You don't fit in. And that is amazing.
A few months ago, when we had basically no work on, I grumpily applied for some jobs. I had a couple of interviews, one of which turned into some consultancy work. But I didn’t get any of them, which on the one hand isn’t very validating, but on the other is secretly very relieving.
Aristotle said that you can’t make a decision as to whether someone is ‘happy’ until after they have died. You need to see the full arc. The same is true of employment: how it all ends is an important factor as to whether you were ‘successful’ or ‘enjoyed’ it. I’ve only had two jobs that ended well. This is because of the mantra I have tried to instil in our two teenagers: people can only treat you the way you let them. I’m not sucking up to anyone, and I’m not changing the way that I think, work, and organise my time to fit a corporate ‘system’.
Which brings us to Mike Monteiro’s post. You should read the whole thing, as he weaves in recollections about being left-handed, neurodivergence, and his own career. The parts I’ve picked out here reflect some of my own experience over the past 22 years of (what some may call) a career. Courtesy of Dan Sinker, I have a Marginally Employed patch below my monitor to remind me I chose this because this is the way. For me, anyway.
Very early on in my “career” (LOL) I decided I wasn’t drift compatible with working in large organizations. I just didn’t enjoy it. Which isn’t to say that I can’t work with people, there are people I absolutely love working with. […] I didn’t like working in large organizations because the larger an organization is, the more likely it is to have a certain way of doing things. Which kinda makes sense, because if you have thousands of people doing things that are supposed to be interconnected, you kinda want a process that everyone can follow, or there’s complete chaos. (The fact that most organizations attempt to do this and it still results in complete chaos is also interesting, but we’re not tackling that today.) The larger an organization becomes, the more it needs everyone to work and think the same way. That way, if it loses a worker, it’s that much easier to plug in a new worker. And while that way of working might make sense for the organization, it’s important that we also ask ourselves, as workers, if it’s working for us.
[…]
Since large organizations made me miserable, I decided to spend my career in small little studios, which tend to be a bit more supportive and even gravitate more towards people who don’t spin in the same direction. Possibly because they were all started by people who don’t spin in the same direction. Or at the same speed. Or spin at all.
[…]
I try to be really careful about how I dole out advice to people. There is no system. There is no one way. There’s no guarantee that our brains will take us on the same journey. I’ll tell people about my own experience in doing something. I’ll tell you that we need to get from Point A to Point B. I’ll tell you how I’ve gotten there in the past, which you can use as a frame of reference, if that helps you, but then I want your brain to do its thing. Because your brain is mapping out a totally different landscape than mine is, and that is fascinating.
[…]
The world is full of… people who want to sell you Design Thinking™… and people who want to see everything spin the same way. They want order. They want sameness. But the only sameness they want is for you to be as miserable as they are. And they’re all miserable. They hate you because you’re a threat. You see what they don’t. You feel what they can’t. You can smell colors! You can read the stars. You see the connections that they can’t. You can paint something, with your own hands, that they have to fire up Three Mile Island to even attempt. You can change your body into what you need it to be. You can love who you love.
You don’t fit in.
And that is amazing.
Source: [Mike Monteiro’s Good News](buttondown.com/monteiro/…]
Image: Mulyadi