I'm 29 and I Hate My Job

My name is Chris Noland and I'm 29 years old and engaged to the girl of my dreams. Personally, my life couldn't be better and I'm thankful with the way that part of my life is turning out. Professionally, now, that's a different story and it has weighed heavily on my mind and sometimes affected those around me. Let me explain.

Growing up, I was your average all-american kid. I loved sports and was pretty good at them too. I didn't hate school and did enough to get by A's and B's. Through high school I was heavily involved in clubs and organizations and more often than not, was in leadership positions within those clubs. I got to college and started as a business major and realized very quickly that was not the route for me. Ultimately, I transferred to another school closer to home, switched majors to journalism and communications (much to my parents dismay) and finished with pretty good grades. However, I suffered from what I learned was a fairly common ailment. I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do. There is one universal remedy for that, Grad School.

I went for a Master's Degree in Mass Communication and before finishing, became extremely disenchated with journalism as a whole. I could start an entire blog based on those opinions so there is no need to go into it here. My grad school experiment was not a success so it was time to get into the real world. The university where I graduated was in need of a recruiter and I thought that sounded fun so I applied and ended up with the job. Honestly, I had a great time traveling around talking to high school students about college and doing campus tours and just living a more mature college lifestyle. The town was very small though and that can be hard when you're 26 and single so after two and a half years, I decided I wanted to move back to my hometown.

Fortunately, my mom is a real estate agent and was showing houses to a lady who worked for a corporate recruiting firm. I'd heard of head hunters in the past but didn't know much about the industry but my interest was peaked. I did some research and sent them my resume and long story short, they hired me. After moving, I got started and pretty quickly realized that the industry wasn't as illustrious as it seemed. Talk about a sweatbox. For the first time, i was introduced to extreme micromanagement. You were called out publicly in daily meetings, chastised for going to the bathroom and made to feel guilty if you needed to schedule a doctor's appointment. I'm being kind here and again, I could post another seperate blog about this company but I won't. Things got so bad that I went to therapy. We both decided that I was too young to be feeling like this so after the first meeting, I went back in and resigned even though I didn't have anything else lined up. Let me tell you, that is a liberating feeling. Almost immediately, former employees began calling me and made me understand that I was not the only one to go through those type of experiences. Several were in therapy and there were quite a few multi-million dollar lawsuits against them. The point being, I knew I made the right decision.

During this time, a girl named Kristen was up visiting an old high school friend who happened to be my roommate. My roommate was sleeping over at his girlfriend's house when Kristen showed up so I got to entertain her for a while and I'm glad I did. We've been dating a year and a half and will be married in October 2008. This is a situation where you meet someone exactly when you're suppose to. We went to the same college and had the same group of friends but had never met until that day. That made me realize truly how good life can be.

Kristen and I did the long distance thing for a little while and eventually she moved to be with me. This all coincided with the time I was looking for another job. I know I scared her to death and caused her a fair amount of stress being unemployed. I had an offer from an internet advertising company and while waiting for a training session to begin the next month, another corporate recruiting company knocked on my door. A gentleman with a pretty impressive corporate pedigree was starting a new company and needed some help. I talked to him and addressed all my concerns from my last job: micromanagement, opressive managers, thumb on the back of your neck, etc. He promised it would be nothing like that and for the first five months he was exactly right. He'd hired on several other new people and things were going well, we were all having some element of success. Something happened and nobody knew what it was but a light switch seemed to go off in his head and he changed. He began micromanaging and he developed a gruffness that people really didn't appreciate. I started to get nervous because I'd been down this path before. I decided to ride it out, hoping it was a phase that he would snap out of. Eventually, I realized things were not going to get better. Five people quit in two weeks. That NEVER bodes well for an organization.

This finally brings me to the point of my blog. There is a term that I'm sure you've heard and it is "Job Hopping." Obviously, a job hopper is someone who hops from job to job to job. I was afraid of being referred to as a job hopper because I was looking for my third job in two years. This had me up at night. Who would want to hire someone who can't seem to hold onto a job. I understand that thought. I talked with Kristen about it because I didn't want to cause her stress either. And let me just say that she has been so unbelievably supportive. I talked it out with my best friend Andy too. I came to realize that I'm not the only one in this situation. I'm not the first person to hate their job and want a new one. The purpose of this blog is to let people out there know that there is a way out. I think more and more, people are realizing that young people are not going to work in a place where they're not happy. I think we owe it to ourselves to find a career that makes us happy and if that means having a couple of false starts, fine.

I left the second recruiting firm. This time though, I had another job lined up. Two months ago, I met with a gentleman who handles my dad's insurance. He gave me several avenues to look at and several people to contact. I never really thought about insurance as a career and quite honestly, who has. But the more I looked at it, the more I realized that it's something I'm really interested in. Everyone has to have it whether they want it or not. The most important thing this man told me was to make a two year commitment. No matter what I thought of it in the beginning, give it two years. That's how long it will take me to build a business. I took that to heart. Eventually, a commercial insurance agency in town contacted me. I interviewed with them in person several times. They offered me a position on the third interview but I wanted to come back in one more time just to ask some more questions, to be sure this is something I wanted to embark on. I start this Monday and I'm very excited.

I'm going to update this page with the processes that I'm going through, my successes and my failures. This isn't a page that is meant to focus on commercial insurance, but rather on a new beginning for a younger guy on his fourth professional job. That looks terrible when I type it but I'm determined to make this work and again, let people know that they aren't the only ones in this situation.