I quit my career at 29 with no job to go to

What I learned, and how much I earned

Photo by Ross Findon on Unsplash

Hello! Thank you for reading The Honesty Box - and if you’re doing so via email, I apologise for the delay in sending this.

It’s been a busy few days, and I’m writing from Gatwick airport waiting for a delayed flight to Mallorca, where I am going to be looking after five cats for two weeks. (I’ll tell you about my feline adventures in a fortnight.)

Today, I’m writing about the time, more than 15 years ago, when I gave notice on a career I’d started in my early twenties – without a job to go to - and what I learned from the experience, especially at a time when friends were pairing off and doing the ‘grown-up’ things I thought I’d be doing, but wasn’t. 

I was 29, and had worked in the advertising industry for five years. It wasn’t as if I hated it – I’d learned to hustle, talking my way into a job at a tiny agency before working at a ‘hot shop’ start up (that I subsequently got fired from – you can read all about that here), then joining a big name to work on ads for a flagship client, before spending six months at a smaller place.

I was more scared of failing to progress in the job than I was about staring into the black hole of unemployment

Being in agencies also taught me about teamwork, managing people (people can be very annoying) and making clients feel welcome in the office.

The big agency had a manager whose sole job appeared to be being an expert in client protocol.

“Put yourself in their shoes,” he would say, as he instructed several juniors to sit on each of the executive leather chairs at an executive boardroom table to make sure they were of exactly the same height, so no client would be sitting lower or higher than anyone else.

The agency could be a pretty intimidating place, with its giant, pale marble reception, glossy meeting rooms and white lily-filled, glass-tabled management offices, so part of our job was to make clients feel comfortable.

I was simply relieved I didn’t have to pretend to care about the jokes a fast-food restaurant should print on its napkins

(If the chairs were uneven, invariably someone like me would have to fiddle around near a client’s nether regions to find the reset handle, resulting in said client being boosted up, jolted down, or jerked backwards.)

I actually see the value in chair etiquette - and aside from learning that details are important, the agencies I worked at also brought me boyfriends, some fairly wild office parties and a lot of karaoke.

Advertising was also good because the career progression was clear: you started as an executive, then became a manager and subsequently a director.

And it was bad because of the all-nighters I pulled before pitches, because of assumptions that I’d work over a weekend with no notice, and because of sexism and people smoking at their desks (it was still permitted on some floors of the building).

But I didn’t leave advertising for any of those reasons. I left because I was scared that I couldn’t and wouldn’t progress in the job.

Friends were getting engaged or pregnant or promoted or trying to get mortgages or upgrading their cars

I left because I didn’t think I could handle client presentations or trying to sell in adverts I didn’t understand or didn’t care about.

I could do all the project management standing on my head, but clients and creative teams left me in fear.

It got to the point where I was more scared of failing to progress in the job than I was about staring into the black hole of unemployment.

When I handed in my notice, I wasn’t worried about the future, I was simply relieved I didn’t have to pretend to care about the jokes a fast-food restaurant should print on its napkins or whether people would believe that a processed ham brand reared its pigs on foraged acorns.

I left in the summer of 2006, and turning 29 in September that year, a lot was going on in my life, but it wasn’t the conventional stuff I had expected.

I lived in Balham, south London with two brilliant women (hello George! hello Siobhan!) who would shortly move out to live with their boyfriends (now their husbands).

Meanwhile, other friends were getting engaged or pregnant or promoted or trying to get mortgages or upgrading their cars - things I thought I wanted too.

I was with someone but wasn’t sure how serious it was, but my biggest concern was that my father was poorly, and his health was declining.

I decided to move in with my parents in north London to help them and also to spend less money (I paid nominal rent) while I worked out my next move.

I had temped on the trading floors of large American and British banks during my university holidays, so I sought similar work and spent a few months working at an engineering company and then at an oil trade association – both fairly dull compared to my sometimes wild times in advertising.

At the same time, I joined something called Life Clubs, group therapy-type sessions run by coach Nina Grunfeld from her first-floor Westminster living room, where each week we filled out a balance chart, rating our lives in terms of health, wealth and relationships.

Most importantly, I am grateful that got to spend three years at home with my dear Daddy, who died in 2009, aged just 63

One day, Nina asked me when I was happiest work-wise: “when I wrote and interviewed people,” I said, referring to the work experience I’d done at news organisations and the local paper I’d written for.

So I signed up to a journalism school, where I did 12-hour days, six days a week for 3 months, learning about what a news story is and how to write one, how to put a good feature together, what libel laws meant, how to write shorthand, use design programs, conduct interviews and do video vox pops.

I was also deputy editor of the student magazine we produced and did a work placement on a magazine called Building, where I was dispatched to interview the CEO of a housebuilder as the features editor was away celebrating her birthday, which meant I also got to write articles that were published.

After I graduated, I got a job at trade mag Construction News as a features writer, spending my time on building sites, writing about train lines being extended and how indoor ski slopes were constructed.

Fear of missing out (on a promotion, on having kids) can be a big driver in life, but making decisions driven by fear does not make sense.

I can’t say I adored that job, but it helped me learn how to notice things, build up my contacts book and interview senior construction men without feeling terrified. Being a bit older also helped my confidence.

I broke up with my boyfriend and so, aged 30, I found myself single, living with my parents and at the bottom rung of the career ladder, earning £18,000 a year, less than half my ad agency salary.

Looking back, I’m so happy and grateful this all happened. I know I was fortunate to have parents in London and to be able to find temporary work pretty quickly, and that I found a career that I could thrive in.

Most importantly, I am grateful that got to spend three years at home with my dear Daddy, who died in 2009, aged just 63.

So what did I learn? The benefit of hindsight means I can see that my career turned out OK, but these were formative years for me and a lot of what I did then I still benefit from now.

Sometimes it’s OK not to look before you leap

Not knowing what’s going to happen next forces you to get creative with your next move.

I had another forced leap a few years ago as an editor at a magazine start-up, which went into administration.

I wasn’t eligible for redundancy pay and this made me become a freelance journalist, which I had been pondering but hadn’t been brave enough to do.

But have some kind of back-up plan

When I left advertising, my back-up plan was to join a temping agency and do admin work, and I knew that was an option having done it before.

Not doing all the conventional things people expect of you can work out absolutely fine

I know that fear of missing out (on a promotion, on having kids) can be a big driver in life, but making decisions driven by fear does not make sense.

I struggled with not having gone the traditional career-husband-kids route for ages, but most of the time I now love the freedom I have.

I would still like a husband, though (anyone got any nice friends? Apply within).

Turning 30 is a milestone, but it’s not that big a deal career-wise

Yes, I’m writing as someone who is 15 years away from 30, but I know from experience that changing career at that age, which is really super young, can work out. As can changing career later on.

Switch the ‘what ifs’ for ‘so whats’

What if I don’t get married when all my friends are? I asked myself back when I was 30 and some bits of my life seemed to be falling apart. So what, I say now. You get to know yourself better in your thirties, forties and beyond.

Thanks for reading my thoughts today. I’m not going to include ‘things I like’ this week, because I have to get on a plane in a minute.

I’ll be looking after a friend of a friend’s home and cats in a small town outside Palma de Mallorca - I’ve never met the friend in real life, only on a Zoom writing class - and I’m looking forward to pondering at pavement cafes, trying to write more and better things and getting some vitamin D. Hasta luego!