Career

Don’t Let Employment Define Your Identity

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I remember my first layoff in 1996.

It was weird and traumatic.  I'd been let go before, I'd had temp assignments run out, but this was a case of everything just ended.  The company I worked for was gone, my co-workers scattered to the four winds, and I was out of a job.

I'd like to say that immunized me against future layoffs.  It didn't.  There's really something about your job just ending, and not because of anything you did – but because a company collapses, or runs out of money, or just decides to cut staff.  Your job is just gone.

In some cases, it feels like you're gone too.  You're not making money, not doing anything, and you don't feel like anyone.  Like it or not, we define a lot of ourselves by our jobs.

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Book Review: Craft, Inc.

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Craft Inc.: Turning your Creative Hobby Into a Business
By Meg Mateo Ilasco

PROS:

  • A mix of business and personal advice on turning a craft hobby into a career.
  • Provides excellent examples from actual successes.
  • Covers a wide variety of ground very well.
  • Extremely artistic layout makes it accessible (and a great gift)

CONS:

  • Occasional digressions can break the flow of the book.
  • Small typefaces may make reading difficult

SUMMARY: A useful, friendly, and information packed guide to turning crafty hobbies into paying business

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Weekly Challenge: Trends And You

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Think about your current or ideal job (let us hope they're the same thing, but if not pick one).  Write down the major trends you've seen in this current or ideal career for as long as you can remember (even before you started doing it).  For instance, in the world of video games I've seen trends like:

  • Social Media
  • Everything Must Be Multiplayer
  • Everything Must Be a First-Person Shooter
  • Everything Must Be Set in World Wor II or an analogue
  • We Need a Mascot Like Mario or Sonic
  • Skirting the Edge of Controversy
  • Fishing Minigame In Everything
  • Point And Click Adventure Mania

 . . . and so on.

Now look at those trends you listed.  Which of them turned out to have legs and last – and which ones didn't last or do you expect to flame out?

Now which of these affected or could affect your career?  Are you prepared for the repercussions?  How can they affect you – positively and negatively?

Keeping track of trends (and their short-attention span siblings, fads) is important to do in your current job or your dream careers.  They will affect you – woe to the professional who forgets what is a fad and what is a trend, and what is past and what is future.

So try this exercise now and then, just in case.

(And for that matter, I think World War II games aren't going away, they've achieved a kind of mythology.  But I've noted the Search for New Mascots tends to flame out very easy so I'm always wary of them. . .)

– Steven Savage