Thinker. Dreamer. Lover

Do you like your job? Are you doing what you love? Are you doing what you studied or do you find yourself in a job wondering how you got there?

I think the difference between a job and a career is that the former is a means to pay your bills and the latter is a professional path that allows you develop your talent and skills providing you fulfillment, enjoyment and satisfaction while being appropriately remunerated.

Many people if not arguably most, have jobs. Some select people have careers. Those who have careers may or may not be happy or satisfied in them. It seems that a career should be a path that allows you to sharpen your natural skills and talents while developing competencies and capabilities that will make you better at executing the tasks and responsibilities of your role. Presumably most people in careers have gotten there because they’ve specifically sought out that particular career. However I think some of us fall through the cracks.

Personally, I had a very clear vision of the career I desired at age 22. I graduated with a B.A. degree and pursued my M.A. with a very specific purpose in mind. I moved to New York City with the goal of studying Communications and working in Advertising. I knew exactly the path I wanted to take which included working on the agency side initially in either account management or media planning. My medium term plans included exploring different functions in Advertising and potentially working client-side as well. My long term goals were to develop a global career where I could leverage my multilingual abilities and work internationally within the Communications industry. I had everything so thoughtfully planned out. I pursued (unpaid) internships in NYC that would allow me to gain the appropriate experience. I worked arduously nights and weekends to pay for school while pursuing a rigorous academic schedule. I worked hard and I believe that this alone would garner me my career objective.

It never happened, but life sure did. 9/11, a devastated economy which hit the communications industry particularly hard and my own social-economic limitations which forced me to work just to survive in the big apple shattered my young early 20’s something ambitions.

Fast forward 16 years later and I have instead accepted job after job based on necessity. Eventually I “fell into” the tech industry “career” in which I am today.

I’m incredibly gifted in public speaking, copy writing (in multiple languages). I have a lot of great ideas and I am very creative. I like to present in front of people, work in environments in which I am interacting with people directly to impart knowledge or brainstorm ideas full of imagination and purpose. I like to blog. I like to talk and socialize with others and I am very good at networking. I worked as an instructor and trainer and have enjoyed the interactions those roles granted me.

My day to day job responsibilities include working in isolation in front of a computer screen configuring technical solutions. I follow a specific process that does not allow for much creativity and spent most of my time solving problems by myself. I don’t talk much but instead listen to client demands via long distance phone calls. Based on industry demand, I organize, structure and define processes to support all the work that needs to be done. I used to have some opportunities to operate as a trainer and facilitator but more and more my role turns to an operational task manager.

I wish I could create a time machine and go back to my 22 year old self to warn me to never give up on my dreams even if it meant living as a “starving artist” for awhile. To have more optimism and hope that I could achieve my optimal career. To fight for my dreams because they were the one thing worth chasing.

Instead I am thinking that my best change at this stage in my life is to play the lottery.