My friend Tony recently wrote about his trials and travails in changing careers.  Follow the nifty link provided for your convenience.  While you’re at it, read some of his other entries.  He’s a good writer, and it’ll be worth your time.

Supposedly, this is the new gold-standard of the mover and shaker set:  people who switch boats in mid-stream and change careers for something that is more fulfilling and is a better fit for the person they have become, than the career they chose as an emerging adult.

Obviously, someone forgot to send the memo to the nation’s HR departments.

I have a friend who took a call-center job in the early ‘90’s because that was what she could get during that very depressed time.  She really hoped to eventually find something in her field.  After all, she had a college degree, management experience, tons of energy, commitment, intelligence and flexibility.  Eventually, something would break and she’d get her chance.

As luck would have it, a position that appeared tailor-made for her qualifications came up at the very company she worked for.  So she applied, only to be met with confusion, incredulousness, and rejection on the part of HR.  After all, she was a call center person.  Sure, she could be a lead, maybe…someday.  But work in the Big House?  Nuh uh.

Of course, she got other jobs in other companies…and is now quite successful.

I knew a guy who was actively recruited along with a co-worker by a company on the recommendation of a former boss.  The guy was the one they really wanted, the co-worker was a bonus.  Yet when the applications got to HR, they hit a snag.  Management wanted to pay their choice recruit more money than the co-worker…who had more years of experience.  That simply would not do.

Like many people, he promoted himself by switching jobs whenever his progress was impeded by company structure.

In his book, Quicksilver, Neal Stephenson alludes to how important the sense of “Place” has been to humanity throughout history.  Most notably, there is a character named “Jack” who has been branded (literally) a vagabond.  The brand marks him as someone who is not protected by a “place” in society, and anywhere he goes he is variously subject to conscription, imprisonment, or a death sentence, depending on the whims of whoever happens to be “in charge”.  Society must have structure to function, and structure depends on most of the parts knowing and maintaining their “place”…or having it maintained for them.

There have always been and are always going to be, forces that try to make sure that people stay “in their place”.  In Babylon Five, one to J. Michael Straczynski’s characters alludes to a Japanese proverb “The nail that stands too tall will be hammered down”.

Still, one of the key aspects to maintaining structure is flexibility.  A certain amount of flexibility is needed for structures to stand; the larger and more complex the structure, the greater the need for flexibility.  Orderly flexibility to be sure…planned flexibility…but flexibility nonetheless.

The idea that our society is free and that anyone can do anything they set their mind to is a myth.  However, our society is one of the most flexible in history, and one of the most flexible in modern times.

This flexibility is little understood by the rank-and-file of our population, and little is done to educate them.  They either: look at the myth of “anyone can be anything they want” and buy it wholesale, without caveat or qualification; or they realize that it is bullshit, throw out the whole notion, and lament their fate and powerlessness.

And a fortunate few learn to navigate the margins and make the flexibility work for them.  This takes luck, hard work, courage, persistence, observation, focus, good friends and allies, and timing.  (Talent doesn’t hurt, either...although if there is one lesson we can draw from the career of Geraldo Rivera, it is not entirely necessary.)

I have a feeling Tony has what it takes to make a go of changing his career and becoming quite successful, and I wish him the best of luck.  You go Tony… and don’t let the bastards get you down…They’re just doing their jobs, and they’ll be spinning along in their little world of human widgets long after you’ve moved on to bigger and better things.