Author: Dane Tingleff
How fumbling to find a calling led to power through real-life, in-person relationships
I turn up after university burnt out and without a plan. So, I fall into uneducated jobs and for eight years I live paycheck to paycheck. The upside? I can only afford a bicycle, and I learn to love bicycling everywhere. It’s physical, healthy, and real.
In 2013-2014, in grassroots canvassing, I hold a clipboard on sidewalks pitching people on a nonprofit cause they weren’t expecting to talk about—let alone donate to on a monthly basis! I confirm that Sales is hard, but I see that it’s doable. It seems that the most straightforward, comfortable employees bring in the most money—my first lesson that preparation is insufficient. You see, memorizing the pitch doesn’t move them to act.
Even this humble job was too hard for me, but it kicked off what accidentally became a career in people skills—what no classroom ever taught me.
Then, I have thousands of mini-interactions in retail jobs. The sheer volume of face-to-face customer interactions is a huge stage in my career.
But I am bored and embarrassed to be stuck in retail where I never intended to be. So, it’s time to pick a field and commit to it. Pick something! It almost doesn’t matter what. “I need to start my career. I am almost 30. Just pick something,” I think. I am to the point where I have to decide.
So I choose User Experience (UX) and further educate myself. Soon, I quadruple my income at a job in User Experience Research. I move to the glamorous New York City. Learning people skills is starting to pay off because that fortunate job offer came from networking.
The User Experience job itself is built around people skills. I learn that participants in customer research don’t always mean what they say, but I can dig deeper with probing questions. Then, swaying company decisions required telling stories.
‘I instructed research participants to do a task. Then they said… But something unexpected happened. The takeaway lesson is… and that is why you focus on… when designing the product.’
My job teaches me about the importance of asking questions and telling stories. But I wish for more in-person collaboration, which is short in the department.
Boom. Layoffs get me, for better or worse. The projects I’ve amassed during four years in this Design department disappear from my life along with my company computer access.
It’s a chance to make slight changes to my next job, but the market is bad and unemployment turns into prolonged unemployment, surfacing memories of when I was 24 living paycheck to paycheck. I decide to pivot—again.
Presently, it’s Personal Training. The job I’m seeking is to train clients at fitness clubs. Like prophecy, the job seems to be made up of things I’ve been doing all along: physicality, health, and people skills.
I never expected to be here, and it will be a grinding pivot. But it’s a meaningful one because Personal Training takes a powerful angle on relationships: holding clients accountable to owning their health. In retrospect, my work history seems purposeful all along. Most importantly, I have something that younger me needed: a bustling network and rewarding interactions.
Career-Confidence as a source of job search strategy, public speaking inspiration, and relationships was the only consistent one that I found on the internet after the layoff last year. Now, I volunteer for Career-Confidence in New York City. I facilitate the in-person networking that’s necessary for any job-seeker’s personal and professional life.
Plus, Robert Brandau tells good stories.