Career Change: How I Did It (Part III)

Retail Worker → English Teacher → Administrative → Editor → Marketing/Publishing Professional.

Photo by Derek Thomson on Unsplash

Flying from Singapore to Boston was an intense emotional moment. I didn’t have a job lined up. I didn’t want to return to Portland, Oregon, my hometown. I knew an old friend living in Boston whom I contacted to crash for a month till I moved to a temporary housing for internationals hosted by a married couple. I had applied in Singapore and paid the deposit and took up housing for 3 months. Then, I was hoping to get a job, find a place as a house mate. (Roommate is the American equivalent but a British expat in Singapore pointed out that it didn’t make sense because you are sharing a house not a room. Fair point!)

I put on a “fake it till you make it” facade because I got fed up with questions and comments that served no purpose other than to make me feel stupid. I had it together considering the difficult circumstances. It was too much. Generally speaking, putting on a mask isn’t always the best approach especially when you bottle everything up. But sometimes I feel there’s no other way.

I’m not a good teacher and having health issues only made things worse. After my first class, I’d be EXHAUSTED and want to sleep.

I failed. That’s OK because then I had the freedom to choose another path. Since I majored in Publishing, I wanted to get into Marketing Communications in a higher ed. setting.

When I first arrived in Boston, I took up temporary administrative jobs and sales jobs. I was willing to take up anything. I got an interview with an academic publishing company as editor but they chose someone with more experience. Between constant job hunting and attending professional networking events, I also tried to connect with local writers groups and organizations. There was Boston Young Professionals Association, Editorial Freelancers Association, and other groups I found on meetup.com and I just showed up. Sometimes I would walk into a bar and drink by myself. I didn’t care what others thought. In some places, a woman drinking alone either meant she’s an alcoholic or prostitute. But Boston isn’t conservative. There’s something about enjoying a drink by myself but most often I ended up conversing with strangers, both men and women. I hung out with one woman I met, a post grad student at Harvard about to graduate and looking for jobs. We’d hang out in the city. She ended up getting a job at a university in California. Others I hung out with were EFA, writers groups, new friends. Uncertainty was nerve-racking even for extroverts. But I tried to make the most of it.

A few weeks after arriving in Boston, I went on a date. Why the hell not? I ain’t a nun. He turned out to be terrible. All he did was whine about his life on our first date. Oh, he hates his job and life and it’s everyone else’s fault while dominating every conversation. After an hour, he asked his place or mine! I was like “none.” He couldn’t take a no. I repeated and then walked to the train stop. He offered me a ride but I declined saying how I love walks at night and taking the train and I’m good. This is the type of “bad dates” you’d expect in a TV show. How can someone be that socially inept especially an educated, well-traveled professional man in his mid-thirties? You’d think he’d know, especially for his age, better but apparently not.

Then, I went on a date with Luis, who is now my husband. We live in a suburb in our house without a picket fence and two children. We clicked right away. Good looks, loves reading and karate, Cambridge native, and great conversationalist.

Eventually, a temp. job turned permanent. It was an administrative job with a healthcare company. The tasks were fast-paced, tedious, intense, and stressful work environment. I still took classes and workshops to pad my resume, networked, and continued job hunting but it’s exhausting. Occasionally, I edited. I didn’t want to take the leap. I moved in with roommates in a house West of Boston.

After 2 years, I felt burnt out again. Then, a coworker told me, “You have a Masters degree and you’re in this job? You can do better.” And my boss used to joke, “Why don’t you go for a nursing or healthcare administrative degree and you can move up?” But I had no desire. At that time, things were getting serious between me and Luis. He mentioned marriage and we talked about it being a possibility but not yet. Then, we considered moving in together and ended up in Chelmsford. The price tags of Boston housing drove up further away to the deeper suburbs. We ended up in Chelmsford, which settlers in the 17th century named it after Chelmsford, England. My GPS once confused the two and one of the steps was to take a flight to London. (At least, better than suggesting to swim across the atlantic).

That was when Luis suggested freelancing for me. Freelancing was a consideration all along but the lack of stability made me nervous. He told that he’ll help with expenses. I didn’t like the idea of depending on a man, especially when we were not married. But after some thoughts I did. When I quit saying that I needed something more creative like copy writing or editing, my boss asked me if I had a job lined up. I told her I’m freelancing. She wished me luck but probably thought I was insane!

