July 2024 Paid Subscribers AMA

Another month, another special issue for our paid subscribers! This time, we’re answering questions from readers about career change, podcasts, our dream pop culture gigs, and what we’ll get up to when we finally hold an all-Dames gathering. If you’d like to submit a question for a future AMA, hit reply or leave a note in the comments!

I'm thinking about leaving teaching after ten years. What's your advice for starting over career-wise at 36? With three kids? I don't want to go work for a corporate overlord, but I want to feel okay about leaving work at work and being present for my family.

Margaret: The biggest thing I would like to stress here is: there are so many more jobs than you imagine. When you’ve spent your whole adult life pursuing work in one type of job, especially when that job is a could-appear-in-Richard-Scarry’s-Busy-World-books role like teacher or librarian, it is honestly hard to imagine the diversity of opportunities that exist beyond that field. I am here to tell you that there are jobs beneath corporate overlords that you could genuinely love. And I am also here to tell you that there is joy in having a job you don’t genuinely love, a job that’s just a way to earn what you must to live the life you wish to. As for how to go about finding those jobs, here are my basic tips:

• If you can afford it, do some sessions with a career coach. Readers, if you’ve worked with one you love, comment with their information below!

• Think carefully about your job and try to identify:

  • The parts that drain you

  • The parts that energize you

  • The parts at which you feel you excel

  • The parts you’d pay to never do again

• Take a look at jobs available in your area and compare them with that list— see the language job postings use to describe the skills you value and tasks that energize you.

• Talk to friends and family whose judgment you value, especially ones who work outside education, and ask them what they think your special skills are, and whether there are roles in their work world that they think you’d enjoy or perform well.

• And, most importantly: do not go back to school for anything unless you’ve REALLY thought it through and KNOW the only job that could make you happy is one that requires additional education.

Karen: I agree with all of this, excellent advice, Margaret. I left a very good job nearly four years ago at age 44 because I wanted to pursue writing full-time and because I had spent 20 years getting very good at things I didn’t particularly care about.