Do people do this? Change their careers in their mid 30's? I feel as though I should be grown up now, I should be settled in my profession of choice.
Thing is, I'm not. 10 years into social work and I'm still not sure whether this is really what I want to be doing. It's a tiring job. At times it's highly emotional. It's poorly paid (our sector earns about $15000 less than others). The expectations on us are beginning to exceed what is actually possible. A starting salary in Child Protection is what I could expect as a manager in my organisation and yet the jobs of child protection are gradually being shifted onto services like mine - without the remuneration to go with it. Court literally does my head in. The idea of court produces such anxiety in me that I doubt my effectiveness on the stand. Yet the foster care worker is one of the main witnesses, after the protective worker.
I was in Dusk yesterday picking up a few more of my favourite melts (If you haven't tried these I recommend that you do - standouts for me are Honolulu and Passion) and while standing at the counter I picked up a card which read 'RECRUITING NOW'. Walking out of the shop with card in hand, I began to seriously contemplate whether I should send in my CV. I often find myself fantasising about a job where I can go, earn money, leave it all there when I go home. Where I don't have to manage family dynamics and the behaviour of traumatised children. Where I don't have to supervise the sometimes fraught access visits between children and their birth families. Where I don't spend 80 per cent of my time sitting in front of a computer - in a job I took because I wanted to work with people - and worrying that I haven't seen my client enough this month.
Dusk would be a perfect job for me right now. I adore their products so I would have no issue selling them. I could work less than 3 days a week if I should so desire (a luxury my current position does not afford me). I would work at work and be a parent at home, a novel concept!
My concern with taking the step out of my chosen career path is that I will end up standing behind a counter somewhere feeling like I'm not doing a worthy job. Because all my life I've been geared up around helping people so it makes sense that it's what I chose to do for a living. Would I feel unstimulated and bored? Would the conversations I have seem a bit superficial?
Regardless, I think I will forward my CV to Dusk. I can always go back to foster care after my children have grown a little more and don't require so much of my attention. It'll be a good move for the family. And me.
3 comments:
Kate, come and get a job with me, you work 2 hours in the morning and three in the afternoon. Leaving you all the time in between to do what ever you need to.
You'll never grow up Kate, no one ever does. It's a myth we self-create when we're younger, something we perceive people older than ourselves to be, and something expected of us by adults. Remember when you were a teenager and thought someone in their mid-twenties was grown up? You get there and realise the age of grown up has shifted to mid-thirties. People only ever play roles, and some play 'grown up' - all proper and acting mature and proper all the time. We manage life better (some of us) and have more experience and life skills, but we're all late-teens inside, emotionally and wishingly.
I hear you on the job thing, I've just done a bunch of 12hr days in a job they advertise as "supported professional team environment" we are a team of one basically, and support????... where's that professional recognition I always hear about? Lots of lip-service about caring for the worker, staff morale as important, won't let you burn out etc etc?
I'd send my CV in and just see what happens, cross each little bridge as it comes, take those steps, think, worry, contemplate, reconsider and do whatever you want, but if you're still taking those steps as they present themselves, eventually you'll find yourself there and just carried along with the flow. If it sucks at least you'll be in a space to feel confident to say f-it, I can go out and do anything now. The fear of being left out in the cold is usually an irrational one, things always come along. Even if the job's boring, you'l probably be enjoying every other part of your life more. More time without stress = more time. You leave work and every bit of time is yours. I spend about 3 extra hours planning and contemplating and preparing in my head before and after work. You don't have to be doing that. Call if you want more reasons :) xx
Hey Kate, just found your blog - I so understand the craving to do something else. Let me know how you go!
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