow up because we’re looking for ideas. She may have been joking, but I’m not.

Katie is the sweetest, most interesting person I’ve ever met--whose work with me is winding down. I’m not quite sure how the next gig will unfold, but there’s more of a sense of adventure about that than there was eighteen years ago.

Thanks, kiddo.

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