Today's theme, Missing Ingredients, seems to be best summarized by a section heading in an article I read today by Kenji Crosland called, "
The Rise of the Generalist Part III: How to Thrive as a Generalist." It relates to my continued search to understand my personality and how I can shape my career to deliver satisfaction for myself, my family and others.
The urgency of my personality search has increased over the last year since my employer announced the closure of our plant. I've been looking for jobs but finding conflict trying to match my personality to a job description. I've also felt stagnated in my personality search, not sure why I haven't made more progress. Finally, my unfinished projects at home still haunt me. Here's how they all relate to missing Ingredients.
Missing Ingredients for Employers
With two months left until the factory shutdown, everyone is in full job-search mode. Only a few people have reported much success; they are the ones looking for jobs in semiconductors or electronics manufacturing. Many of us are looking to change industries. Manufacturing is a difficult industry, and job satisfaction often rates low. This seems counter-intuitive because the products we make improve lives, and the pay and benefits are respectable. My personal experience leads me to believe that the dissatisfaction comes from the extreme pressures that arise from the volatile nature of the business. Companies are run extremely lean, and the most obvious places to reduce costs are areas that are correlated with happiness but not the bottom line. In fact, since the pressure on our site has been reduce people are far happier lately and our performance is at record levels.
So trying to change industries / careers is difficult, and some days feels impossible. Even when I have contacts inside a company, it seems I always have too little of the right experience, and too much of the wrong experience. I can't get an entry-level job because I'm "overqualified", and I can't get a mid-level or senior job because I'm "under-qualified." I foresee this being an ongoing problem throughout my life if I stay in traditional career roles.
I've burned far too many calories just trying to find roles with a potential fit, and it has really limited my options. Companies are looking for specialists. So I've found myself looking through online certification courses for computer hardware, data analysis, Microsoft support, Linux support, networking, programming, etc. I just don't have time right now to do them all. How can I possibly pick just ONE?! It's about this time I start getting depressed and thinking, "Why can't I just be happy being a specialist?!"
Missing Ingredients for My Path
Because when I think about being a specialist it makes me depressed. There's no career path and no head hunters looking for a "generalist." This means I've got to make my own path. I still feel like I don't know where to begin. It's a long way between having some vague ideas and charting a new course. That's why I keep falling into the same rut of browsing existing job listings. But every time I look at a listing I can't help but feel so confined. They all feel wrong.
Today I realized that I still haven't finished my soul-searching quest yet. All the jobs feel wrong because I'm looking at the wrong jobs, and I don't know which jobs are the right jobs. I don't know which jobs are the right jobs because I still don't know what exactly I need to be doing to fulfill my career. I'm missing ingredients to know which direction to go.
So today I vowed to begin again, to delve more deeply than before. I got side-tracked with the practicality of trying to feed my family in a few months. Chances are that I will take yet another partially fulfilling job while I evolve my self-concept into something actionable. I will probably never be happy working for a corporation, maybe only working for myself. But I gotta figure out what it is I will be doing.
Missing Ingredients for Executing Ideas
Finally, it was this line of thinking that brought me back around to this blog. I've collected a few of my ideas, but they just kind of sat there. Barbara Sher said that once I get them onto paper they would stop nagging at me. The burden was lessened by writing them down, but they still nag at me. Maybe I need to actually finish (some) of my projects. But why did I stop?
Many of my projects require skills beyond my current abilities. The idea of getting some of them executed is daunting..."I don't know how to do that." I realized that those skills are missing ingredients necessary for fulfillment. I've been out of school for two years now and realize it's time to get back to the books. The most difficult time is deciding where to start. I get analysis paralysis.
So today I bought another book to help define my passion - my "Genius". Next I'm going to pick one of my ideas and gain the missing skills needed to bring it into fruition. I'm thinking about learning more programming first. So I'm looking for a job that will involve some programming and hopefully open the gateway there even wider. Eventually I'll need to learn some business and entrepreneurship. That's the scariest of all.
