Career Track Live

Conquering Your Quarterlife Crisis

The Washington area is a magnet for smart, ambitious young workers. Post columnist Mary Ellen Slayter writes a regular column for these professionals who are establishing their careers locally, and offers advice online as well.

The transcript follows below.

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

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Mary Ellen Slayter: Good afternoon!

My guest today is Alexandra Robbins, the author of "Conquering Your Quarterlife Crisis." We've got lots of great questions today, so let's get started!

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Alexandra Robbins: Hey everyone! Thank you for being here! I just want to say that I see there are already a bazillion terrific questions, and I'll get to as many as I possibly can (some might require more thought time than I have here). If yours isn't answered (or if you just want to say hi), please feel free to contact me through alexandrarobbins.com afterwards. thanks!

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Farmingdale, New York: Hi Alexandra,
Just wanted to tell you that I loved your first book and was compelled to grab "Conquering Your Quarterlife Crisis" as soon as it came out...I feel like it answered a lot of the questions that your first book left us with. Do you see yourself continuing on in this genere? Perhaps covering other types of time-line based "crises"? Just curious, I really enjoy your work.

Thanks,
Amy

Alexandra Robbins: Hey, thanks!

I'm committed to continuing to help our generation deal with our issues, but I don't expect to cover other kinds of "crises" -- because I don't think we'll have them. This is the optimistic part of the Quarterlife Crisis: Whereas older people leapt immediately into a career/marriage/whatever, slogged through it for 20-30 years and only then started questioning their paths, our generation is confronting our core identity issues *now*, in our 20s and 30s, before we get stuck in something too difficult to get out of. So I don't think we'll have a midlife crisis, for example, because we'll have ourselves figured out by then, and because we'll know from experience by then that it's perfectly ok to change our minds.

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Washington, D.C.: How long do you need to stay at your first job out of college if you don't really enjoy it and know that you want to move onto something different? I have heard it's a whole two years! Does it look bad if you quit before a certain amount of time is up?

Alexandra Robbins: I believe the acceptable time frame now before leaving is 87.3 days, plus your farewell lunch. Just kidding. See, I faced this same problem in my first job out of college and didn't realize it was okay to job-hop, so I stayed a whopping 8 months in a position that made me cry. There's no time rule. Think about it - this applies to everything in life, I think - if you made a mistake, why would you keep on living the mistake, digging the hole deeper, just because of a choice you made when you were younger? Same thing applies to people who are halfway through graduate/professional/etc school who realize they aren't cut out for the field.

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Fairfax, Va.: Every person who has ever been 20+ years old has faced the dilemma of what to do when formal education ends and real life begins. Everyone who has ever reached 30 years of age has faced the reality of options narrowing and possibilities closing off. Why does this generation think that it's different from everyone who has come before?

Alexandra Robbins: Because this generation is different from everyone who has come before (just as the previous generation was different from their parents, etc.). We are: the first generation in American history not projected to do financially better than our parents (adding to our fears of not being able to measure up); a generation with more college graduates than any previous generation (adding to our frustration because of having to compete harder to stand out from our peers); and a generation with more ridiculously exorbitant student loans/debt than the students who came before us (which can affect our lives a lot more than people realize). Are we the first generation to have a tough transition from school to the world beyond? Nah. But I think our transition is more intense.

Mary Ellen Slayter: I think the expectations have been ratcheted up. For a long time, I wondered where these expectations that work was supposed to be fun and fulfilling came from. Now I blame the Baby Boomers.

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Phoenix, Arizona: What was one of the most memorable pieces of advice given by the people you interviewed for your book?

Alexandra Robbins: Oh wow, those twentysomethings and thirtysomethings had so many amazing pieces of advice. I'll share one that can apply to a lot of different aspects of life, so I'm going to go with Mark, now a 29-year-old in CT. After six years of studying to be a doctor, halfway through med school Mark realized he didn't want to be a doctor after all. He agonized over what to do (amidst the naysayers' "You have less than two years left" and "You've done all this work; don't give it up for nothing" blabla). Then he left. He's happy now in a different field, doesn't view his medical school education as a waste because it has come in handy in other ways, and says -- and this is advice I love -- "Don't let yourself do something simply because you've started on a path and feel that you *should* complete it. Life is too short for that."

