Advertising Account Executive to Doctoral Student
Evan Floyd, 31
The Previous Job
I was an account executive for an advertising firm. It was my responsibility to cultivate new business for billboards. Basically, I was the guy who gets all those ads up on billboards.
The Problem
I didn’t come home from work crying every day—I did the job for five years, it paid well and I had my own schedule, but it’s just not how I wanted to spend the next 35 years of my life. I can’t imagine having to walk into a retail store to try convincing them they need to buy a billboard, and be embarrassed to tell them why I’m in their store. That cold call feeling of being in these people’s way while they’re trying to talk to customers made me feel like a shyster. They might have genuine needs, and I might be able to help them, but for that first 10 minutes, I felt like I was trying to pull the wool over their eyes. I had a base salary, but to make real money you have to make sales. I could have gone through my whole day not doing anything but dicking around and wouldn’t have gotten fired, or I could have been really aggressive and made lots of sales pitches. I didn’t want to do either.
The Turning Point
I’ve never been very ambitious. But one day I was driving by a golf course and I was envious of these guys out there cutting grass. I wanted to be out there with them. That’s when I realized I was miserable. I realized I needed to do something that I enjoyed. If you can’t be excited to wake up in the morning, then life gets boring in a hurry, and you go to this job that means nothing to you. You may not hate it, but you can do it and it pays well, so you keep doing it. I felt like I was going to blink my eyes and wake up in 25 years and have money and not be all that miserable. But I would have ended up thinking: What did I do with my life?
The New Job
I’m getting my Ph.D. in history. When I was in undergrad, that’s what I majored in and what I really wanted to do, but my dad gave me this talk and said, “You can major in whatever you want, but you can’t be a teacher.” I come from a family of teachers, and I think that he knew that it’s hard and doesn’t pay well. He was being practical by telling me to be a businessman; it’s easier and you get paid. School is a lot more difficult and competitive than I thought it would be. But I love it. I need that edge of remembering how I didn’t like my job to get me through it. I had to be there every day for six years to have the motivation to do what I’m doing now, to write that paper that I don’t want to write so I can achieve this other goal.
The Result
The longer I do this the more I realize that there’s no money in it and it’s extremely expensive to get a Ph.D. and even harder to get a job once you’re out. I mean, if I spend all this time and money on a Ph.D. and don’t have a job when I get out, I can always go back to selling billboards. But hopefully I’ll get a chance to stand up and speak to that class and engage them. That’s why I’m doing this and that’s what I’m shooting for. After all, what are you doing with your life if you’re not trying to achieve your goals?
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Read more Men at Work:
Dacus Thompson: Career Changers
Tim Donnelly: In Defense of Dating Your Coworker
Ted Cox: 11 Rules for Working Out of a Coffee Shop
Brian Stuart: Working for the Woman
Hugo Schwyzer: The Myth of Male Inflexibility
Mark Oppenheimer: Life Lessons From My Alcoholic Boss
John Olympic: What It’s Like to Work in Walmart Hell
Tom Matlack: The Illusion of Success
Morra Aarons-Mele: How to Work From Home
Ryan O’Hanlon: Meet America’s Oldest Minor Leaguer
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—photo andrewrennie/Indmus on Commons/Flickr
Thank you for only including one Office Space style switch. I can’t stand how prevalent the idea is that manual labor is inherently better for everyone than a more cerebral job. Everyone gotta find they own bliss!