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What Does Your Gut Tell You About
Accepting Your Next Job? - Part 2

Mistake #2, But With Promising Possibilities

When we left off last month, I had just lost a job that was truly not right for me. I had learned a great deal about what not to do in my next job and that was to avoid working at jobs where I didn't have the necessary experience and to pay attention to uncomfortable feelings. So when I had an opportunity to work in a position where I had had a great of experience, I thought this was the answer. Well, not quite...

So there I was…fired from a job for the first time in my life, and what I felt more than anything was total relief. The other feelings I experienced including exhaustion, relief, panic, relief—did I mention that I was relieved? Now that I look back, the job was so wrong for me.

At that point in my life, I was very active in local theater productions around the suburbs of Cleveland (Ohio). Fortunately (or unfortunately), I was performing on weekends in a two-person theater production, and that was a wonderful distraction for me. At least there was something in my life that gave me meaning, and the nightly applause was quite satisfying. At least somebody liked me!

The play was entitled The Monkey Walk by John Murray. I played Myra Kendall, a character who was intelligent and adept at work but not at life in general. Needless to say, this was quite a contrast from my real life at the time. Myra meets Danny Fabricant, a cab driver whose personality is completely the opposite of hers. In two acts, Myra and Danny meet, fight, learn from each other, fall in love and do the happily-ever-after thing. The play was a great distraction from the overall task of finding a new job. In the interim, I did some temporary secretarial work (that’s what we called it back in the 1980s) to keep me financially afloat.

It was really frustrating going back to be a secretary, which was the same type of work I tried so hard to get out of doing by going back to school to get my bachelor’s degree. But I needed to pay rent and eat, so I did it.

Then I saw the ultimate job in Cleveland The Plain Dealer: a major corporate figure in the Cleveland arts and business communities was looking for a personal assistant. I knew in my heart that that meant “executive secretary,” but I didn’t pay much attention to that. What I saw in this job was position, status, perqs, free theater and orchestra tickets, big fundraising galas, and connections with the “right” people. I didn’t exactly know what that meant, but I didn’t care.

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“RL” was what our new boss wanted us to call him. By “us” I’m including my counterpart Gloria because, of course, our boss was so busy that he required two personal assistants. Gloria had started about a week before I did.

We met all sorts of fascinating people including nationally known celebrities, politicians, actors, and artists of all kinds. Naturally, Gloria and I bragged to all who would listen about the encounters. In reality, however, that’s all they were—very short-lived encounters. We would escort the celebrity from the lobby to RL’s office, he would close the door, and we wouldn’t see him or her until s/he left. It wasn’t like we got to hang out with anyone. Yet, none of that mattered. We briefly occupied the same space as so-and-so and it was really cool!

What I wasn’t paying attention to, yet again, were the truly mundane tasks that Gloria and I had to do every day. Add to that RL’s eccentricities, his rather explosive temper, and the constant tension we both felt when he was in the office. The only time we felt truly relaxed was when RL was on a plane to somewhere. You can imagine how worried we became when they started putting telephones on planes.

In addition, RL would complain to me regularly about what he saw as Gloria’s inadequacies. He was never satisfied with her work. In reality it was Gloria who was the most steady and consistent worker in the office, and I relied on her a great deal to hold my emotions together when things were especially edgy.

Put all of these elements together, and you have yet another job that wasn’t right for me. Yet again, I was miserable. Seven weeks after I started working with RL, he fired me for making a mistake in interpreting his instructions and embarrassing him in front of a business associate. You may recall that I worked seven weeks at the previous job before I was dismissed. Notice a pattern emerging here?

So here I was again—technically jobless. This time, however, I was not only relieved; I was elated. I didn’t think twice about what was next. I decided to go back to school, get certified, and become a teacher.

Where did that come from, you ask?
Read more in next month’s TCC issue.