On not fitting in, and changing direction

why a meandering career path is an advantage and new research

I’ve always been the ideal employee. Plagued for many years with imposter syndrome, a high drive for achievement, and a good dose of perfectionism, all wrapped up in a people-pleasing bow. I was raised from birth to be the employee you want to hire.

Taught to be quiet, put aside my own needs, be good and nice, and fit in everywhere, I spent most of my life not knowing who the hell I was.

For a long time, I could be anything you wanted me to be.

Malleable as new clay, I got my first human resources manager role in a law firm and promptly emerged from the probationary kiln of the overwork and overachieving fire with a gold star. I worked 70+ hour weeks, keeping the warring partners and their factions happy. Perfectly suited with neat, varnished nails, I made sure I ticked every box.

And while I convinced myself at the time that I loved it, I smiled my way over the ensuing years into the sadness that accompanies living outside of your own body.

While I outwardly moulded into the groove, I never really fit. I hate tight shoes and restrictive clothes. I’m most at home barefoot in jeans in the dust at sunset. But I’m too mainstream to fit in with the real hippies, and too cowgirl to fit the prim, corporate archetype.

The only place I felt at home was on the back of my horse.

Eventually, I left corporate.

I got rid of my suits, and I started to get out of my head and back into myself. I stumbled into a career that I love that allows me to explore things I love in lots of different ways.

I wear jeans to work often now, sneakers mostly, and never heels. And I can happily wear cowboy boots and probably even a matching hat knowing that the lens for eccentric academic behaviour has a very wide aperture. Hell, I work with a jovial genius professor who wears shorts, t-shirts, and sneakers to work every day. I couldn’t love it more.

I don’t like rules. I like to ask why. I care a lot about how people are treated and about incongruence, smoke screens, and going through the motions.

Ricardo Semler’s “ask why at least three times” became my mantra from the moment I first read it.

I find it hard to acquiesce and nod politely when a manager proclaims a new strategy, initiative, or thing and it’s obvious we are about to career off in stupid direction number 7452.

I love doing research that prompts us to think differently about how we work and live.

So stop feeling bad for all the career detours that you’ve had. Research has shown that the more meandering your path and the less ‘specialisation’ you pursue, the better off you are.

A study by economist Olaf Malamud found that university graduates who had to specialise before university versus those who were mandated to take courses in different fields for their first two years were more likely to change careers entirely after university. The students who hadn’t specialised and had undertaken various changes of path, quickly caught up in income despite initially being behind due to having less specific skills.

Learning things matters, but learning about ourselves Malamud concluded, matters more.

The first episode of Season 2 of The Floorplan, my podcast with Matt Webber will be out next week. In episode 1, we’ll be talking about the new right to disconnect from work laws in Australia, why it matters, and what it signals in the new world of work.

My team and I are working on some fascinating new workplace research projects, and I have four papers in the pipeline that I look forward to sharing soon including one that uncovers whether different levels and types of noise in different settings helps your creative flow.