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Washington, D.C. (Metro Center): -Bows down to Mary Ellen, the coolest chick around-

In 2 weeks I'm starting a new job in New York (trying to find an apartment this weekend - eek!) and I'm thrilled about the position. There's room for growth, travel, opportunity to have a staff in a few years, all the things that make a new job (read: actual, honest to goodness career move) attractive to me.

Here's the thing - I'm 27 and while I know I can be great at this job and I know I can take the position to the next level, I'm getting those jitters that make me second guess myself and feel like I'm really 15 and any minute now people are going to find out that I'm way underqualified. While my rational self knows this is not the case, I keep having these feelings of foreboding and I'm wondering if you and Ms. Robbins have any advice for this quarterlifer. I need to calm my nerves and be ready to hit the ground running when I walk into that office.

Alexandra Robbins: Hi. Agreed on Mary Ellen - I got to meet her in person yesterday... Okay, so here's a big secret about twentysomethings: ALL (or at least most) of us feel like we're frauds, especially in the working world. Why wouldn't we? Our life experience is generally sparse, any new job we take is going to be a new work experience for us, and we don't necessarily know enough about ourselves yet to feel like we know who we are, exactly.

I think we're all pretty much just winging it. There's a high-powered twentysomething banker in "Conquering" who told me she's often asked by her employees how she is able to be so confident in the office. Her answer is. . . she isn't. She fakes it (just like the rest of us). So do I. You're going to be great in your new job - you'll see.

Mary Ellen Slayter: Meeting with Alex was definitely the best "work" meeting I've had in ages!

I agree that we nearly all feel insecure when we first start moving into positions of responsibility. Even when your confidence falters, remember that the people who hired you obviously saw in you the strength and skills to get the job done.

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Atlanta, Georgia: I'm 40 now but I watched lots of TV growing up (Dark
Shadows was the one we sneakily watched in the
afternoons if my mom was out). And I guess I don't
understand why this generation is having trouble
separating media from reality. After all, I watched Dallas
when I was growing up but I didn't expect to live in
Southfork when I turned 20.

Alexandra Robbins: Ah, I remember Mighty Mouse was my guilty pleasure... and Superfriends! Whatever happened to the Hall of Justice?!

Anyway, it's not necessarily that kind of media that is ratcheting up expectations, as Mary Ellen put it - we aren't emulating Desperate Housewives or placing ourselves in the context of the O.C. or anything. But for some of us, the twentysomethings we see in the news/entertainment media are the only "models" we have -- and those phenoms are people like Beyonce, Lebron James, etc. It appears to us that the age at which society expects us to succeed is plummeting rapidly. No wonder we feel like if we haven't done something amazing by age 25 we're already over the hill.

Mary Ellen Slayter: Dallas is like other soap operas, and clearly a fantasy world. Shows like Friends are a bit fuzzier.

Our media culture is very youth-oriented. Young=fun, smart lively. Old=boring, stodgy. If you're bombarded with that message every day, it's hard not to dread getting older, and to feel pressured to make your mark when you're young.

Personally, I like getting older. The food's better and I can stay up as late as I want. Every Night.

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Southern California: After doing the post-college, workaholic first "real" job, then grad school, I bascially decided by the time I was 30 that it wasn't worth it. I found that my life revolved around my job, and despite my best efforts, promotions and raises were rarely given on merit and those who worked even harder than I ended up getting laid off anyway.

After quitting a tech job that consumed my whole life, I now work in a stable company doing something I'm overqualified and undercompensated for. However, I work 7-8 hrs a day, never weekends. I telecommute 2x a week. I make a fair income but wouldn't trade the time I now have with my family for another $20k a year.

I find most of my peers have a similar mentality. All our lives we saw our parents, and friends' parents give their lives to their jobs only to get laid off anyway. Most of us realize that whether you work 40 or 60 hours a week, you end up with a 3% raise anyway. Most importantly, most of us know or have experienced divorce in our families, largely as a result of mom or dad never being home because of their job.

