Posted under Career Management on March 20th, 2007
No, I’m not referring to a horror flick or vandalism. This employment trend is not a new concept (ask any working mother), it’s just one that’s been getting considerable media attention lately. Marci Alboher, author of One Person/Multiple Careers, describes the trend among baby boomers – men and women - as “slash careers.” After watching friends and colleagues Alboher noticed that many were working in one career while building a second or third on the side.
It was happening everywhere. From banker/novelists to lawyer/chefs and mommy/CEOs, the slash had graduated from a mere punctuation mark to the new must-have resume accessory. Why were all these people turning their hobbies or passions into second careers and reengineering themselves in this way? And why did these slashes (as I started to call them) seem so much more fulfilled—and less stressed out—than those who stuck to one job?… I talked to hundreds of people who have created careers that involve a quirky coupling of occupational interests…. the slashes convinced me that all the talk we hear about work/life boundaries is hooey. The most satisfied people I found never talked about “leaving work at work.” What they had in common was a career that fueled their passions, whether or not that career made sense to anyone else.
After reading Alboher’s article, I realized that I’m a slasher: a writer/career coach, a mother/wife, and a music ministry director/musician. The boundaries between my careers are always blurred, but it wasn’t always that way. There was a time when I tried to establish boundaries, and got stressed out doing so. When I stopped trying to keep the three areas in nice, tidy packages and accepted that sometimes I was going to have “spillovers,” things became much easier. Certainly life can get crazy and hectic at times, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Posted by Michele Haffner
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