Career Shift: From Radical to Corporate Suit to English Teacher
After this former campus radical was laid off, he found the job of his lifetime
How did I, a onetime youthful idealist, end up working in Time Warner’s corporate communications department? God, I don’t know — exigencies, contingencies, the occasional choice. But there I was for eight long, rapidly passing years encouraging the company's employees to believe that they and I were all part of a larger corporate “we.” That turned out not to be true.
In a heartbeat, I’d gone from valued colleague to flatulent digestive disturbance. What a rip-off! I’d made a deal — “I'll give my time on Earth to the Corporation in exchange for money and health insurance for my family” — and the company wasn't holding up its end of the bargain: “We don't want you anymore. Get lost!"
But, surprise, now I was found.
Some people have a calling. I once met a cartographer at Mapquest who told me he stumbled into a box of National Geographics when he was 5, opened it up, saw a map, and never looked back. Many of us aren’t so lucky, however. We feel as though something is out there calling, but too quietly, or at too great a distance to be heard. Or the call comes when we’re busy, and our minds don't have call waiting, so we don't pick up.
David Worley, dean of admissions at Denver's Iliff School of Theology, gave me some guidance. “I don't think that meaning is somewhere out there in metaphysical space that one day clicks for us," he told me. “I really think finding meaning is a process — one of constantly working yourself into a better situation. It has something to do with not having to truncate yourself — being able to be fully you."
Looking back over my life, I remembered that I'd enjoyed the times I volunteered, teaching immigrants English. I always loved the people as well as the opportunity to help them. I decided it was time to find a job doing this.
After repeated requests, I managed to snag a volunteer slot tutoring refugees at the International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian group based in Manhattan. Then I took a six-week course to earn a Certificate in English Language–Teaching to Adults, which qualified me to teach in commercial language schools. My fellow trainees were in their 20s, but since in my heart of hearts I think I am, too, I just acted natural and quickly felt at ease with my peers.
I applied for jobs at 16 New York City schools that teach English as a second language, but got a response only from Language Studies International, which serves affluent young adults from around the world. That job wasn’t quite what I had in mind, but I took it and began teaching 20 hours a week.
I now appreciate that there is no distance between who I am and what I am doing, at last.
In speech lab one night I played “All You Need is Love,” and my students sang along. I thought it would give them good practice pronouncing the “uh” sound high in their throat (as in “up”) and — over and over again — ”love.” (Many of them tend to pronounce every “uh” from a lower place, like the “oo” in “good” or the “u” in “rude.”) As I stood at the side of the room listening to my class sing the classic line, “Nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be,” I was overwhelmed by the feeling that I was in exactly the right place, doing precisely the right thing.
Career Shift from Sports Writer to Physical Trainer
Career Shift: From Ad Man to Meditation Consultant
Career Shift: From Bank VP to Lutheran Minister
Career Shift: Doctors Launch a New Type of Heart Practice
