Good news: your career is over
Your parents told you a university degree would get you a good job. Fortunately for you, they were wrong.

[The following was an 800-word piece for the November 2000 premiere issue of 'Fresh', a national lifestyle magazine for Canadians under 35 (available at better newsstands and bookstores now!). I say 'was' because, after reading it, they asked me to double it in size and make it the feature article. After quickly doing so, I received this e-mail:

Forwarded by Robert Steckling on 07/18/2000 08:06 AM
From: Janine Falcon
To: Robert Steckling
cc: FreshManagement@aol.com

REALLY, really liked Scott's piece. It's well written, well paced, clear, concise, and it has good rhythm. A pleasure to read -- and presents a clear picture of the dilemma facing young professionals today. Scott'll be a regular writer for us, right????
Excellent find, Robert!

Enough boasting. Here's the article...]


As he proudly displays the iron ring he wears on his right pinky, the symbol of a hard-earned engineering degree, Mike Wechselberger explains how he's quitting his entire profession so he can go back to university and take marketing. "I love formal education," he enthuses, pointing out the Egyptology courses he took at night for his own interest. Is he insane? A slacker? No, like the four others I spoke to, Mike is just an average joe who's learned to roll with the punches from the "new economy."

After graduating, Mike had worked his way into a job in pharmaceuticals, the "gold standard" of engineering and the ideal platform from which to launch a successful career. Wrong. "There wasn't a lot of place to grow," he reveals, discovering that his industry had become "very pigeon-holed - your job scheme is your job and that's it." When the company became the target of a hostile takeover bid this year, going back to school seemed like the only sensible option. Mike insists he's not some pawn on the new global economy chessboard, however: "Even if I was with [industry giant] GlaxoWellcome, I'd still do it."

That risk-taking attitude is the key to carving out a career in the aftermath of the early 90's, a recession period that revealed a work world forever changed from what we were led to expect. "We grew up with the beliefs we learned from our parents," says Danielle Cole, a designer and artist, "go to university, get a good job and prosper." She rolls her eyes and laughs before continuing to discuss her current projects. That's our attitude: we've become skeptical of the value of these letters after our names, pragmatic enough to get them anyway, creative enough to seek out new opportunities for ourselves and hopefully bold enough to grab them, despite our fears or financial obstacles.

Skepticism came easily to anyone getting a degree this past decade. Danielle had put herself through university working as a cocktail waitress and, after receiving her Bachelor of Fine Arts ("Bachelor of Fuck All," she sneers), "I realized, 'there is no job here,' because I knew I needed technical skills." Mike had those technical skills but discovered the strange hierarchy of what he calls "letter-snobbery," describing one manager as "brilliant" but being eclipsed by a fast-tracker with an unrelated PhD in Wildlife Biology. "If you're Dr. So-and-So," says Mike, "you're speaking gospel. There's a perceived competence, regardless of whether the degree is useful or not."

Describing his degree as "functionally useless," filmmaker Scott MacLaren knew that, unlike the others, further training wasn't the answer for him. "Depending on who you talk to," he says, "I'm either incredibly unfocused or a Renaissance Man." Knowing that "film is the profession that allows me to do everything I want to do," Scott set about doing whatever was necessary to keep focused on his film career.

That pragmatism extends to the others. Once he realized that the "noble profession" of engineering wasn't working for him, Mike knew he'd have to "take the leap" into an e-commerce MBA program ("a pet interest of mine," he says). "I'll be going from a decent salary to nothing," Mike shrugs, "Yeah, it's gonna suck but, you know, short-term pain for long-term gain." Danielle knows all about it, describing her year of waitressing to pay for better courses as "hell - the worst year of my life." Despite the temporary relief from the pressures of school, she found it to be "one of my least creative times. I had no purpose. I had nothing to say."

Danielle says that the hardest part about working with no other creative outlet was that "my belief in possibilities was being worn down. I didn't know how I was going to get out. I'd see artists working in art supply stores and think, 'Is that going to be me?'" She coped by finding any way she could to keep her artistic skills sharp, to the point of using brief pauses at work to scribble thumbnail sketches on cocktail napkins!

Scott used his job in a different way - by openly hating it. "My job was fuel," he snaps, "I made sure everyone knew I was just passing through. I mean, I'd do whatever they needed but home was my time to work on projects." As with Danielle, Scott's drive spilled over onto the job: "Lunch hour, breaks - I'd be making phone calls and getting things done. It was something to get me up in the morning." His efforts have begun to pay off with "a degree of success," he modestly notes. Scott is currently co-organizing the fifth annual On the Fly short film festival and co-producing a feature film for next spring. Meanwhile, "the cruel reality of rent" is taken care of with temp jobs. "I was a receptionist today," he laughs, "but I had an acting audition on my lunch break." His drive is matched by Danielle who sees art design and advertising as "avenues to other things. I'm afraid of 9 to 5, of joining the cult of the green lawn." A brief pause. "Thornhillian," she shudders.