Building up my freelancing was exciting yet scary but there were resources from EFA and my alumni group. I learned how to build up and get regular clients. In 2 years, I had regular, steady clients. I worked with publishers, marketing directors of corporate and non-profit organizations, universities, and independent authors. Eventually, I helped organize events for EFA Boston and even spoke at an event there and at a Portland State University Editing class (which I took in 2009).

In February 2021, I came across a job posting on my PSU alumni email for a full-time remote position in marketing. It checked all my boxes and I applied. After 2 interviews, I received an offer. I’m still there and it’s fulfiling.

My takeaways for any transition:

• Uncertainty can be scary, but knowing that I took a calculated risk made me feel better about my decision. I had an alternative. A couch or basement at a family members or old friend’s place. I figured, at least I tried. I’d rather try and fail instead of wondering in the future.
• Let go of perfection. Life is never meant to be perfect and making mistakes is part of it. Pick yourself up and move on. What’s the worst that can happen? Unless we’re talking about something that permanently destroys or puts you in jail, there is really no reason to shun imperfection. Really, so what I FAILED as a teacher? No need to fret. I pick myself up and move on. Also, my degree helped. With my new job, project managing is my task and having an education degree helped with planning.
• Try new things and experiment. I looked up social groups and organizations and showed up and took time getting to know others around me. I took up any job and willing to take classes. Years ago, I never imagined myself in sales. I took up a commissioned sales job in 2009 during my undergrad years. I had no clue what I was doing. My numbers were terrible. My manager called me in and I panicked thinking I’d be fired. My manager told me that I have the work ethics, people skills and insight to communicate with all types of people, smart and have the aptitute for sales but need more training and experience. She’d pair me up with another sales girl and coach me. Eventually, I got better and improved confidence and even became the top sales girl with high numbers. I never thought I’d be a sales person. I thought you have to have a certain personality (a cute, perky, cheerleader type who’s usually a blonde) and didn’t know anything about sales. Not true.
• Hang in there and be patient. It takes time. Graduating during a recession only taught me resilience. I graduated with a grad school degree in Publishing in 2012 and got my dream job in 2021. That’s nine years. I took a variety of jobs, some not at all relevant. But they gave me valuable skills and experience.
• Be bold. Difficulties in life make you bolder. One of them is prejudice and racism I dealt with. I used to be very shy in middle school because I moved to a new country and experienced culture shock as well as bigotry. Receiving prejudice on top of a difficult family situation and international move was traumatizing, because I was dealing with stuff and prejudice was the straw that was about to break me. I fought back. I’d go home and cry. My white friends in middle school and high school used to tell me to stand up for myself but they didn’t understand that’d get me in trouble. Again, the P-word. Prejudice. But those experiences made me tougher and as I got older, I became more outspoken. Example, during my senior year of high school someone said a racial slur and I laughed at their face and said, “Fuck you, you racist piece of trash!” That person was stunned because he expected me to just take it. I got a detention of course for swearing. But again, I didn’t give a shit. It felt good to tell that fucker off. My ultimate middle-finger to racists is that thanks to them I got bolder in everything, from advocating for myself, assertiveness, and persistence and other things that helped me in life. That’s the best “FUCK YOU” message to racists. Out of curiosity, I searched for my old childhood bullies, especially the racists, and it seems that some have not changed at all. What a pity. Others, no idea but I hope they matured and changed.

It’s been 7 years of living in the Boston metropolitan area. I finally feel that I have a permanent home now.

When I’m not working, I’m hoping to get some of my stories published. Currently, I’m working on short stories and have an idea for a novel. By the way, I’m starting a email newsletter which I’ll send every 3 months about my updates as a writer if you are interested in reading fiction about third culture kid, Indian immigrant experience, family dynamics in a cross-cultural context, and how it all relates to current social concerns of sexism, racism, dysfunctional families, and other comments on culture and society. Sign up for my email newsletter here.

Indu Guzman is a book publishing professional (marketing + production) living in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. She’s also a fiction writer with short stories published in The Promethean and Where the Roses Smell Their Best. Before settling down in the Boston suburbs, she lived in 5 countries (India, Dubai U.A.E, U.S.A, Argentina, Singapore) and visited many others. Experiencing the larger world helped Indu see the universal themes among the human experience. In other words, we all have much more in common than differences. She explores third-culture kid experience, family dynamics, trauma and loss through her fiction. She can be found at the-penlife.com and Instagram @indu_guzman

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