I've been thinking about this a lot lately too. A lot.

I've been working as a graphic artist or art director (read: graphic artist with a snazzier title) for 17 years -- half my life. In fact, I've never had a job that wasn't in this field. I have what is called a "career" -- I'm not the highest paid in my field, but I have skill and I can meet a deadline and I've reached the point in my life where if I'm turned down for a job it's probably because I'm overqualified (read: no longer young, hip and willing to do insane things for no money.) And of course, no one wants to pay graphic artists anything unless you get in at some high-pressure ad agency, and that has all the job security of a tofu salesman trapped on an island of cannibals.

And through it all, the words someone said to me a few years back keep haunting me: "Wealth is how much money you make when you are not working." His point (one that I hadn't been particularly interested in listening to at the time) had been that I was not successful, not wealthy, not even "middle-class" -- because it all ends tomorrow if I'm too sick to produce. Any money I make is directly tied to my ability to create art -- put me in a position where I cannot personally draw/sketch/use a computer program, and those debts that follow me around like a pack of angry, yappy dogs turn on their owner very quickly. Once upon a time, an artist could count on royalties to see them through, but in this age of work-for-hire and all-rights-purchased, that's becoming increasingly unlikely to be the answer to my problems. I walk such a razor's edge.

I have a few friends who own their own businesses, and a funny thing happens when they get sick -- their businesses keep making money. Their employees continue to sell their products, the wheels of their business machine might slow by the lack of their presence, but they continue to move. I've seen their frustrations and their risks and the ulcer-causing stresses they put up with, but I've also seen some of the rewards, one of the largest of which seems to be the freedom to meet life's challenges with considerably more grace and security than I currently have.

I'm starting to feel a little like Scarlet O'Hara and vowing I'll never be poor again, you know? I'm so TIRED of living this way, of working for the success of causes I care nothing about (BPAL, it should be noted, is a cause I care a great deal about) or actively dislike. I'd like to whore for my own success, not someone else's.

Just not sure how I'm going to make that happen. Yet.

Hi again. Everyone's story has its quirks, and here's mine... My great liberal arts education resulted in a Poli Sci/English major with history, human geography and Slavic Studies minors. I was going to go to law school sometime, but decided to try to get a job as a guv'munt researcher or something groovy like that for a year or two. To my amazement, I did. Long story short, I decided I didn't want to go to law school, and ended up working for a state legislature in a non-legal position. I'm a fiscal analyst, which is conceptually a hoot in itself, considering I never took a moment of accounting. Believe me, the budget process and fiscal analysis of legislation is more of an art than a science.

Because I would have attended law school so I could go work for a legislature, I never did that -- I'd ended up where I wanted to be via a different path. And I've been in this job a long time, because there's nothing more immediate, and the political process is like a giant psych lab. It doesn't pay a buttload of money, but I'm comfortable. However, the job is intense, it takes a lot of my time when the legislature is in session, and there's a lot of pressure put on staff. It's also had its effects on my relationships with men and my life choices, no doubt about it. The job requires a bit of an alpha female attitude, and in part because of my job, in part because of my mindset/disposition and in part because of my uncooperative biology, I've never had children. I'm also no treat in relationships with males. While I'm a very femme on the outside, I also have a very detached, cool side that confuses everyone, including me. It makes me very good at my job, but it makes me a pisser in relationships. It's not like I'm an asshole, but I'm hardly a mushball.

Anyway, you have kids, and I don't see the "mommy track" as a bad thing at all. For someone who never had kids, I love kids. I think being a parent has to be the hardest job that a person can take, and I am always happy to hear about smart, literate, thinking people who have kids, but don't set themselves aside, or in the immortal words of an old friend, let their brains "go condo." From my perspective, you are doing important things -- you're raising your kids with parents who think. That probably sounds corny, but at this point in my life, I think it's a pretty big deal.

We all have our value. I've given up trying to understand the wherefores and the whys of the way that things work themselves out, but it sounds to me that what you're doing is the right thing for you.