In short, yeah, you have to work, but it's just part of your day, once it becomes your entire life, it's just not worth it. I know those older than us, like the baby-boomers don't get this mentality. To them we're a bunch of slackers, but I'm the one at home with my kids at 5:30 p.m., while their still in the office, who's the fool?

Alexandra Robbins: Love your last line! Our generation doesn't want to make our parents' mistakes - we take longer to get married and to settle on a career because we want the marriage and the career to be "right" and long-lasting. Older people think our pace, our trial-and-error lifestyle, etc. make us slackers. We're not slackers. We're just hoping to do what we can (and take as much time as it takes) to tip our lives toward the "happy" end of the scale. Man, that sounded New Age-y. Oh well.

Mary Ellen Slayter: Next time, we're taking the crystals, incense and candles out of your office before the chat begins.

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Monterey, Calif.: I worked at a retreat center where there was a seminar one weekend for people going through "a mid-life crisis." I made a point of noting the ages of the (self-selected) attendees when they checked in, and the range was.....from their late 20's to early 60's!

It seems to me that the essential personal issue/transformation we are talking about here is that of creating YOUR OWN life versus living OTHERS' (parents', society's etc) expections.

Is that what you are talking about too...or is it something else?

Mary Ellen Slayter: You're never to young or old to schedule a Monumental Freak Out.

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Charlotte, North Carolina: Submitting early b/c I have class when this chat is going.

I'm 23--almost 24--and haven't found a job that I am not miserable in yet. I feel like a failure--I've had 3 jobs in 3 years--and now I'm looking at leaving where I have been for about 6 months--the job is horrible, my self-esteem is plummeting, and the people I have to work with are bitter, backstabbing, sabatoging people that are dragging me down. I'm going to school at night to get my teaching degree to work with children but in the meantime I just want a job that won't make me miserable--what am I doing wrong? I spent time deciding if this was a good fit for me, sat with the team for a week before accepting, etc--but when I started my new job, it was like a completely different team! Everyone turned mean and hateful--literally, they insult me in front of my manager who does nothing despite having 3 meetings with me about how their negativity and snide comments are not helping me do my job, nor is their refusal to answer my questions--what do I do? I hate to be a job-hopper and need the money or I'd quit in a heartbeat....guess I'll at least interview for this other company across the road but until then, how do I keep sane? I try to remember it's only work, not what's important in life, but still, it's a long day....

Alexandra Robbins: Well yeah, twentysomethings who are able to compartmentalize "work" separately from "life" are fortunate and admirable, but for the rest of us, if we're going to spend the majority of our waking hours in one environment and that environment is awful, it's sure as heck going to be a long day.

There's a chapter in "Conquering" titled "When do I give up on a job?" (you'll probably identify with Lisa's story.) The Post would probably kill me if I pasted it here, so here are a few nutshells:

1) Job hopping = normal! It's even sometimes expected of us. We now average at least 8.6 jobs between 18 and 32.

2) My general when-to-leave advice is if you have nothing left to like *or to learn* in your current position and the experience isn't in any way salvageable (switching teams, telecommuting, etc.), it's ok to leave and understandable to do so. Go free!

3) There's nothing wrong with taking a job you're overqualified for if you need it to pay the bills. If you're absolutely miserable in your current position, there are other ways you can make money while waiting for another job to come through.

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Mary Ellen Slayter: Also, I'm holding a little resume contest today. If you think yours is the cat's pajamas, and you're willing to have it dissected as a shining example for all the world to see on www.washingtonpost.com/jobs, e-mail it to slayterme@washpost.com. Put "resume contest" in the subject line. The winner gets a free copy of Alexandra's new book.

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Washington, D.C.: Is looking for something "meaningful" to do with your life something people grow out of? I'm fairly depressed at this point, in that I've identified a few careers that I think could be both interesting and personally fulfilling, yet with limited experience and a degree from a third tier school, I haven't been able to get my foot in the door. At a certain point, is it time to just give up and take a job you really don't want just because it pays the rent?

