May 20th
There will be a lot of deep thinking in the near future for me. I need to carefully analyze my plan for the future from a work career standpoint. For the last ten years, I’ve been on a corporate work career path. Before that, I had 15 years working in factory production (hands-on and supervisory). More and more I am not sure if continuing work in corporations is the correct path for me for my future.
There are some good things about working for a corporation — stability, good pay, many possibilities to develop skills, ability to travel and meet new, interesting people, using cutting edge technologies. In many ways also the repeatability of responsibilities for day to day assignments is or can be a good thing — many days I can go to work, log in and almost blindly do what is expected of me that particular day — I don’t need to waste time on thinking about my job.
On the other hand, there are plenty of bad corporate work issues — internal politics (that is the biggest problem for me — who likes whom, which department likes or dislikes another department, etc.) Hypocrisy — nice, lofty words and ideas about sustainability and equality from PR, but in the end, it’s all about the money and the bottom line. The necessity of doing things just for the sake of doing something. Numbers and KPIs are more important than people, mobbing, etc.
That is my career path and as much as I want to change it, I realized that my current job search is flawed. I am sending my CVs to other corporations and that will lead me to the same shitty corporate office somewhere else and the same shitty corporate politics as in my current office (or even worse).
So, what can I do now? In which direction should I and could I go? I think any job that requires physical work is out of the question. Maybe work in social services? I love the volunteering that I’ve been doing since last November and that could be a very interesting option to turn it into a regular paying job. Possibly work for an NGO or some kind of foundation? That was my plan and dream when I was in my 20s, and it’s not too late to look for possibilities to restart it. I know I can spend a year retraining myself if needed for a new career.
On the other hand, will I be able to leave comfortable money and stability in a corporate world? I cannot answer that now, but I also know I don’t want to continue on my current path. So a lot of thinking on that subject for me — given my age, that will be the last chance of doing that in my life.