I am not working in the field I got my degree in. I have a BE in Chemical engineering with a 2nd major in Math (It's not a "real" math major, because math was offered through the college of Arts and Sciences, so I did the "Math major for engineers" track which lets you apply a lot of your really math-intensive engineering classes towards the 2nd major, and take a handful of math electives to round it out.) Anyway, when I started applying for jobs my senior yer, I realized the dirty little secret of chemical engineering: The jobs pay so well because they *suck*.

I made the decision that I didn't want to work on an oil rig, in a paper mill, or pretty much anywhere else in a hard hat. I had done lab research in the summers, but to continue doing that, I needed to go back for at least my masters, and preferably a PhD. I love chemistry, but wasn't passionate about it in the way you need to be to do a good PhD. By the time I graduated, I didn't have a job, and had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. Well, that's not strictly true. I knew I wanted to move to San Francisco to be with my college sweetheart who had graduated a year before, but I had no idea how I was going to do it.

My parents were spending a year in San Diego (my dad was on sabatical) so I moved down to San Diego with them. I hung out on the beach, worked for a temp agency and got a really great tan. I applied for jobs in finance and stuff, but I wasn't making any traction.

I don't even remeber how the subject came up, but my parents, or one of their friends suggested I look into becoming an actuary. I did some online research, looked into what it took, and decided to give it a shot. After all, the job prospects were good, I had enough math to be able to do it, and it didn't involve wearing a hard hat.

I quit my job as a temp, settled in at my parents' kitchen table, and for about a month and a half, made a full-time job of studying for the first two actuarial exams. After I took the two exams, I started applying for jobs. Two months later, the day results were in, I got a job offer from one of the big 5 consulting firms in San Francisco. I jumped at it, and moved up to SF 3 weeks later.

So, the boyfriend and I broke up a year later, and the job eventually started to suck, but I learned a lot about both what I wanted to do and what I didn't want to do. When I finally couldn't take it anymore, I contacted a recruiter, and put myself on the market. The job I took here in St. Louis is exactly the perfect job I need for the place I am in my career right now. (And it's with one of the first 10 companies my recruiter gave my resume to)

Anyway, the job in SF, though it was an awesome learning experience, and looks kick-ass on my resume... I often got home after 7 or 8. I didn't want to go to work in the mornings, and I was tired all the time. I liked my coworkers, but my bosses didn't like me, so the whole experience was really kinda soul-sucking. It was clearly the stepping stone I needed to get to where I am now, but I would never go back to that world.

My friends in SF were all like, "St. Louis will be so boring compared to San Francisco!" But what I realized was that I was always to tired and unhappy to enjoy it. Now I have tons of free time, and really get to make the most of what St. Louis has to offer.

I make enough to easily cover my expenses and put away some really solid savings. I am looking at buying a townhouse this year (which I could not have done in SF) and I came to the realization that if a consulting firm said to me, "we'll double your salary if you'll come back to consulting" I would say no. The quality of life I have now so far outweighs what the benefit would be of almost any amout of extra money.

That's not to say I don't want to work to advance in my current field. I do. I know that by taking this job, I have put myself on a track where I won't get as high of a salary as quickly, but I'll always get my evenings and weekends to myself, and that's a *much* bigger benefit in my personal reckoning.

To link my comment to the title of this blog, I am on the younger end of Gen X and at 28, I am still in school (albeit as a graduate student), still working part-time for hourly wages and still hazy on what my "career" will entail. Once I get my MFA, I will probably join the ranks of the underpaid and underappreciated adjunct professors training the next generation of youngsters to put together cogent sentences. I have no savings. I own nothing of value. I don't invest in the retirement plan where I work because it takes months to get invested and I can't forsee myself staying long enough to make it worth my while. The only jobs I've ever had were shitty retail jobs. I have no profitable skills. My career goal is to do something that gives me enough money for books, BPAL and someplace to live. I want free time to devote to the things I truly enjoy (reading, writing) because I'm pretty sure that I can't make a living doing what I love.

-Karen