Hate my career - need direction

Tom Austin

Tom Austin

Newbie
MBTI
INFJ
I have just recently diagnosed myself as an INFJ after probably a turbulent year (or rather, few years) of career heartache and pain.

The current job I am in is getting me down big time. I am realising that it is probably not the job itself (why are so many other people in the place quite happy to work there?) but it is my INFJ tendencies that are the problem. To put you all in the picture I am a mechanical design engineer for a manufacturing company.

In short, nearly everything grates with me now, and to be honest, has been doing for a long time. I am not really a team player as such, I just like to do my job and go home. The company has a terrible micromanaging culture where everything is spelled out for me, which is quite frankly becoming unbearable. I sometimes feel as if I am just a robot, going through the motions. Doing what I am told and it is stifling me. That's not what I got into engineering for - I got into it for the creative design side, but all the dreary day to day tasks. And the only career progression in this line of work is into management, but the idea of managing people seems completely abhorrent to me. I just couldn't do it, so basically I am stuck in a career dead end.

To make matters worse, in this company I am feeling more and more alienated by my coworkers, and to be honest I am not the socialising type and I feel that they are all trying to probe into my life to a degree that I simply don't feel comfortable with. I am an extremely private man, and I hate people prying into "my world". Right now I am just existing, living from one paycheck to another and in a way I want to be fired when my contract comes to an end. I a, also making myself ill. I don't sleep in the evenings, dread getting up in the mornings and live in a constant state of anxiety and stress all the time.

My real dream is to become a freelance technical writer and illustrator, as it's a job I could do on my own without interference from others. And to be ME again! The problem I am facing however is how to make this happen....I just don't know the way and the uncertainty is killing me.
 
Tom Austin said:
I have just recently diagnosed myself as an INFJ after probably a turbulent year (or rather, few years) of career heartache and pain.

The current job I am in is getting me down big time. I am realising that it is probably not the job itself (why are so many other people in the place quite happy to work there?) but it is my INFJ tendencies that are the problem. To put you all in the picture I am a mechanical design engineer for a manufacturing company.

In short, nearly everything grates with me now, and to be honest, has been doing for a long time. I am not really a team player as such, I just like to do my job and go home. The company has a terrible micromanaging culture where everything is spelled out for me, which is quite frankly becoming unbearable. I sometimes feel as if I am just a robot, going through the motions. Doing what I am told and it is stifling me. That's not what I got into engineering for - I got into it for the creative design side, but all the dreary day to day tasks. And the only career progression in this line of work is into management, but the idea of managing people seems completely abhorrent to me. I just couldn't do it, so basically I am stuck in a career dead end.

To make matters worse, in this company I am feeling more and more alienated by my coworkers, and to be honest I am not the socialising type and I feel that they are all trying to probe into my life to a degree that I simply don't feel comfortable with. I am an extremely private man, and I hate people prying into "my world". Right now I am just existing, living from one paycheck to another and in a way I want to be fired when my contract comes to an end. I a, also making myself ill. I don't sleep in the evenings, dread getting up in the mornings and live in a constant state of anxiety and stress all the time.

My real dream is to become a freelance technical writer and illustrator, as it's a job I could do on my own without interference from others. And to be ME again! The problem I am facing however is how to make this happen....I just don't know the way and the uncertainty is killing me.
Click to expand...

The easy answer is: save money, quit your job, go do that. Questions that make it more complicated:

Do you know any freelance tech writers / illustrators?

How much do you know about that profession?

Do you possess any of the requisite skills?

If not, do you need to go to school to get them?

How long can you survive while making this job into something that will pay all of your bills?

These are just a few for starters.
 
Can you use your mechanical design background to get your foot in the door doing some freelance writing in the same area?
What sort of side projects can you take on where your skills of what you already possess and what you want overlap?
What groups can you join that are involved in the things that you want to be doing?
The more people you know that are involved in the things you are interested in pursuing the better.
 
Tom Austin said:
And to be ME again! The problem I am facing however is how to make this happen....I just don't know the way and the uncertainty is killing me
Click to expand...

I think it might help to work on managing your stress, whilst shifting towards your goal. Is there anyway to reduce your hours and work part time?

I understand about the micro managing. I used to alter things in my last job so I had more freedom. Usually management had no idea, or were unhappy. But if you're out performing others on results, it's difficult for them to criticise you.

Good luck.
 
Sloe Djinn said:
The easy answer is: save money, quit your job, go do that. Questions that make it more complicated:

Do you know any freelance tech writers / illustrators?

