“You’re Responsible for Your Career. No One Else Is.”

Thoughts on Job Transitions and Figuring Out What to Do with a Humanities Degree

Looking back on my mental resume, I’ve had a lot of jobs in my relatively short life. No, this is not because I’m a “job-hopping millennial” (and if I am, SO WHAT?). I’ve worked at quite a few places since turning 16. I’ve done everything from umpire softball for ten-year-olds to cashier at a pet store to tearing tickets at an arena to entering tax return data into a database.

For some reason, when you’re getting ready to leave a job, even if you don’t like it, you tend to think about the time you spent there, what you might have gained (if anything — probably something) and what you will miss (if anything).

I recently left a job, the longest one I’d had in my professional life. Full disclosure: let’s be honest, my professional life is relatively youthful but it still was a considerable amount of time.

I had a lot of reasons for moving on, one of the largest reasons, probably the reason most people move on: my growth there had run out and there wasn’t anywhere for me to go.

Leaving jobs feels like a break-up: it’s not you, it’s me; keep in touch; good luck; have a nice life! It’s never about transparency; in fact, you want to keep all your cards close to your chest because you’re afraid your life will be ruined by someone who might have made you cry on several occasions and treated you like human garbage on a regular basis. Isn’t it sad where the control truly lies?

It’s so easy to say, “It’s not personal, it’s business,” but it’s personal. Job-having, job-hunting, and job-leaving is acutely personal for an INFJ like myself. And I think this can be said of most of us. Hearing someone say, “It’s just a job,” makes me cringe a little, mostly because we spend SO much time at our jobs and, often, our jobs dictate so much of our lives outside of them. Our commute time, vacation time, connection time — they’re all somehow dictated by JOBS.

Yes, jobs are definitely an exchange of time for money, something we all need to survive, but I think most of us want to feel connected in some way to what we’re doing for 8+ hours a day, five days a week — which don’t get me started on the workweek and alternative work schedules.

And when we’re not connected, we hopefully realize it and move on. We find another place to hopefully find that connection.

Maybe that’s not possible for us all. I don’t know the answer here, I just know that the part where you leave the job seems to be the easy part. It’s figuring out what’s next while still performing at your current function. It’s hoping and praying that whatever you chose was the right path forward.

I’m trying to learn that life is not a linear path. I know this, but I haven’t learned this (you know the difference?). I need to learn this in order to learn to move on, not to dwell on missteps.

When I was taking jobs in high school or college, I knew they weren’t forever. They were for the moment. I needed something to do and some extra cash. It taught be responsibility, financial sense, and gave me a sense of independence.

In my professional life, it’s been harder to remember there are seasons for everything and the path can be as winding as I want it to be. It’s harder to remember that paths can converge, dead end, and shift at any time. My life has been linear thus far: public school, do well in high school, go to good college, excel in college, graduate with honors, get a job in a related field within 6 months of graduation.

But now that it’s been almost five years, I’m looking back on my path, mostly because I’ve left a job I thought I was decent at, and when I started I thought it was THE path for me. When I look back at that path, I see exactly how I’ve arrived here. However, with all of those experiences under my belt, I’ve arrived at this particular destination with different expectations and desires.

I know you’ve been waiting for it: I don’t know if my path is leading me where I’d like to be. Maybe. Figuring out what I want my life to look like now that my goals include more than “get a job to support myself” (which was literally was my English major dream just a few years ago) is a priority.

I want work to be personal for me. I want to feel fulfilled. At the end of the day, I want to feel like I’ve done something I’m proud of. INFJ moment, y’all.

On my last day of my old job, someone told me: “You’re responsible for your career. No one else is.”

I’ve thought about that advice a lot over the past month and a half. Realizing that’s true is half the battle. The other half is harnessing the courage to decide what you want and go get it.

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Madalyn Muncy-Piens

Practical creative, professional dabbler writing about life.

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