So when I talk to people about their careers, I often lean into a place of optimism and encouragement.
I find it easy to go there. I really can’t help myself…I’m freakin’ Suzie Sparkles.
And most of the time, I’m pretty sure that optimism is the right call. There’s enough skepticism and side-eye the whole stupid world over. If you want more snark, you can get it about as fast as you can open Instagram.
However, there are some uncomfortable truths that flap at the edges of my brain.
Uncomfortable Truth #1:
It’s often a much better deal to get a staff job than to take a chance on your own thing. Getting access to health benefits, severance pay, a 401k, vacation days…all of this can be rather complicated and expensive to set up on your own. It’s incredibly unjust to those who can’t access these things otherwise.
Uncomfortable Truth #2:
Most of the time our over-worked, over-wearied state is self-inflicted. That one stings the most, but it’s the most true. (And also…same). The fact that we are so convinced on a deep, subconscious level that we have to give our life, energy and sanity to our job is what keeps us all policing the work habits of our coworkers, our employees and our own children — and perpetuating the cycle of being chained to work until we die.
Uncomfortable Truth #3:
Some people should absolutely NOT become people managers. We also really NEED specialists and experts and individual contributors. We need more of them, numerically speaking, than we need people managers. But due the fact that most creative team structures are set up in a strict hierarchy, everyone is positioned to be vying for those managerial roles — regardless of suitability.
Uncomfortable Truth #4:
There are many people who, based on their gender expression, their bodily attributes, their economic situation, their accents, their age, their ethnicity, their religion, their sexuality, their disability status…have a MUCH harder time succeeding as creatives. It’s not an accident. Why are people so convinced that if we make an effort to include others, the quality of work will go down…when I’ve known only the exact opposite to be true?
Uncomfortable Truth #5:
I can’t say for sure, but I would approximate that around 90% of the jobs you see posted on LinkedIn are fake news. It’s also become so convenient to use robots to post jobs and use robots to respond to job posts that it seems impossible for human beings to make 1:1 contact with each other at all. That’s a problem, because humans make offers, not robots.
I’ll try not to go all Suzie Sparkles on you again, but I don’t truly believe that any of these uncomfortable truths make our situation as creative people hopeless.
If you are reading this, I really DO believe that anything you want to do is possible.
I don’t have all the answers, because no one does. But I have some of them, and what I know, I’ll use to help YOU find the rest.
Let’s go shake some shit up. 😇😈
- Cathy