How much do you know about that profession?

Do you possess any of the requisite skills?

If not, do you need to go to school to get them?

How long can you survive while making this job into something that will pay all of your bills?

These are just a few for starters.
Click to expand...

To answer your questions:

1. No. Not personally but I follow plenty of them on social media and their blogs, and I am intrigued by their stories that they have managed to set up a business on their own.

2. A lot. I have done technical writing and illustration in most of the jobs I have had since leaving college.

3. Yes I have the skills.

4. I am 41 years old and don't have the time to "start again" in terms of education. I have to do this NOW, and if it is on the job training, then so be it.

5. Me and my partner can more or less survive on one income, or with me on a substantially reduced income whilst I try and make this work.
 
I am in a very similar situation as you and very recently decided to switch careers. We’re the same age, so I also question whether I’m being foolish and if I can make a living starting out anew. I don’t know, but I can’t bear the thought of going back to corporate life. So, I decided that I at least have to give it a try.
 
James said:
I think it might help to work on managing your stress, whilst shifting towards your goal. Is there anyway to reduce your hours and work part time?

I understand about the micro managing. I used to alter things in my last job so I had more freedom. Usually management had no idea, or were unhappy. But if you're out performing others on results, it's difficult for them to criticise you.
Click to expand...

Thank you everyone for the responses so far. To give you all a bit more background, I was reprimanded a year ago for under performance. This led to my getting made redundant two months later. That was a blessing in disguise really, because a) the redundancy spurred me into action to start looking at alternatives b) I was let go along with twenty other guys - so it didn't look so bad on my CV/resume. Anyway I digress. The reason I was unhappy in my old job (and hence underperformed) was because my job description changed, new management was installed that changed policies and the way things were done, the aforementioned micromanagement, and I was accused of being resistant to change and negative despite making what I thought were valid criticisms of the way things were run. So I took the money and ran.

I spent a long time thinking, reading self-help books, reflecting on the elements of all the jobs I have had (and I've only had two "proper" jobs since leaving college), and came to the conclusion that it was the writing/illustrating/teaching side that grabbed me in all of them. Just I wasn't allowed to grow and develop in those roles, I was always moved away from doing that sort of stuff and forced down roads I didn't want to go. So anyway, fast forward to the present - shortly after the redundancy, another job was literally handed to me on a plate. Same sort of work, same city, and industry. You're unemployed, so what do you do? You take it. Except that this job is even worse than the original one. They want a leader (management is not my bag, I hate dealing with conflict), everything you do is prescribed to the letter (I, like most INFJs prefer a more "organic" working style), and moreover, there is a backdrop of fear and intimidation. The only consolation is that it is a rolling contract position, so I am almost hoping that they fire me at the end of the contract just to escape and pursue what I really want to do....even though that will come at a financial cost.

So what I have I done? Trying at the moment to dabble with freelancing writing by joining sites like Upwork and Guru - not having much success with the former because getting a profile accepted to start applying for work is damn near impossible now to get past their automated bots which scan profiles, and it is driving me to distraction. I am chipping away piece by piece at finding a way out of this mess, but I am spending my whole life looking forward to the weekend, which is over and a flash and I have to do it all over again. It sucks.
 
This is just a thought because you mentioned teaching as a possibility. With a degree and work experience in mechanical engineering a K-12 school would probably hire you as a teacher, even with no teaching experience. You'd get on the job training while you completed the required courses to get your teaching credential. With summers off you could pursue your writing career. It's a demanding job though that is a labor of love and I'm sure it wouldn't pay what you're making now. If you have a masters degree, you could start teaching high school and then move into teaching at a community college or four year university.
 
You touched on a few points I'm familiar with.
  • Micromanagement blows
  • Management of others blows
  • Management is indeed seen as the only way to succeed in a career
I'm 35 so not quite in the same position, but I've been through this in the last five years. I was in a position with too many managers above me and a team of people below me. It fucking sucked. However, I wasn't ready to take on independent work. I like the steady paychecks.

So I took a position where I'm managing projects, but also responsible for the execution of the work. That's been most important to me in feeling happy and healthy at work, and my approach was to be honest. I explained to my hiring managers that I like to manage projects and I'm happy to do the work and work with others to execute, but I have no interest in responsibility for a team. Perhaps it was luck, but they listened and we figured out the best place for me.

One word of caution (though hopefully not discouragement): freelance clients can micromanage just as much as managers. You can drop them, of course, but as a freelancer it's probably important to build up a client base and deal with these people. I did a bit of it early in my career and it was not for me.
 
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