Alexandra Robbins: Those aren't mutually exclusive pursuits. You can take a job to pay the bills while looking for a way to get a foot in the door in a field you'll find fulfilling. If you've identified a few careers that you think will be rewarding, you are fantastically fortunate. I think one of the hardest things for people our age isn't to figure out how to get what we want, but how to figure out what we want in the first place. You, Washington, D.C., seem to be there = you rock.

So. What does "foot in the door" actually mean? There's a guy in "Conquering" - Geoff - who decided his dream is to own a restaurant. He has to work his way up; right now he's a waiter and bartender. You'll probably have to work your way up, too (regardless of experience and education), but, like Geoff, it won't be as depressing because you'll have your goal in sight.

I want to add here that while I agree with Mary Ellen on practically everything, I disagree that there's anything wrong with hoping to find something "meaningful" to do for a living. We spend SO much time working - why not try to work at something that gives us something back mentally along with the $?

Mary Ellen Slayter: I think this is a great strategy.

My gripe with the pursuit of "fulfilling" work is not that we shouldn't seek it. We just shouldn't beat ourselves up when it doesn't come to us quickly. So often, I talk to people who are so depressed and frustrated that they haven't found their calling by age 30 ... it's not a "thing" you can go out and get like a car. It's a life-long pursuit.

One of my favorite sections in Conquering addressed the false schedules we put ourselves on. There's a great exercise that helps you analyze your goals, based on the extent to which they are contingent on things you can't control. Namely, other people.

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Quarter-Lifer: I am a 24 year old who is planning on going back to grad school in the next couple of years. In the meantime, I am working as a consultant for a mid-sized firm. My co-workers are great and the long hours are acceptable because I know that my work is appreciated. The only downside is that I don't receive a competitive wage. This is nothing my supervisor can do anything about - a corporate mandate kept raises down this year and I was able to get more than the "cap," but I still know that it isn't the norm. I was offered a job at another company that will involve the same sort of work, but with an 18% raise, extra week of vacation and an excellent commute. The only problem was the fact that the client asked me whether I know how to 'do what I'm told and keep my mouth shut.' How can I weigh the perks of the new job against the comments of my potential boss?

Mary Ellen Slayter: What an odd thing to say. Do you have any reason to question the person or the company's ethics?

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Texas: I just wanted to second the advice about first jobs. I think you should probably stay for a while and make sure that your unhappiness isn't just part of adjusting to the 8-5 world and a new area. I don't know how long is enough.

But I do know that I stayed in my first job, which I absolutely hated (because I didn't know how to do it) for a whopping three years.

To this day (and I'm almost 40, so the fact that life is finite enters my mind a lot more than it used to), I think sometimes about the three years of my life that I basically wasted.

Also, I think it's better to think about how many times you leave a job like that rather than how long you stay. If I were hiring, seeing that somebody quit their first job after 6 months wouldn't bother me. If they had quit their first three jobs after 6 months at each of them, I would wonder.

Alexandra Robbins: Thanks for bringing up a really good point I should have mentioned - for a lot of us, hating the first job isn't about the job; it's about the work lifestyle. Give yourself time to adjust to the working world first. And if you've adjusted and you think you'd like the job if only, say, you could only sleep in a little later, ask your boss about telecommuting, comp time, or flex time. Employers are increasingly willing to let you work project-based hours rather than face-time-at-the-desk hours, which is a huge relief to people like me who can't sit still!

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Alexandra Robbins: Ew. Incense makes me sneeze.

Mary Ellen Slayter: Me too. And that's why Career Track Live is a Patchouli-Free Zone.

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Lawrence, Kansas: When you were interviewed on TV after your first Quarterlife Crisis book was published, both Katie Couric on the Today Show and Bryant Gumble on CBS gave you a hard time. I thought you answered their skepticism well. Would you answer them any differently today?

Alexandra Robbins: I guess I'd add to what I said (because I hardly ever get out everything I really want to say on live TV). Many older people - especially those in the midlife crisis - think that 20somethings who complain are whining, that if we have our youth and freedom then we *must* be doing just fine. Ha. Wrong. When older people tell us that we can't be depressed because there's nothing seriously wrong with us, we're even more likely to think there's something seriously wrong with us for feeling that way in the first place!

