Ask a Manager: let’s hear from people who didn’t find their career paths until after 40

[minoanmiss]

It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes:

This is half-question, half-plea. I’d love to hear from readers who didn’t get into a fulfilling / interesting / creative / what-you-actually-want-to-do career until after age 40.

I’m having a bit of a slow, long-term personal breakdown of shame over my “career.” I started out a high achiever, interested in so many things and studying so many creative and academic pursuits. I went to a good college, got great grades, and have so many interests.

But graduating into the Great Recession without a much family money behind me (and not having worked during school) left me working retail / customer service / secretarial jobs for what eventually added up to over 10 years. I was pursuing some small writing and performance activities during that time, but nothing that gave me a foothold into a creative job. I saw place after place I wanted to write for someday get sucked dry by venture capital. Covid and helping family members through crises didn’t help things.

I’m out of the entry-level stuff now, but just barely — working admin for a good organization but deeply ashamed to be almost 40 and doing a job I don’t want and should have progressed past in my 20s.

I think you can tell the pain this is causing me. My friend group is divided between high earners with unfun, morally grey jobs and those whose jobs are clearly “the thing you tried to be” (teacher, nurse). Meanwhile I’m so embarrassed to even tell people what my job is at my age.

I’d really like to hear anyone who had a similar “wandering in the desert” period and then got back on track after age 40. I know Alan Rickman didn’t start acting until after 40 but I need some other people to tell me it might be okay too.

Well, first, there’s nothing embarrassing about doing admin work in your 40s! Many people make an entire decades-long career out of it and are extremely valuable to their employers. But it’s not what you want to be doing, and that’s what matters.

Readers, please share your own stories in the comments.

Comments

[minoanmiss]

well this hit me where i live

[cimorene]

Same.

[aflaminghalo]

haha, yeah... ~stares into nothingness~

also, i hate how often i know that someone has confused 'didn't start' with 'didn't get successful in'. i would like some comforting myths please.

[dissectionist]

I have to be careful how much I say on public posts for confidentiality reasons, but very early on (late teens and very early 20s) I had something I loved and then I lost my ability to do it due to disability reasons. I spent the next 20 years either too sick to work or doing things that weren’t my thing and were just to raise whatever minimum-wage funds I could. In my early 40s I had a couple important people to me die early from a particular medical condition, which sent me into a tailspin of grief and obsessive learning about that condition. Now I work in that field of research, helping to save lives and training young people in how to be the next generation of researchers. I can’t imagine doing anything other than what I’m doing now. The pay is still low (academic research labs don’t have a lot of money) but this work is so incredibly meaningful and all-absorbing to me.

[movingfinger]

I haven't read the comments, but it seems like this person is unfamiliar with the concept of the "day job." That's the paid work (with benefits) you do to keep yourself fed and housed, and if the writer has an admin job, it is the ideal kind of day job because it is not a job typically taken home or done on weekends. It is an office-hours job. In your free time, having a place to live, food, etc., frees up your mind for creative work.

It seems like the "do what you love" kinds of pitches have seriously skewed people's ideas of what a creative career looks like. Very few people with creative tendencies make a living at it---it is not the norm. Go out when you're not at the day job, do your thing, enjoy doing your thing. Get paid for it if you can. Don't expect it to pay the rent.

[conuly]

My BIL was determined to support himself as an artist and now, at nearly 50, he supports himself as an artist... for a definition of supporting himself that includes three roommates. (I mean, no insult, but he could've been at two or even one roommate if he'd compromised a little bit on the job front.)

[minoanmiss]

I completely agree with you about the day job/ art an avocation way of life.

But still it can be difficult not to internalize societal disdain. When I was 17 and got into an Ivy League the people in my church asked why I wasn’t attending a local Christian college instead of I said I didn’t want to be a secretary (instead of ARE YOU NUTS I GOR INTO AN IVY) I sometimes consider my subsequent pink collar career punishment for my hubris.

[conuly]

LW is embarrassed to tell people they work as an admin? But... why? Seriously, why? It's a useful job, and it pays the bills.

[lethe1]

I'm not sure I follow. LW is jealous of their high earning friends with unfun, morally grey jobs? Unless the only difference between them and LW is the high earning part, I don't see what there is to aspire to.

Nothing wrong with working in admin, lots of people do it all their lives.

[minoanmiss]

There’s nothing wrong with working in admin and yet…

I used to follow a cool woman on DW. She had a photogenic baby with big cheeks and a pilots license. And then one day she posted about how admins are women without ambition or intellect. I politely disagreed, unfollowed her, and cried.

[lethe1]

I am so sorry to hear that. But that woman was snobbish and elitist, speaking from a place of privilege. Not cool at all.

[minoanmiss]

Thank you. :)

[conuly]

Speaking of which, it’s okay to not have ambition! It’s okay to be absolutely normal in intelligence!

[minoanmiss]

So this made for a good insomnia tcontemplation.

It *is* okay to not be ambitious or brilliant. Neither is a requirement for existence. But it seemed to me to be ... unfair to peg these qualities to the particular job of being an admin.

Beyond my particular personal history, a lot of admins are indeed very intelligent, very skilled, and even very ambitious (many people chart a careeer progression for themselves that involves being an admin). So to say admins are *incapable* of these qualities ... well, I don't agree with her globally.

But that's not why I cried, I admit. I cried because I did work really hard when I was younger to earn a college degree and it frankly kind of hurt to see that negated in her statement because I ended up going into an admin career to be employed. And that's how many people view admins, as necessarily incapable, which can get a little soul-squashing sometimes.

[conuly]

So, to be clear, I didn't mean to make you think that I thought you felt that way. I didn't think you felt that way!

> And that's how many people view admins, as necessarily incapable, which can get a little soul-squashing sometimes.

I'm pretty sure that acting as though you think admins are incapable is how you end up always on the receiving end of admin "screw-ups".

[minoanmiss]

Oh I know. :) This letter just made me sad for obvious and yet stupid reasons.

[katiedid717]

The line about graduating into the recession makes me this this LW is probably a year or two younger than me. I graduated from high school in June 2003, and I remember there were SO MANY colleges and universities at that time that were advertising "Build Your Own Degree Program!" majors...and then in 2008-2010, I was reading articles on Career Builder about how these hyper-specific individually-tailored degrees were actually making it harder for people to find jobs. LW mentions having so many interests and not working during college/university - I wonder if they have one of these bespoke degrees as well. Most of the degree programs I looked into had some sort of internship or practical experience as a requirement during the final year (student teaching, student nursing, etc) and I know that my sister's engineering degree required her to do an internship and an externship during her final semester.

[joyeuce]

I had a career that I - well, liked rather than loved, in my 20s and 30s. Then tech advances happened and didn't quite wipe it out, but made it a much smaller field. And then I had a baby and decided I didn't want to be out of the house for 12 hours a day and pay more than I earned in childcare. Then she started school and I pivoted into an admin job, and here I still am at nearly 50. It works for me and my family, which is the main thing. But I don't feel any need to be embarrassed by it, and no one (except possibly my mother) has ever tried to embarrass me.

[gingicat]

I realized around the age of 40 that being an admin is my vocation. When someone asks what I do, I say "I support these AMAZING people who foster disability inclusion, let me tell you about them."