You're middle-aged and your work life is a muddle.
Maybe you're tired of your job or your company just laid you off.
Either way, you have two choices: You can mope or you can move on.
Moping is tempting but moving on gives you a better shot at a happier life. And a way to pay your mortgage.
Besides, with companies merging or moving, jobs heading overseas or disappearing, and technology changing by the nanosecond, you'll need Gumby-like flexibility to cling to the career ladder.
"Used to be, once a banker always a banker," says Susan Leventhal, a career coach in Broward County, Fla., who works with career changers. "Now, someone coming out of college is expected to make as many as 10 job changes and four to five career changes."
Take a lesson from Rita Jordan, who saw her dot-com and real estate jobs burst along with the bubble. Yet she always lands on her feet, most recently as a schoolteacher in Wellington, Fla.
"I'm a risk-taker," Jordan says. "I embrace the new."
Help Is Out There
So how do you write the next chapter of your work life?
First, take a deep breath because you're in for a bumpy ride. If you're a loyal worker who's been laid off, expect to ride an emotional roller coaster roaring through denial, anger and fear.
"It's quite traumatic, especially for middle-aged people who feel betrayed," says E. Carol Webster, a Plantation, Fla., psychologist who works with employees in transition. "They had that old-fashioned idea of loyalty and thought the company would be loyal to them."
Throw a pity party if you must, but keep it short. Then get to work on getting to work. The good news: You don't have to go it alone.
In Broward, Workforce One, a nonprofit agency, offers help to professionals changing jobs at midlife, including career counseling and workshops to update resumes, computer and interviewing skills. In Palm Beach County, similar help is available from Workforce Alliance. And it's free. Similar services are available nationwide.
"We teach professionals their job title isn't what's important," says Michael O'Hern, director of professional development for the alliance. "Their skills are what's valuable and how they apply those to another job."
A Can-Do Attitude
Jordan, the newly-minted schoolteacher, already knew about computers and real estate from previous jobs. So teaching computing skills and business law wasn't a reach.
"I showed up at a school job fair and within 15 minutes I had a contract in front of me," she says.
Within three weeks, Jordan also had 150 students. Like others switching gears, she faced a new work culture. She moved from a corporate world to a classroom. Her "clients" changed from adults to teenagers.
"In the beginning, it was scary," she says. "Kids will say anything, and I over-reacted."
But day by day she won the kids over.
"They said, 'You should have had kids yourself,'" Jordan says. "I told them, 'I have kids -- 150 of them.'"
Jordan's can-do attitude helped her make the transition. Tackling a new job is hard enough without throwing up personal roadblocks.
People who haven't job hunted in years often face a laundry list of fears, big and small. They fear interviewing, training and new technology. They fear losing their identity after years of saying, "I am a banker. I am a sales manager. I am my job." Comfortable in their competency, they fear failing at something new.
"We try to get people to look at the bigger picture," says Leventhal, who's with Workforce One. "You may have to go back to go forward. You may have to go to school. You may have to take a job below your skill level to learn a new job. But that's how you start again."
Iwona Pajak, of Wellington, was a chemist in Poland before moving to South Florida. With limited English skills, her job opportunities were limited. So she became a nanny. At 48, the divorced mother of two found herself unemployed.
Through a grant, she attended Florida Atlantic University for a two-year biotechnology program. Today she works for the federal government studying sugar cane.
"In the bottom of my heart, I didn't think I could do it," she says of returning to school. "The language is so different. At first I was only understanding every other word. But as I got better, my confidence grew."
Tough Pay Cuts
Perhaps the hardest hurdle in starting over is facing a painful pay cut, just when you're at the peak of your earning power.
"You're learning new skills and you have to pay your dues again," says Douglas Saenz, business services consultant for the Palm Beach County alliance. "But people make the mistake of thinking they'll be stuck in a low-paying job forever. The fact is they have maturity and work experience. They'll move up faster than someone just out of college."
When Marlo Robinson left nursing to run her own business, offering services to pregnant women, her income dropped $30,000. Vacations vanished for three years. So did movie nights, dinners out and personal pampering, such as manicures.
"It was a trade-off in the beginning," Robinson says. "But I was excited by starting my own business. It felt like an adventure."
One Life, One Chance
Indeed, changing careers can be a healthy step in changing your life, says Webster, the career counseling psychologist.
"Taking a different turn doesn't have to be a bad thing," she says. "Sometimes people have overstayed and need a change."
Or sometimes they're dissatisfied with their job and want to earn a paycheck following their passion.
For her first career, Ana Miranda of Miami worked as a dance movement therapist. Then she moved into the corporate world of health care, doing an important, challenging job. But she found it stifling. She decided to return to dance, even though it meant sacrificing the financial safety of a corporate career.
"I had benefits and a steady income, but I realized the corporate world wasn't for me," she says.
For the past three years, she has focused on flamenco dancing -- teaching, performing and doing dance therapy.
"We only have one life, one chance," she says. "It's never too late or too early to make a change and follow your heart."
Liz Doup can be reached at ldoup@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4722
Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. Powered by Yellowbrix.
