I have often considered career trajectories as continuums even though I know better. It so often seemed that the path was observable, even predictable and controllable. However, I keep learning simple things that long ago should have been common sense. For example, the most telling times in a career are those of discontinuity.
Careers experience abrupt change when job is found, lost, or surrendered. They alter significantly with promotion, demotion, or relocation. Such step-function transitions are invariably memorable, and their impact on family and friends is not insignificant. It is an issue of accommodating broad, externally driven transients rather than how to maintain status quo. When working in a wholly new environment, complete attention must be given to acclimating to new people, new rules, and new responsibilities. It is on these occasions that we are reminded that the person and his or her response can grow larger than the job and its demands.
After a 12-year period of career stability, I am face-to-face with a career change. On the one hand, it represents a decision to break with predictability to pursue an opportunity and an adventure. On the other hand, it is stressful.
There is also a rather funny personal irony about all of this. I advise a number of students and keep in touch with many former students. For some odd reason they keep asking me for career advice. For those already employed, my usual advice tends not to encourage the consideration of a job change, but rather toward those steps that could help them grow in their current position. Having been through a lot of career changes during the first 14 years of my adult life, and having another 12 years of stability to contemplate those gyrations, I am comfortable in my role as advisor. If they face an abrupt change - graduating and going to work is one - they would be reminded to have courage, that challenge demands growth. Of course, what one does after making a decision determines the true merit of that decision; a point as true for me as it is for others.
Still, it is difficult and usually unwise to advise change. Decisions like quitting a job, relocating, or getting married might be just the ticket, but it just does not seem such counsel ought to broach the sanctity of such personal and private decisions. I've never felt adequately knowledgeable to offer such advice.
Occasionally foundations are rocked. It is now clear mine needed shaking. A complete change dictates a need to meet and work with new people, learn new constraints. Big changes have less predictable outcomes, but as I experience this again, it has forced me to rethink life and work. Change has a big element of revitalization, yet it is also overwhelming at times. Not all big steps are taken by choice, sometimes they are forced.
In Another World . . .
As I face this change, a good friend is challenged by one, as well. He is in his 25th year at another organization and has been informed that he must compete with outside applicants for his position. He has worked with unfailing integrity, diligence, and competence - much of it during a period of significant change and challenge. He remains dedicated in his work, even when incentives seem diminished. He is a realist, and I hope and expect that his transition will also be revitalizing, as I believe he will persevere and benefit from this imposition of change. Such transitions sometimes require the step of reaching outside of familiar territory to taste new cultures, opportunities, and needs.
Deep in the Heart of Texas
So here I am in Houston, TX. All of the familiar benchmarks for a daily routine have changed from those of my previous home of Potsdam, NY. The community of Houston is diverse and industrious. Throughout the process of finding a place to live, meeting people, and starting a new academic program, my wife and I have become enchanted with Houston and our process of change and exploration. There is a magnitude of community energy here that I've not experienced before. For example, not being a Shriner, I am reminded daily of their commitment to provide children with medical care when I pass by their hospital down the street from where I live. There is also what I perceive as an active effort on the part of both industry and academe to be productive and to work in partnership for the community's growth and improvement.
The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is a big event that occupies the Astrodome complex for the better part of a month. The festival is kicked off with an extensive barbecue competition whose broad purpose is to raise money for civic needs and scholarship funding. The particular organization I am getting to know, the Houston Electric League, comprises over 700 individuals from about 500 companies who work in the same industry - always in cooperation, but sometimes in competition, too. The organization has a long-standing commitment scholarship and annually raises $125,000 for college scholarship aid. I met some remarkable individuals at their barbecue and enjoyed watching them stage a party with great food and music. It was clear that their primary mission was community service and, like many, they found a fun way to do it.
This Is an Issue . . .
Having read and reread the articles contained within in this issue of the IEEE Engineering Management Review, I note the remarkable stories of cooperation and mission contained within. The prevailing theme is about individuals and groups reaching beyond themselves for greater awareness and improved effectiveness. I sincerely hope that you will find these articles as interesting and useful as I have.