Making a Career Change During Covid-19

With so much uncertainty, why stay unhappy? Be fearless in creating your own pathways and follow your interests.

I’ve been in the food and beverage industry for five years. Life was good enough. I made more than enough money to pay my bills when the season was up. I lived paycheck to paycheck when things were slow. Riding the waves of an unsteady income was fine, I was used to it. I was used to overbearing managers, sweaty kitchens with no A/C, rude and sometimes overtly racist customers. My feet were used to the pain, as was my shoulder from lifting tray after tray. I was down with the culture too. The humor, the lingo, the lifestyle.

Life was good…enough.

As a lover of overseas news stations and not a fan of American media, I heard about coronavirus when it became a concern in China. It was barely mentioned on France 24, but it caught my attention. I remember sitting in my living room imagining how much that would suck — all those people getting sick. Then I moved onto the next part of my day and thought nothing of it until a month or so later. We know what happened next.

Here in Albuquerque, New Mexico, we have military bases, laboratories, Intel, and other facilities that are home to the advancement of technology and committed to the future. We also have a high homeless rate, prisons galore, and rank nearly last in child well-being. With this setting comes diversity in culture, outlook, and opinion. The way that coronavirus has been dealt with here has been an overall success. But a lot of it is trial and error. Luckily, we are still doing okay.

When business started dwindling and the talks about shelter-in-place orders were being had, I was at a point where I was not feeling great about going to work anyway. I was laid off and committed my time to finishing the semester. Having all that time to focus on what I really wanted to do and wrapping up with a place on the Dean’s List made me think about where my time and attention was really going to. A slow day at work meant scrubbing walls, doors, floors, reach-ins, you name it. We had to clean chairs, scrape gum, dust vents, and more. So much more. Being away from the restaurant and having the ability to spend more time with family, focus on writing and school, and not having to be there made me think: Do I really want to go back to work?

I understand not all of us have the option of quitting and moving onto something else. And some of us are built to last in that industry. I could have been a lifer (I still have no problem returning to it if I have to). But in this moment in my life, I recognize my ability and potential to create something more. I don’t want a life that’s good enough. So I began to think about what I could do to move away from the restaurant life to a life that’s truly authentic.

I want to write. I have to find a way to keep writing. My English program requires a minor to pair with my studies. I picked psychology because I have always been interested in the psychology of advertising. My partner is also into sales — not just as a job, but as a personal interest. He actually looks at sales as a hobby and means of communicating. Even if I didn’t quit my job when I did, I believe I still would have been absorbed into the automotive industry by sheer approximation and curiosity. I watched Ford vs Ferrari and got into the historical aspect of the industry. Of course I wanted to know more. So I followed where my interests led me.

I was writing and focusing on school. My technical writing class gave me a big project. The goal was to create a recommendation report in which we created a selection process to choose a conference related to our field of study. I chose advertising. That opened up the door for me to learn about content marketing, social media strategy, and brand building. I learned about different aspects of online marketing, including SEO, and picked up all kinds of great information. After I successfully completed the project I was left with a huge dream. I wanted to learn more about the ins and outs of online advertising. I fell in love with content marketing. Out of hunger for more I registered for a class on personal brand building on Coursera. As I was learning all this new stuff on the side of being laid off and going to school full-time, my partner was paying close attention to what I was doing.

By the way, the final recommendation on the conference I would attend (hypothetically) is the ContentTECH Summit 2020, which we should all attend as it will be virtual now.

As it turned out, the stars aligned. My partner was offered a position at a locally owned used-car dealership. The dealership also needed, you’ll never believe this, a content marketer and social media manager. It was a no-brainer for my partner to give me a shot. I quit my job and here I am. That was fast!

If I stayed content and unmotivated in my job, I wouldn’t have had the drive to learn and seek out more. I wouldn’t be educating myself on the side (Coursera classes are pretty much free). Though it may appear I was just lucky, it was my ambition and dissatisfaction with a good enough life that I am here today. And that is enough to keep me working toward my dream of writing for a living. I write ads for cars. It’s nothing fancy, yet. But I make my own hours, I work alone, and I get to see the growth and progress I make every day. I’m not going to stop there. I have big dreams for the dealership, for myself, and for my partnership. Taking this kind of leap is just what I needed to move from a good enough life to the life I want.

There are guaranteed failures waiting for me in the future. There are also wins with my name on it. I would have never imagined myself actually pursuing my dreams if it weren’t for Covid-19. I have a lot to learn still. I am completely new to the dealership life. If you have any tips, send them my way! I’m here to learn and push myself. I don’t know it all and I can’t wait to screw up so I can get that experience. I feel so much better about my life. My autonomy and creativity are celebrated here.

I invite you to start doing the same for yourself.