UPDATE 3/4/09: I have cut this bad boy into two posts. See below for Part I. I originally wrote it as one and then had blogger’s remorse after seeing it online and scrolling and scrolling and scrolling through it… I had no time to fix this yesterday – so my apologies (and thanks) to the nine commentors who actually read the whole thing in one sitting. Send me your addresses and I’ll mail each of you a prize for “longest attention span.” -Kate

I had already paid for a summer house at Dewey Beach (Delaware) with my friends. Making it (in my mind) a free vacation from my problems. I figured that I’d just get a job waiting tables and take a couple of months off from the serious job hunt. In the end though, my obsessive nature made it impossible for me to stop worrying about my unemployment, and my lack of upper body strength made it impossible for me to carry those heavy trays at the restaurant.

THEN something amazing happened. Well – two amazing things really. First, the Federal Government was so completely confused by my tax forms (which involved two different jobs and residences in two different states within a year), that I received a rather large tax return in July. In truth, I should have received no return. I won’t get into the boring details, but I did make several calls to try to rectify this and was informed that there was absolutely nothing I could do. The Federal Government would not take their money back – damn them! And then, one of my roommates ended up needing a temp at her office for a couple of months.

So I left the beach.

I have a friend who liked to refer to this time in my life as “that summer that Kate freaked out and moved to the beach and then freaked out and moved home.” Well…it was a bit of a roller coaster.

I finally did get a job, but not in “marketing.” It was in meeting planning. Or more accurately, association management, which included meeting planning. And then two years after that, I found a real meeting planning job and FINALLY had an actual career path. I don’t even have to use “air quotes” when I say meeting planning, because once I got that first foot in the door, I knew what this career involved and could have a clear vision of it – no more hazy montages of what I thought it was supposed to be.

But this was not a fairy tale ending (sorry – no, it’s not over – and I haven’t even gotten to my point yet).

While I basically like my current career path, I’m starting to wonder if having to work with crazy people is a requirement for every job I take. Because I have worked with CA-RAY-ZEE (and not in a good way) people.

It started with that first crazy boss experience that drove me to the beach, and continued at the association management firm where I had to work with various boards of directors. I learned that when it comes to a board, there are lots of chiefs, very few Indians and GIANT egos. At the very least, I think it’s safe to say that there is a small, Greek director at Suntrust who has a reserved seat waiting for her in Satan’s boardroom.

I can’t be specific about co-workers and contacts from my more recent positions, but at this point, I’m fairly certain that the list of accomplishments on my resume should include “significant experience in diffusing unnecessary office drama and placating egomaniacs.” I really have spent an inordinate amount of time time tip-toeing around these crazy people over the past ten years. And I have tried to leave these toxic work environments and find others that offer a better quality of life… But it appears that these boots are actually made for walking on egg shells.

So where am I going with this rambling account of the story behind my resume? Hell if I know! And that’s my point.

I think we all kind of fall into our career paths. Whether we start out with a clear vision of total global domination or with a dissociative aversion to any thoughts beyond next week – we all have to start somewhere.

Using myself as an example, I can clearly see that things eventually fall into place regardless of the chaos in which they begin. And on the flip side, things don’t always work out the way we had originally planned. In the end, there are no guarantees.

Whether you love your job or hate it, know exactly where you’re going or wander aimlessly as life pushes you along – you never really know what’s coming around the corner. So you have to be ready for anything.

There is something about the word “career” that implies a plan or a strategy. A direction taken forward. Taken up. Ideally to “the top.” But the reality is that people who decide where they are going and then get there as planned are the fortunate minority.

The rest of us get by through trial and error. We start out in advertising, then escape to the beach, then fall into a new industry that we didn’t even know existed. Then we find out that the ideal job for our industry isn’t ideal for having a family – and then we have to reassess our previous goals (oh wait – I’m talking about myself again…). And sometimes that decision is made for us – and we don’t have a choice.

Having been lost and then found several times over, I have no doubt that this will happen again. There is always opportunity out there when you look for it, and you can never be sure where you will find it. The career you currently love or hate may not be the one you will have five years from now. The only constant is you. So think of yourself as your career – not your job.

I have no idea what comes next for me, but I’m hopeful. And given my past experience, I have every reason to be (crossing my fingers for the Federal Government’s lack of math skill this year!) In the meantime, if all else fails, I hear that houses are going for cheap at Dewey Beach this summer.

