Suddenly lots of workers want to do something with meaning.
Is this a temporary loss of reality?
I’ve been interviewing many individuals lately who have decided Corporate America has screwed them so badly that it’s time for them to do something for themselves, for their communities, for the good of human kind. Not for the good of Corporate kind.
Climbing the ladder of success, many say, was an empty dream, proven empty by the unceremonious way many have been treated — layoffs, furloughs, pay cuts, 401Ks decimated.
What did it all mean? The constant cry for bigger, faster, cheaper?
The phenomenon I’ve been chronicling is something I’m calling the “Slow Career” movement. I’m piggybacking on the so called “Slow Food” movement, brought on by the crappy food we’ve all been putting into our bodies thanks to fast and processed food. Lots of people are thinking locally grown, healthy food is a better alternative for our health.
The Slow Career movement is seen as a better alternative for your career health. Better to do what you love, something that has a positive impact on those around us, than slave away for “The Man” all your life with little to show for it.
One woman quit a long time, lucrative IT career to start a doggy daycare. Another guy said goodbye to 70-plus hour weeks in the corporate world to start a website for adoptive parents with alternative lifestyles. Yet another laid off financial services worker decided to become a nurse.
Just got this comment today from Suzanne M. McKoy, who is a benefits manager for a major wine store chain on the East Coast and has been laid off starting in June:
I will go back to school – and take as many classes as I can, as quickly as I can to get my teaching degree. I’ve always had a passion for teaching elementary school but always followed the money and opportunities in the corporate world – what a huge mistake. I’m miserable and tired of the politics and backbiting.
I’ll be sharing more of your stories in my blog in the weeks ahead, but I thought I would launch this Slow Career series with the key question — Will it last?
The economy is in the dumps, people are getting laid off or fear they’ll be laid of, and the promise of big jobs with big pay checks is dwindling for so many. It makes sense that people would be pushed to the brink right now and decide they’re sick of it all.
That kind of mentality helps people try new things, embark on their dreams, say “what the hell, I’m going for it.”
But what if things turn around as suddenly as they tanked? What if the promise of power and money were again a seemingly attainable goal? Will this Slow Career movement become like so many other movements, a distant memory?
Patty Comeford, a head hunter and CEO of business coaching firm You’re Never Stuck, has seen trends come and go in the work world over the past two decades. She equates the Slow Career movement to what we saw after 9 11.
“I’ve seen many of these cycles but I do see this impacting people on a deeper level,” she explains.
Time will tell how deep this goes. But for now, it’s a great thing to see people reassessing what they want out of their work lives.
Are you blindly running through your career, or have you begun to move SLOW enough to smell the roses?
May 11th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
You don’t have to go from having an executive high powered career to making cupcakes or walking dogs, if that seems to dramatic to you…there are alternatives. I see a rapidly growing number of professionals who are choosing to exit the traditional employment model but wish to continue to leverage the skills they worked so hard in getting. Working as a consultant (focused on execution rather than strategy) or freelancing is reinventing work and this crazy new economy will support it. Companies now more than ever need to drive business results and simultaneoulsy manage their fixed costs. Engaging people in project based work is a very compelling business alternative to employing people. It gives companies access to deep knowledge and expertise (with done it before resources) on a variable cost basis (no recruiting, benefits or severance costs) with goal oriented people who have no political agenda (giving companies the objective feedback they need to make great business decisions).
The slow-er movement is here to stay and epochworkforce is helping companies and people reinvent work.
May 11th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
I agree wholeheartedly with Linda that it’s here to stay. More people today strive to do what they love rather than just do something to pick up a steady paycheck. That began to go out of style a generation ago, especially as more people pursued college educations and came out as independent thinkers with hard-earned degrees. To paraphrase Confucius: If you do something you enjoy, you’ll never have to work a day in your life.
If the choice comes down to huge salary with long hours and lots of misery versus a comfortable salary with reasonable hours and a strong feeling of accomplishment, more people would opt for the latter.
May 11th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
I think there’s something to this…you don’t have to ditch it all to become a yogi in India. It’s about making wise choices, choices that work for who were are and what we want to be. Maybe it works for you to be climbing the Corporate ladder. Nothing wrong with that. But it’ show you let that climb bring you down or up. That’s what slow career is about — sitting back and figuring out what works for you..what will make your mind, body and soul happy.
May 12th, 2009 at 2:01 am
I think there will be some lasting effects from this…but I also think the timing of this recession is partly responsible for it. I believe we’re seeing a generational shift in the way Americans view money, “stuff” and the work world.
The boomers have a different mentality than the xers and the yers are very different than both. I believe the xers and yers are not the consumers the boomers were and therefore don’t need the “fast” career. We’re happy to spend less, make less, achieve less and do it slower.
These, of course, are gross generalizations…but I have been on the “slow” career path to do good many a time. I’ve dipped my toe in the non-profit world twice looking for satisfaction. I believe it is better to take what you are good at, tweak it to make it better for you, and society and continue on…than to make very drastic changes.
This is what I’m hoping to do going from corporate marketing/PR into the HR world and starting my own business still marketing into the HR world - but also hopefully changing it for my kids and their kids generations. This I think is sustainable…I’m interested to see if teaching is as great as Suzanne McCoy hopes it is…I fear it may not be and that sort of change may not last. But hey…I’ve been known to be wrong before and I’m definitely routing for her and teaching!
May 12th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
I once (long ago!) had to remind myself that one can still be a businesswoman and a serious professional while keeping career issues in proper perspective. That perspective can differ from person to person, but for me it means that my career fits into my life, and not the other way around.
My first career incarnation (which lasted for a wonderful decade) was in an industry that was all about the hours. If you weren’t going at breakneck speed, you just weren’t serious about succeeding. I was single and child free at the time, and I completely bought into that–the killer hours and work/eat/sleep mentality can really draw you in to the point that anything less looks like you are dabbling at working.
It took a long time to un-learn that, and to realize that a slowdown was a wise move, and a truly successful one. For a while, it actually felt like I was “giving up” on having a great career. The world around me also made it feel like I was walking away from something, as opposed to walking towards something incredible.
May 12th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
My wife and I unofficially elected to pick a definition of ‘enough’. For a family of 4 that chooses to drive paid-for cars, live in modest housing, forgo extravagant vacations, don’t charge more than you can pay off and take advantage of the public education system, $100K is certainly enough. Since we both hit that salary milestone (or damn near it) it allowed one of us to downshift into ’slow career’ mode in a way that didn’t negatively impact the family. Since we’ve both thrived in the fast-paced roles of corporate soldiers, I’m betting we can take turns in the slow lane. It’s currently my turn and I’m loving it. We’ve got a very effective partnership.
May 12th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
Although there is some saracsm attached to this response, I hope I can convey a certain way of thinking.
With all the modern rhetoric that has been written so far on this post, my poor, first generation, stupid, New Deal era, Democratic ,idiotic grandparents have quite a say about slowing down.
Let me say, my heart is heavy for my grandmother passed away om May 9. This past Saturday. She was 95. Again I say if she did not smoke and did not live all her life within shouting distance of a Pittsburgh steel mill, she may have lived to be 100. I really wish all of you modern,high profile, self centered imbeciles who are part of the corporate world would tell me how these two worked in that mill and SAVED over $1 million dollars? All I ever found was a savings account. They never took vacations. Unless you consider spending time with us while they laughed at us and our parents. They never even felt inclined to buy a car. All the stores were about 1/2 mile away and the mill gate, maybe 1 mile. Of their two children came 7 grand children, 15 great grandchildren and about 8 great-great grandchildren so far. Collectively, none of us are even close. Some of us work in television, retail, aviation, personal hygiene and school maintenance and also in heaven.I am alone in my conservative thinking amongst that group.
Their life was simple. Today life is as complicated and extensive as we make it to be. It is also as simple and less perplexing as we make it to be.
Oddly, my conservative thinking, contrary to to the rest of my clan, did produce the best possible RTI. Most of the family put their inheritance in things like their 401’s or purchased property. As much as 2/3 of it is now lost. My late brother invested in putting drugs in his arm. I put it all on my children. Three of my six, and two are about to used it for education , one for a start up which is just now taking off. It was the simplest investment I could conjour in my small, Republican mind.
And it was possible because of a craneman and a janitor in an old, pollution spewing steel mill who never purchased a car and felt it was more fun watching a bunch of kids run amuck.
Time is the most precious, most sought after commodity in every profit/loss ratio, every RTI and every dream you may have if you are truely business worthy.
I like to quote Peter Drucker, ‘You are in business to create customers’. You could say that adaptively, ‘You live life to create posterity’.
May 13th, 2009 at 1:59 am
I have always detested corporations, after what I saw happen to my parents, and vowed never to work for one. Some might say I am in the trades for working in the entertainment field, but I chose slow career in 1974, and it took me 25 years to hit that sought after number, and 5 more to double it. Never wore a suit. never commuted, and saw it all coming, especially for the yups, who took all the freedoms fought for, and given to them by the civil rights and hippie movements, and translated it into cash and second homes. “Told you so - what took you so long to figure it out?”