I am not a gambler when it comes to money, just when it comes to my career in administration. In fact, I've been known to say that I would much rather drop $500 on shoes at Nordstrom than into a slot machine or at a poker table. But three years ago I took a chance and quit a perfectly respectable job as director of a career center at a small Midwestern college to move 2,000 miles away, and follow my soon-to-be husband to a college presidency he had been offered.
I took a short hiatus from the work world to finish my master's thesis, and I set a goal of nine months to look for a new position in college marketing and communications. Before I got to that search, however, temporary insanity possessed me to take a job with a local city government as a marketing director. I enjoyed the work immensely for exactly three months. And then my boss quit to care for her terminally ill husband and was replaced by the Wicked Witch of the West.
Before I knew it, I was back on the market -- for about three days -- when a seemingly perfect job fell into my lap. I was hired as director of communications for a small, liberal-arts Christian college about an hour's drive from my home. (Hint: The commute becomes a big problem).
In my new perfect job, I had a perfect boss. Let's call him the dean from Oz. He didn't bother me, rarely spoke to me, and didn't have the slightest idea what I was doing or not doing. (Hint: This becomes another big problem.)
After three weeks, I had streamlined the communications operation, eliminating wasteful re-entry of data and unnecessary procedures, to the point that I was suddenly finding myself with too much time on my hands. So I clicked my ruby slippers down the hall to see the dean from Oz and said, "Oh perfect dean, please let me do more around here." To which, he said, "You can make Oz anything that you want it to be" and pointed me out of his office.
Clueless as to his meaning, I decided to just keep busy. Every morning, after a 45-mile drive down the rainy highways of the Pacific Northwest, which in this part of the world amounts to an hourlong commute one way, I would arrive at my office, where it would take only about a third of my eight-hour day to be done with my official duties. To stay busy, I meticulously organized my files, I wrote lengthy replies to alumni, I read four newspapers a day, and for the first time in my life, I actually took the hour allotted for lunch.
Around month six, I approached the dean of Oz again. He's a fact man, I said to myself. Let me give him facts. So in a very neatly prepared spreadsheet I documented for him what my predecessor had done, what I had done, and then outlined some very good (I thought) ideas about how I might fill my time -- all of which he squashed like little munchkins.
I began to sense that the dean of Oz himself was dissatisfied with his job. You know that feeling you get when someone seems disengaged? Well, I guess it takes one to know one.
We had both picked an inopportune time to be restless. Our local newspapers continue to be filled with stories about the high unemployment rate. Students graduating from this small college are taking jobs as receptionists for hair salons and working for their parents. A very large airplane company is laying off employees faster than a Kansas tornado.
Things came to a head for me and the dean when we had the opportunity to interview the noted teacher and writer Parker Palmer for our alumni magazine. We talked to him about his book, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation (Jossey-Bass, 1999). During our interview, Palmer quoted a survey in which executives nearing retirement were asked what they would change in their lives in they could live them over again. The three most common answers: They would take more time to be reflective. They would try to understand more deeply what really gave them satisfaction. And they would take more risks.
In the days that followed, I thought a lot about vocation as I drove back and forth to work every day. More than once it occurred to me that I would rather be doing laundry than wasting my life on the freeway and not being able to contribute to my full potential.
Luckily, every day when I arrived home, the most wonderful not-cowardly-at-all lion (as in Leo, the astrological sign) was waiting for me. And one day he said, "You know what? I think that you should just quit. You'll find something else."
Just two days before I was to submit my resignation, the dean from Oz quit, too. Apparently, he too wanted to make his life more rewarding. The day I handed in my notice, we commiserated about taking risks.
Looking for work is always challenging, but especially when there are constraints on your search. I want to be close to home, but the college closest to me is where my husband serves as president. I can't work there because it would be a conflict of interest. In social circles, I get to mingle with many of the college presidents in the area. While that might seem like a big advantage, in fact, it can be a deterrent to my being hired: No one wants to seem as if they are giving me preferential treatment.
In addition, I need a degree of flexibility in my schedule for the occasions when I have to serve a social role as the wife of the president at my husband's college. Luckily, we have numerous community colleges and institutions within a 50-mile radius, so I am confident the right fit will materialize eventually.
My hope as I begin this job search is that my next position will be a step up the administrative ladder -- perhaps an associate deanship in public relations. Or something related to career advising again.
I have had the privilege of working for a four-year university, a technical college, and a private Christian university. I can honestly say that I enjoy the community-college environment most of all. But we'll see. My next job just might be something that speaks to me at the right time and the right place. I know one thing for certain, this time I'm listening to the voice within, and this time the yellow brick road needs to be closer to home.
