Check out the original post Career paths – how your career choices can change drastically from what you first imagined on Bewildered Bug
We all make choices when we are starting off, but is it where we end up? My career path has certainly been an interesting one! It is amazing how your dreams change as you get older, and even when you grow into your actual occupation of choice, how much variation can suddenly enter your working life, with regards to your goals and your direction.
You guys know that I am in Architecture and Interior Design in real life, right? Well, I remember when I first started Interior Design, I imagined myself like one of the TV hosts, whipping together a house in less than a week. I wanted to do residential design and was completely enamoured by the idea of meeting happy, jolly people like the ones on tv, who would not fuss and would hand me the keys to their house, only to ooh and aah at it later.
How wrong I was. When I was in Kitchen Design, I had to deal with individuals at the higher end of the bracket. I had to deal with them at my first Interior Design job too. I have to tell you, that was no walk in the park. First of all, a house cannot be done in one day – not with a residential client anyways. That’s cause they change their mind CONSTANTLY – and if you don’t keep up with the changes then it’s your head on the block. I found that the residential clients were very, VERY rarely as happy and perky as those on HGTV – in fact, quite the opposite – a lot of them were sullen, had kids that moped about and stared down their noses at you and some even SHOUTED at you just because you put a box somewhere they did not want it to be while you were working. I loved the design aspect of it, but working with individuals was just stressful. Of all my residential experience, only two of them went out of their way to be nice to me – one of my kitchen design clients who were just amazing people and one of my interior design clients who baked cookies and made cappuccinos from scratch for our entire installation team. That’s love – haha.
Then I decided to move I wanted to do retail design, because I figured that it allow me to express my creativity a bit more…at least, so my instructors in interior design had said. I never did get that chance, but I did get the chance to work on a hospital and to do multi-level residential and hotels. These were a bit more fun with regards to the installations, but with regards to the actual “dog-work” it was pretty boring. I mean, think about it….an average condominium, hotel and even small hospital are pretty much one room repeated throughout…..and for the hotels and condominiums, often we were limited to the public areas. YOU try to draw 25 floors of the exact same thing except for the positioning of the electrical outlets and be happy! *Lol* I swear, at times, it would have been heaven if someone just created a template online with suggestions for hotel supplies online and just sold that template to every Tom, Dick and Harry designer out there!
An interesting twist sent me to work for a firm that did branding from the logos and packaging all the way to the interiors of retail big box stores. That was awesome because I was working alongside different types of designers and the atmosphere was one of camaraderie and learning. No one was selfish with their skills, and the underlying hostile competition was not really there – you just did your job, did the best you can, helped out who you can and felt fulfilled at the end of the day. Does that mean I should be looking for this type of firm now?
Maybe, but I still am in love with the idea of historical preservation – I’ve even found Masters degrees that I’ll be applying to in the near future to specialize. I love that I’ve moved to the town of Huddersfield, because most of the buildings in the city center are actually listed as historical buildings – heck, I LIVE IN ONE. So this is halfway my dream – living and existing among them, but the next half of my dream is to actually work to preserve them and possibly renovate them in an ecological, sustainable and sensitive manner. When I went into Architecture, I then knew that I did not want to do any of the types of design I had previously done, even though the architectural side of multi-family residential would be a bit more exciting. I had been there, suffered through that…..so I started looking for more interesting things to do. I developed a passion for historical structures – and to this day, am chasing after the dream of working specifically in Historical Preservation of these structures.
Anyways, onto the status of my career today….I am looking for a job now, since my shipment has arrived and things are starting to settle down. I made a newbie mistake already. I updated my resume and had so many people look it over that I swear it was overkill. I fixed it up, made it look pretty, researched target firms in historical preservation, put my new resume up on monster and linked in and then sent cold resumes out to the targetted firms. I did everything right. I was so proud. Until I remembered that the British use A4 sized paper as a standard instead of letter. Oh. Crap. #facepalm
So I went onto Word and changed my papersize and bam…completely nonsensical resume in front of me. This is what I sent to the firms that I really wanted to work for. Within hours I had two rejections…and I don’t blame them, but I’m not worried – that just means it’s not for me. I mean, I’m not the only ditz in the world and God has His plan for me, right?
So, I start again today, looking for more firms that hopefully do historical preservation in the area (cause I sorta targeted all that I found with a wonky resume)…..fingers crossed and wish me luck
How has your career path changed over time?
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