It's a reasonable fear, especially after actor/comedian Liam Doherty explains how it almost trapped him. A full decade ago, he'd settled at Norwich Union Insurance ("I'm Patrick!" he laughs) and has worked there ever since. "I'd always wanted to act," he says, "but never really pursued it - too busy trying to make my way in the 'real' world." As he approached 30, however, he began to understand how terrifyingly easy it is to put our dreams aside: "You get stuck in that rut of getting used to having a paycheque. It's hard to give up that security. It fulfills your needs but traps you at the same time."

Like the others, Liam knew he'd have to get bold and began forcing himself to write material - at home, in coffee shops - and soon enrolled in workshops at the Second City. "It's hard to do when you work eight hours a day," he admits but since then, he's performed in clubs, on CTV's Comedy Network and in the Fringe festival play, 'The Sorceress'. "Once you just start doing it," he explains, "things fall into place," proving that even a later start ("I'm too old to be in your magazine," he wails) is no reason not to try. "I knew that if I didn't, I'd never know if I could've succeeded or not," he says, "I didn't want to wonder what my life would've been like."

While Liam found that "having a stable job with good money freed me up" to pursue his real career while planning a sensible exit, Don Fraser's impending career shift sounds anything but. At 28, he's spent five years in the professional staffing industry, making more money than any of the others and not afraid of "the cult of the green lawn," but he's about to pack up and move to Japan, where he and his wife, Sara, will both teach English for a year. It might sound like some midlife crisis fifteen years too early but, like Liam, Don recognized that he's "reached a point where the money is just not worth it. The job's boring, it's not challenging." He describes his day in the "big veal-fattening pen environment" as "going through a big pile of resumes, making all the phone calls, waiting for replies and generally kissing customers' asses. You never really connect with people" which, Don says, is what he'd hoped for when he began his work in the field.

Don emphasizes that he and Sara came to this decision not from some whim but from the same pragmatic sense that the others display. First of all, they have friends over there and know what to expect. Second, Don felt himself pressured to spend evenings and weekends at work away from Sara and, worse yet, becoming not only "a slave to the numbers" but actually unethical. "Ultimately," he says, "a headhunter only cares about the placement. You have to cajole people into positions that you know aren't right for them. You have to be really greedy to succeed; you have to lie to people. I'd rather sleep at night." Finally, and most importantly, a friend of Don and Sara's had died in a car accident at the age of 34. "Things like that happen," Don says flatly, "life is so short - people don't realize it. It was definitely part of the decision. I'm afraid of having that moment of looking back and thinking I've wasted my life."

To Don, teaching seemed like a better outlet for his desire to help people, with Japan a viable way to get the experience he'll need to try and get into teacher's college when they get back home. "Worst case scenario," he says, "is that I'll have my summers off!" He laughs off the suggestion that he's chasing his dream ("I'd like to live on a beach in Mexico but it's not gonna happen!") and emphasizes the practicality of his decision. For one thing, he didn't see IT training as the solution, describing it as "panning for gold in the Yukon." "My company recruits these people," he explains, "It's like the streets of the Internet are paved with gold but you don't hear about the millions of failures. I mean, if that's what makes you happy, great, but I knew it wasn't for me."

Don and the others have taken a clear-eyed look at the future and aren't sure they're impressed. What separates them from previous generations is a careful fearlessness in the way they roll up their sleeves and do whatever they must to achieve dreams that may have seemed impossible before. "It's not like when our parents had careers," says Liam, "Back then, you got into a job and you stayed - or sometimes stuck. It's why older people are so upset: 95% of them wouldn't really take that risk." However small his estimated percentage may have shrunk since those days, Liam and the others have certainly escaped that category - the attempts at reaching their dreams have already improved their lives, regardless of how it all turns out. "It's all about purpose," declares Danielle, "I know what I want to do. I may not have a five-year plan but I have an idea." She's well aware of how difficult it can be, admitting that "it's a scary time for me right now" but neither of us is worried. As Scott puts it, "You're always gonna be scrambling, you might as well get used to it and do what you want to do." It's all in how you view success, according to Don: "You can be working for minimum wage and be a success," he insists, "the end result is all about enjoying your life. If you're not happy, you've failed." Minimum wage is an eerie prospect for Mike, heading back to school. "I'm looking forward to new and creative ways to make Kraft Dinner," he laughs and we both know he'll be eating better before too long.