Career break (cya job)
Hello everyone,
There are a bunch of new people who’ve subscribed recently, so there may be a few things I write today that you’ve read before, but it’s intentional, I swear.
In general, though, this newsletter is going to shift a bit for the next six months and be a place where I share very specifically about experimenting with not having a day job. Which, as of this week, is something I’m trying for six months.
Today I want to write a bit about my history with having a career and why I’m quite excited about not having one any more.
For context, a few weeks ago, the program I was running at a University lost a lot of funding and my boss didn’t have the money to keep me on. And, to be honest, I’m sort of relieved - I have to be honest, I sucked at having a career.
First of all, I think the idea of having a career was maybe bad advice for me, for reasons that might make sense as you read more, but when I was younger I certainly felt that it was the only real gateway to making a living and having a reasonable life.
My first career was High School teaching. There were some good pros to this: it’s easy to share with people what I was doing for work, and I always had lots of funny and weird stories. There was a lot of autonomy and, broadly, as long as the students were learning, no one could tell me what to do. Which suits me, I hate being told what to do or how to do it.
I worked as a teacher for seven years and, I spent more of that time just working on being a really good teacher. I guess I’d picked up on some advice that spending a lot of time getting good at something is valuable and, if you’re good enough, there’ll always be options. But that didn’t really prove very true, to be honest.
So, as a teacher I spent a lot of time enjoying the perks of the job. I moved around a lot - and it was really great living in different places, doing a 1 year contract here then another 1 year contract there. I did a good job and made the choice not to climb the ladder, because I wanted to be really good in the classroom. However, at the end of seven years all I had was a lot of classroom experience that was way more specific than I realised. Too late, I discovered that most of the skills that would have helped me get a non-teaching job I would have learned if I’d accepted promotions, rather than honing classroom skills, curriculum writing, resource creation, pastoral care, etc.
It was 2019, I’d 7 years of experience and was quickly realising I was sort of screwed. It then took me about 6 months of never ending job applications and total misery to eventually move into the next career. Those 6 months were some of the least joyful times in my life - just trying to prove to someone, anyone, that I was good enough to let in. People constantly asking ‘how’s the job search going?’ (please never, ever ask someone that question - it’s the worst question to ask). For anyone who has had a similar experience I think you’ll agree - an extended period of searching for work is so debasing, you barely feel alive some of the time. How quickly you realise that genuinely you matter very little is not humbling: it’s terrifying.
But I did eventually prove I could do something other than be an English teacher and, more or less, have worked in Universities since. I did a short stint working as a policy writer (the less said about that the better) - but Universities have been ok. On one hand much less stressful than teaching, on the other incredibly precarious work and often so boring. In one role I literally spent 2-4 hours of the week doing 90% of my work. But I was good at the work, and broadly had very successful results: I can point to every role I’ve had and say ‘I did better than I was asked to’.
So why didn’t it work out? Why am I still writing this saying I’m bad at careers?
I think for one big reason: at the end of the day, funding ran out, my position was canned, the University turned its back and I had no options. It didn’t matter how good I was at the work, it didn’t matter how much effort I put in, it didn’t matter if I was the best at my job or not - there’s nothing I can do, I was in a bad industry run by bad people. That total dis-empowerment - that’s why I’m bad at careers, I can never quite keep in mind that there isn’t trust, loyalty or care. To a workplace: we aren’t people, we’re just functions. If I was better at keeping that front of mind I think I’d be better at careers, but I find that reality offensive and try to act as if I live in a world better suited to my views - that folks will look out for each other because it’s the right thing to do. That’s not a workplace, though, is it?
Along the way, work really hurt me. Teaching led me to diagnosis of work-stress-insomnia, work-stress induced tooth grinding and burnout. University work has led to serious bouts of depression and a very toxic relationship with productivity. Maybe that’s the other reason I’m bad at a career: it eats me up.
Emblematic of all this baggage was my very last day which was Friday last week. My boss had asked me to present my thoughts on the future of the program, asked me to schedule it for the final day and then she, at the last minute, was unable to attend, so I recorded it on Zoom to an audience of no one and sent her the recording. Afterwards I received an automated email with thanks from colleagues and students. Of the 100 or so people I worked directly with who were invited to write a thank you, 6 wrote something.
I share that not just to say ‘what the fuck guys?’ but also to ask you to consider things from my point of view - do days like that not seem so one-sided as to be just galling?
