How Having 30 Jobs Before Age 30 Shaped My Perspective On Life.

C.B. Fletcher
Aug 24, 2017 · 7 min read

I know what you must be thinking. ’30 jobs?! Really? Clearly, you can’t commit, you’re a quitter, or you suck as an employee’. The way my self-esteem is set up, I’m afforded a different perspective. Some of my employment was prior to the crash of 2008; including those scams where they rile you up to sell overpriced candy bars that taste like compost and chocolate…but you’ll be a millionaire! Still waiting on that check.

In 2009 at a blissfully naïve 21 I graduated college and it was time to get a “real job”. Unfortunately, the country decided that it was broke and couldn’t afford to hire me or 1.5 million of my peers. Many condemned Millennials for not being employed or underemployed, calling us the lost generation, not realizing that getting a job at that time was like getting a shot of Absinthe at a church AA meeting. Since my freedom to pursue happiness appeared revoked, I did what any self-respecting adult would do and settled to survive until I could be successful.

I had the following jobs from age 18 to 29: 7 Contract Administrative, 6 Blogging/Writing/Editing, 4 Independent projects, 4 Internships, 3 in Food service, 2 in Customer Service, 2 in Retail, 1 Movie Extra, and 1 Freelance business.

Inconsistencies aside, my experience and moderate success have taught me valuable lessons about life.

You have to be a million different people to survive AND be successful

I had to essentially become these different jobs to use it to my advantage to get ahead, even the less desirable ones. Some days I felt like freaking Sybil, especially when I was working 80 hours a week being an executive assistant/front desk manager, blogger and web journalist, media/event relations director for a conference, and a COO/managing editor of a blog. My average personality day went from the Chick-fil-A smile to Carrie Bradshaw to Olivia Pope to Miranda Priestly and got everything done efficiently.
This worked for me because everything required its own energy that went beyond my basic self. The process of being more than what you know sucks! You will be highly uncomfortable, feel low, and stretched. Then suddenly your second, third, and fourth self pick up a different energy to get you through the next hurdle of the long path to your success; upon arrival, you will need every energy/personality to process at that level.

Plans change because you’re not ready

I had a plan: get a job as a PR assistant, get my master’s in international business, get a better job, write on the side, get married, and be debt free by 30. In my impatient eagerness, I left my internship that was not going to turn into a job, jumped into unprofitable projects, worked hustle jobs, wrote a lot, and then my long-time beau left me. How fantastic. Because I did not learn to grow in the interruptions and pauses in my life I had to settle for the knock off version of my plan. I was in the ‘pay your dues’ jobs cycle with the ‘you’re still young’ mantra on an annoying repeat from relatives and those inspirational memes/videos, but it just didn’t fix the now.

After getting over my destructive hobby of falling apart, I realized that my plan hadn’t come to fruition because I was not ready for it. Plans change because the tools you need to build your life are not available yet, including your mindset. Every opportunity sought was me vying for a dream job to sweep me off my feet and carry me into a greatness. A greatness I was unprepared for, what an injustice to myself that would’ve been. Change your mindset, grow in the pause, and change your life.

Leave someone else’s stain on the carpet for them to clean up

Some people get a sadistic high off of making you feel worthless. Imagine having an Annalise Keating swag about you, and suddenly someone demands you immediately scrub the coffee stain from their carpet. This was me as an executive suite receptionist scrubbing away on my hands and knees only for this businessman to say, ‘You aren’t finished yet? Can you do that a little quieter? I’m on the phone!’ I dropped the scrub brush, left the stain on the carpet and walked away. Even though I walked away, it magically vanished and later he thanked me profusely for working so hard.

What if the stain never came up? He would’ve complained after trying to dictate how I cleaned up his mess and guess what that wouldn’t have been my problem. No one respects Millennials’, despite our innovative navigation through an unprecedented economic landscape. Our attitude towards life is the result of the difficulty of cleaning up other people’s messes while progressing in our own lives simultaneously. Despite the positive results, we get called ‘participation trophy’ professionals. Keep being an innovative think tank and making headway into the future, while those who can’t respect you clean up their own damn mess.

Your Talent, not the odds, are in your favor

Apparently, I got a rush off of being overworked and underpaid because I kept doing it! There were many instances of being promised item compensation or connections in trade for what would otherwise be thousands of dollars. But because I believed in supporting new and growing ventures, I laid down my services to be taken advantage of after ingesting the Quaalude of disingenuous promises. Being a versatile professional is the new normal and it makes you a target for excellent opportunities and frauds. Even if you work effortlessly for your client/company you have a 50% chance of them swiping left on your career advancement or connections. Show your talents in bits and if they want more they need to pay more, otherwise, your odds of advancement are at their mercy.

However, there will be influential people who will harvest your talent so that you will grow into a better professional. I went through a series of professional hazing as a writer with editors who did not babysit my ego, superiors who pushed me past my skill capacity, and clients who forced me to see how talented and talent-less I was. Did my pay increase? No. However, their demands forced me to require better of my talent, so I could keep the odds in my favor.

Sip Your Water and Take Care of Yourself

When I worked in face time jobs (retail, customer service, receptionist etc.) I would only have between 15–20 minutes to eat and relax. One day I was guzzling down my food and water to make it back to work and choked! My water sprayed out like a turbo jet power washer and I couldn’t finish eating but had to get back to work. When I thought back on that moment I realized how many times I sacrificed my self-care for someone else’s bottom line. With an overwhelming number of Millennials being at their wit’s end (20% / 15 million approx.), and elders gas-lighting comments ‘you’re still young and hurry up time is wasting’ simply relaxing is not enough and a presenteeism work ethic is guaranteed. Considering the unrelenting anxiety about the present, future, and demands of whip-lashers-at-be, you’re going to lose your freaking mind and that is OK. After you lose it, like I lost my water, you’ll realize the significance in taking the time to sip your water and focus on your needs and growth. Not all of us are meant to be entrepreneurs or a CEO etc. , but if you haven’t taken the time to take care yourself, you can’t blame anyone else for choking.

You never stop digging for gold, so F it!

Through this journey, I have been handed every opportunity to be screwed over. So F it. Not F*** it… rather, F(aith) it. You must have faith in yourself, your people, and if you so fancy, God. I asked the big Why a lot. The Why did they fire me? Why am I struggling? But then I realized that I needed to invest in the gold in myself. When searching for gold you pull up all the minerals into a tray and sift away everything until the gold is revealed. It’s not that these minerals (30 jobs) did not hold significance, but the result of shaking away my secure attachment to survival revealed the gold in me; my faith in new and evolving talents. Anyone could tell you ‘You’re going to make it.’ but it doesn’t mean anything if you can’t shake yourself up and reveal the new gold in yourself over and over again.

If you are fortunate enough to sift out the BS friends and nay-saying family members the people left will serve as the reflection of the greater person you have become. These people have faith in your gold and won’t let you throw it away even if you want to. In my faith, there is a belief that there is a time for everything including the chaos of these last few years. If I did not sow and uproot… or sift then what gold would have been revealed? There would be other minerals, (survival jobs and unrelenting fear), but there’d be no gold.

The fairy tale that we can be anything is very real, I’ve done it 30 times. When ready you will toss out the survivor personality, adapt to your new direction, demand respect while keeping your humility, and dance in your talent-filled F it gold. Keep digging and rediscover your gold incessantly, that’s a freedom that no one can take away from you.

)

C.B. Fletcher

Written by

It’s OK if you don’t know me. You’ll read all about it one day. Author, Blogger, Journalist, & Adventurer. Check out my Portfolio: www.cbfletcher.com

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade