Who's Map is This?
by Liz Dadanian
Most people wouldn’t entrust their life plan to a high school senior. Thinking back though, that’s exactly what I did. With an eager inexperience that is the hallmark of being eighteen, I formed a plan to set the business world on fire. I would study my ass off, convince my parents to pay my way through university, and pursue a practical degree in… accounting. Set for life, right? I followed this formula to a tee and even managed to get a job offer from a global accounting firm before graduation. All that was left to do was jump into the career world and make a big splash. My determination, hard work, and team spirit would propel me right to the top. I could feel it. Looking back, my notion of “the top” was naïve at best. Still, the prospect of making my own money and being independent was thrilling. All I had to do was get started.
Fresh out of corporate training, I was ready for my first client engagement. My manager sent me a long list of instructions on what to do before arriving on site. Being the low woman on the totem pole, my job was to requisition all the supplies, old files, and reference materials the team would be needing for the next four weeks. (This was before laptops were the norm, so this request was no joke.) The night before the job was scheduled to start, I laid everything out in my bedroom to make sure I’d be ready. All the supplies were loaded into two large storage boxes. The boxes were cream colored with light pink roses printed on them. I was concerned they looked too feminine, but I didn’t have anything else so they’d have to do. Next, I packed my audit bag with all of the previous year’s files and looked up driving directions in my mom’s old Thomas Guide. Finally, I laid out my navy skirt suit (pant suits were frowned upon in those days), along with reasonable blue pumps, a button-down shirt, and nylons. I was ready.
Monday morning came and I was out the door before the sun came up. I was going to make sure I was the first one on-site so that everything would be ready for the team when they came in. After getting lost and finally finding parking six blocks away in the middle of Downtown LA, I still had a shot at making it into the office on time. I quickly unloaded the contents of my trunk onto a luggage cart I’d purchased just for this purpose. After securing the bungie cord, I slung my purse across my body and grabbed the audit bag with my free hand. I covered most of the walk very quickly and took a second to catch my breath at the last red light before crossing the street to my intended address. As soon as the light turned green I stepped into the street only to have my luggage cart topple. I watched in horror as the carefully packed contents sprawled themselves out over this busy city crosswalk. The empty rose-covered boxes looked foolish against the harsh backdrop of the city. Horror turned to hopelessness as the September winds made away with most of the 16-column paper. A nice guy helped me retrieve as many of the supplies as possible before the light turned green. Needless to say, I got to the office late.
My rocky initiation to the work world was really only the beginning of a twenty-plus year gauntlet. I learned to bite my tongue when it came to dealing with tired, stressed-out bosses who were habitual yellers. I figured out creative ways to stay clear of unethical co-workers. I discovered that gender and racial biases are real. It turns out most places don’t hire you for your brain and ingenious input, they really just want you to do what you’re told and stay in your lane. Being a trusted employee means that you’ve proven you won’t rock the boat. There is also the unwritten understanding that when you join an organization, you agree to morph yourself into the image of that organization. For this reason, I spent all the young years of my life looking and talking a lot like a sixty-year-old nun.
In spite of these obstacles, I maintained a level of optimism fueled by the belief that a better life waited for me just beyond the “rough patches.” I believed this because, on paper, I was doing everything right. For decades, I continued to believed that if I kept my head down and worked very hard, my contributions would speak for themselves and I’d be valued because of it. The hardest truth to learn was that this isn’t always the case. That’s when I also came to terms with how hard it is to maintain a professional level of motivation and stamina when you’re working off of someone else's roadmap for your life plan. I’d spent a good part of my life focused on building a resume instead of figuring out how to have a fulfilling life on my own terms. By keeping my nose so securely fixed to the grindstone, I never left room to be interested or interesting. When the impact of this realization opened my eyes, I clued into the fact that most everyone around me had checked out a long time ago.
The world of work, coupled with our cultural misconceptions about success, has a way of turning people from Technicolor to grayscale. The finest organizations in the world are still churning out hundreds of thousands of individuals who zombie-walk into and out of work, day-after-day, year-after-year, from paycheck-to-paycheck to the end of their lives. For millions of people, work is a place where dreams come to die.
It doesn’t have to be this way. A lot of the pain and suffering associated with work comes from buying into the notion that you have to put up with all kinds of nonsense if you want to win the game, provide for your family, or “get to the top.” This line of thinking comes from a mindset of being trapped. We have been trained to believe that worth only comes from financial and career success. Refusing to buy into the status quo doesn’t mean giving up on your ambition or security. It does mean defining success for yourself and achieving security on your own terms. When you find ways to put your effort into the things that matter most to you, you will find a path that is deeply satisfying and fulfilling. For some, this will mean being CEO. For others, it will mean starting their own business, joining the Peace Corps, or raising family. What it will never mean is vacantly racking up miles on a career path and hoping it will lead you somewhere satisfying.