But!!!!! I don’t want to sound snarky or sad! Sorry if I do! What I want to share is that I followed a lot of well-meaning but, for me, ultimately pointless advice. I started in an in-demand industry and spent a lot of time getting good, but that led me to stress and burnout. So I moved to a less stressful industry and spent more time climbing the ranks, only to be cut without any hesitation as soon as it was convenient after a protracted period of deep sadness. So much of the time my careers have made me feel doubtful, anxious, nervous, upset, uncomfortable, unsure, angry, frustrated - and now I’m thinking ‘you know, Matt, maybe this isn’t the way for you to live - maybe you need something that feeds you a bit more’.
Because careers eat up your life, don’t they? Is it a nice day and you want to go for a walk - WELL you fucking can’t because the boss wants some dumb data entered that they will never look at. Is there an awesome opportunity to go photograph something? You absolutely can not because you have to sit in the office pretending to do work today. I’ve wasted 12 years of my only life working for other people, often on things that I don’t think matter. I’ll never get to be 28 again, for example, and I work ate so much of that year, as it did also when I was 24 or 32 or any age where 40+ hours of the week were spent on crap.
And that might have been worth it except here I am: out of work and with nothing to show for it. I’ll also mention that one reason I was cut was because administratively it was easier to cut my position than my boss’.
You might see why I’m excited to pause that stuff for a few months. I hope you can see what I’m running from.
And I am excited, so fucking excited, to be doing my own thing. I am so hungry to have more autonomy, more space, more creativity and fewer workplace dramas.
With that said, for the next six months all I’ll be doing is:
a) Working on Tall Poppy Press - trying to grow it further, to the point where the profit on sales make up 30-50% of the money I need for a year
A big part of this will be trying to move the quality of the books made further and also spend more time selling books at fairs, to stores, etc.
b) Building my arts education practice/business further - and there’s already some good things on the horizon there.
A lot of this will be finding new collaborators and also working on a new type of workshop (very nascent now but will share later).
c) Seeing if my own art work can go further than just making me happy. I feel that the next six months will be a period where I either am able to continue this or have to accept I’m just not good enough to be an artist and abandon it as a serious part of my life. That’s a bit dramatic, but equally it could just be another bad career - and I’ve had enough of those.
My aim, my hope, my deeply held ‘this is what I want’ is to be my own boss. I don’t want my success or security to be out-sourced, I don’t want a workplace agreement ruling how I spend my Tuesday. I want more freedom, more autonomy and less nonsense. I can live with less income, but, if I can swing it, I hope I’m done living with the feeling that I’ve traded my labour for very little.
So, in many ways, my hope is not to become mr big business, but to be able to continue - to have enough success and earn enough money from creative ventures that I can get to Christmas and say ‘you know what? there’s enough gas in this tank - let’s keep going’.
I know there’s a good chance that won’t happen. There’s a good chance I get to Christmas and think ‘shit I just need an income again’ - that would suck but I don’t think I’ll regret having a career break.
I’m ok with both options, but I’m not ok with not trying.
So those are my options: get to a point where I can keep going, or give it a shot and crawl back to a day job. Either way I’m happy to see where we get to.
But first - a holiday. For July I’m first off on a roadtrip hanging out with Dingoes, dingo people and dingo stuff. I love road trips because I get so much time and space. I can sit and think, talk out loud as I drive, or just sit in the quiet. I can go days without chatting to people if I need that to recuperate, and can also just follow my nose. It’s a very freeing form of existing in the world and usually helps me get back a feeling of excitement. And I’d like to ride the excited wave a bit longer. When that’s done my gf and I will go to Queenstown to ski. Which is an objectively insane thing for someone working for themselves to do because skiing is expensive and Queenstown is expensive. I will not be able to justify a trip like that for much longer, that’ll be the last week not worrying about every little expense, well, that’s a lie, I’m already worrying about each dollar I spend.
That’s a good note to say that I’ve been lucky that my careers, failed as they are, allowed me to have income and save a lot of money over the years. I wouldn’t be a publisher otherwise, I wouldn’t be financially secure enough to try 6 months off otherwise. As much as I wonder if someone like me can ever be happy working for someone else, it’s important to be honest and grateful for the positives too. I made some good friends, I did some good work, I set myself up for a comfortable enough life. For that I should say ‘thank you careers - let’s part as friends’.
Thanks for reading a longer newsletter than normal. I wanted to be honest with what I’m running from and why I’m running towards something else. So many people would want a more stable job situation, and would be puzzled at my values. I wanted to start with some basics, so that I might be able to show you where I’m heading and why.
Next week I’ll be on the road, I’ll share a bit more about my goals for the next six months and how I hope to be sitting here in December typing to you ‘I think I can keep going, I still don’t think I need a day job'.
Thanks for being here for the journey - expect some big ups and some big downs, some fun wins and some tough losses, some navel gazing whys and some clear eyed vindications. It’ll be a ride, that’s for sure.
Matt