UPDATE 3/4/09: I have cut this bad boy into two posts. I originally wrote it as one and then had blogger’s remorse after seeing it online and scrolling and scrolling and scrolling through it… I had no time to fix this yesterday – so my apologies (and thanks) to the nine commentors who actually read the whole thing in one sitting. Send me your addresses and I’ll mail each of you a prize for “longest attention span.” -Kate

One of my favorite blogs, The Lil Bee has been running a guest blogger feature called Bee’s Stimulus Package (click for details). When I first expressed an interest, I thought that it was only a matter of time before I lost my job. For now though, it seems the crisis has passed, as has my reason for guest posting. But regardless of my employment status, I have no doubt that Melisa recoiled in horror when she saw how long this was. Far too long to inflict on someone else’s blog. But I can do what I like here right?

Anyway – she had some great guests (the lovely Amy from Doobleh–vay is featured this week). I highly recommend reading them.

While I’ve been wanting to write something about work for a while, I generally steer clear of the subject since this is a personal blog. But writing about work “in general” seems appropriate given the current climate (job-wise not weather-wise, both of which suck right now in the DC area).

I’m not going to talk about layoffs and unemployment. At this point, all angles of how to weather a layoff, look for a new job, and discover the meaning of life while sitting at home watching Golden Girls reruns on a Tuesday afternoon…well – they’ve pretty much been covered.

Instead, I’m writing about “career.” I don’t know about you, but I started out with a rather apathetic attitude when it came to my career. I can trace this back to eighth grade when I had to include future career goals under my yearbook graduation picture. I said, “graphic designer.” Did I know anything about graphic design? No – of course not. But I liked art and figured that “graphic designer” sounded like a real job.

Spoiler alert! I did not become a graphic designer.

Then in high school I continued to let everyday life and concerns carry me in their wake, and spent four years getting good grades in the classes I liked and mediocre grades in the classes I didn’t. Career goals? “I don’t know – maybe something in art.” Still with the art! What exactly did I think that meant?

And don’t even get me started on my college application process. The word apathetic sounds like a pep rally in comparison to my attitude toward visiting colleges and filling out applications. Now, I have to say that this is partly due to the fact that I wasn’t really ready for college (I’m a late bloomer when it comes to change – always the last one to the party). But it was also because I had no real vision of my future beyond high school graduation. There was just a hazy montage of college-life stock photos featuring classrooms, cafeterias and parties… But nothing really tangible – nothing I could honestly say I looked forward to.

I felt futureless.

Long story short on college, I started out at a small school in Manhattan because I wanted to be in the city (the ONLY thing I actually expressed an interest in), but transferred to Fordham University once I realized that I’d be happier on a more traditional campus, where I wasn’t the only student who owned a pink tank top from J. Crew. Seriously – I used to joke with my roommates that I was the alternative one. They were all wearing black and piercing things while I stood out with all of my just arrived from prep school fashion “don’ts.”

Four years later, there was another graduation and another fuzzy montage of what comes next. This one would include break rooms, cubicles and those computers that terrified me so (I’m in my mid-thirties…OKAY! late thirties…So when it came to technology, I had had more in common with Fred Flintstone than I did with college students today).

It was a bad job market in 1994 (fine – do the math – I’m old), and I was thrilled to find the crappy job that I did. It was in advertising (though not in the “graphic design” department). It wasn’t a bad place to work – I stayed for two years – but it also wasn’t a dream job. The best part of that job was that I had a great boss. I loved my boss then, and I thank god for her now since she validates that fact that when I started to encounter some of the crazies that followed her, it wasn’t me – it was them.

I guess I was good enough at what I did since a couple of other firms tried to recruit me. And I actually took one up on their offer. I mean, who says no to a promotion and a higher salary? Um – people who are smart enough to realize that they are in the wrong industry. People who know that they are not interested in what they are doing. People who once had glamorous (though vague) dreams of making it big in “graphic design.”

Unfortunately, I HATED working at that new firm. And mainly because of my new boss. I was spoiled. I had never reported to a crazy person before. It was culture shock and I didn’t last more than three months.

Then I had a mid twenties crisis (I believe the kids are calling it a “quarter century crisis” these days). I knew that recruitment advertising wasn’t for me, and I needed to change industries before I got stuck. So I was now pursuing jobs in “marketing.” Did I have any idea what that meant? Of course not! But I knew that “marketing” was similar to advertising and my entry level skill set would have a good chance of transferring over.

The more immediate problem was that I decided to quit my job in May, and NO ONE hires in the summer. They conduct interviews – sure – but decisions take months to be made due to all of the decision makers being out of town on vacation. After about a month of interviewing and sitting by the phone, I decided to get practical.

So I moved to the beach.

To be continued on 3/4/09….