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Virginia: Does your book address those of us who are between 35-40 and facing a career crisis? I'm at a point in my life now where I don't know what I want to do and I know that what I'm doing now is not it. I keep contemplating leaving and taking a few months off the "rat-race" to get my thoughts together. Is this worthwhile or a really, really bad idea?

Mary Ellen Slayter: Work through the pros and cons. Is taking 6 months off financially feasible? What do you want to do with that time? Volunteer? Travel? Knit the world's biggest scarf.

Alexandra Robbins: Sure it addresses that age group. I geared the book toward people in their late teens through late 30s, but I think the issues are some that every adult faces.

I'm a big believer that changing your mind (at any age) is healthy. Older adults sometimes brand young adults who change their minds as "failures." (The lawyer who hates law and leaves the big firm; the student who drops out of grad school because he realizes he was only there to procrastinate, etc.)

Do you need to leave your job - or the rat-race - to figure out what to change your mind to? That's up to you. I know plenty of people who took time off to travel or take a non-challenging job in order to figure themselves out, but I've also met a lot of people who were able to come up with their next path while still immersed in the original one.

But if you can hack it financially, I don't think leaving the rat race would ever be a "really, really bad idea." In fact, I think more of us should step off the fast-paced "track" we all feel like we have to leap onto as soon as we graduate lest we fall behind the pack.

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Forest Hills, N.Y.: My daughter will be graduating from college this year. What is the best piece of advice you can give her so that she avoids having a quarterlife crisis?

Alexandra Robbins: Yay, a sympathetic parent!

To your daughter: Don't give yourself a timeline, don't place some matrix of age-related deadlines over your life (promoted by 24, married by 28, debt-free by 30, etc.). Just go with the flow.

To you: Understand that your daughter's transition will not be like yours and that the best thing you can do is to make your daughter feel like you and she are on the same team, fighting for the same goals: hers.

Mary Ellen Slayter: Or remind her that even if she has quarterlife crisis, so what. Some soul-searching and reevaluating of her goals and priorities is normal. She'll get over the hump more quickly if she just rolls with it, like Alexandra said.

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San Francisco, California: How do I get a good job if all the good ones require experience, and I don't have any?

Alexandra Robbins: Yep, that's the experience catch-22. Welcome to twentysomethinghood! I think an answer to that, as frustrating as it might be, is that in some cases, the way to get experience is to take the jobs below the "good" ones - the positions that will eventually lead to the good jobs. Because twentysomethings are so good at putting up appearances, we don't realize that the working world for most of us -- no matter from where we graduated and what internships/honors we had -- will consist of xeroxing, faxing, and making other people coffee. Yippee.

Mary Ellen Slayter: So Xerox with pride!

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Arlington, Va.: I've read over and over again about following up a resume submission with a phone call. My problem has always been - what do you say on the phone? I've always had a natural anxiety about talking to people on the phone (except for family, friends) but I don't want this to keep me from good opportunities.

Alexandra Robbins: To combat phone anxiety, write a script out beforehand -- then when you talk, just make sure to pretend you're not reading. I'd just say the basics - "Hi, I sent in my resume x weeks ago. I'm really excited about the opportunity to work for xyz, so I just wanted to check on the status of my application." I'd think that should do it...

Mary Ellen Slayter: Yep, and you'll find practice makes perfect.

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RE: Graduating Daughter: What I wish someone had told me upon my college graduation was that I didn't need to take a corporate life-sucking job to have my education deemed a "success." Of my college class, "98%" of graduates had professional jobs or grad school acceptances upon graduation. I felt like I had to take something so as not to be part of the remaining 2 percent - obviously a failure. But it wasn't right for me and I was miserable. No one told me I could take some time and look for a better fit. Knowing that would have saved me years of crying in the corporate bathroom.

Alexandra Robbins: True!

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Alexandra Robbins: Thanks so much to all of you. I'm just sorry we don't have another hour so we could get to all of the questions. I hope you find "Conquering" helpful. bye!

Mary Ellen Slayter: Thanks again for joining us!

See you all in two weeks.

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