It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go…
1. I’m struggling with leaving a field I’m proud to be in
I’m female and in my late 30s (relevance will become apparent). I was working as a secondary maths tutor when I saw an ad urging me to consider firefighting and, on a whim, I applied. Unexpectedly, after rounds of tests, I got in, so I moved from part-time, home-based, self-employed work to full-time, station-based, 12-hour shifts. I stopped being the primary parent, put my youngest into full-time nursery, and turned my family’s lives upside down by disappearing for training for eight weeks.
I loved that I was showing my children that you can dare to be bad at something again, and showing all children (and some adults) that women can be firefighters too. In the UK, women make up 6% of firefighters. The feminist in me has been cheering herself hoarse for the last 18 months.
But I’m not very good at the job. Mostly I struggle with just how much there is to learn.
I’ve been persevering but fairly frequently not enjoying it because it isn’t easy to be bad at something. I’m passing the assessments but the final, biggest ones are coming up and the feedback I get is that I’m not up to scratch. I don’t think I can sustainably work harder. I wonder whether it’s time to say I tried but it’s not happening.
I think I’d feel like a failure if I quit, and I’d be embarrassed to have to tell people. Being a firefighter gets you such kudos, it’s lovely, and I enjoy the surprise I see in people’s faces. How do I give up and have peace of mind? How do I get my inner feminist to forgive me?
One way to look at it is that it’s useful to show your kids that you don’t need to keep doing something for the external kudos if it doesn’t actually fulfill you. And also, that there’s value in trying new things and it doesn’t commit you to doing them forever. And that it’s okay to say, “I tried this, I learned a ton, it ended up not being ideal for me, and I’m choosing to do something else.”
Keep in mind, too, that you don’t need to frame it to people (or yourself!) as a failure — you can tell people, “It was a lot of work and I’m glad I tried it but it’s not something that fits me well long-term.” Or, “I learned a ton, including that I don’t think it’s something I’m going to build my life around long-term.” Or, “I’m so happy I did it, but there are a bunch of reasons I decided not to continue.”
Also! While I understand the pleasure of seeing people’s surprise when you tell them you’re a firefighter, that’s not enough to compromise your day-to-day quality of life. That’s especially true for something you really just tried on a whim! This would be harder if it had been your lifelong dream … my advice would still be the same, because sometimes dreams turn out really different in reality and you shouldn’t tether yourself to a life that Current You doesn’t want just because Old You did, but maybe there’s some comfort in the fact that this wasn’t that.
Plus, you’ll forever be able to tell people “I used to be a firefighter” and that’s pretty great too.
2. I saw my boss’s NSFW social media
I’m a shift supervisor at a coffeeshop and my direct manager is my store manager, “Jane.” I am 25 and Jane is 26. We’re both fairly competent with technology and the internet. Jane has a very unique name that isn’t common in the U.S. Recently, Facebook and Instagram have been recommending her profile to me and my coworkers. We’ve all been recommended to each other recently so no one really thought about it.
I clicked on her Instagram out of sheer curiosity. She has a public personal profile. I checked her Facebook and found it’s public as well. I could quickly identify that it was her and not someone with the same name. I took the username from the Instagram profile and googled it, and the second result was a public Twitter profile. It had a different username but the display name matched the username from the Instagram. I scrolled twice and stumbled on furry NSFW art.
Is it my fault for going out of my way to look for her? Should I discreetly tell her that she’s easy to find on the internet? None of the content on her social media is related to her job, I just accidentally know too much about her.
Leave it alone. You didn’t do anything wrong — people google their coworkers, and while you went further than most with googling her username, it’s not a major crime to do that. But you risk making things weird at work if you bring it up with her. Pretend you didn’t see it, wipe it from your mind, and possibly be less expansive about how you search for coworkers in the future.
3. Negotiating when a job offers less than you’re currently making
I’ve been in my current position for seven years working in nonprofit marketing. I recently applied for a recruitment and communications position at my old college. I wasn’t looking for a new job, but was excited about the opportunity to work there and recruit students for the major that I studied. The salary wasn’t disclosed and said it would be based on experience. I researched the title and salary ranges for my city and most were upwards of $50k-$78k. This would be life-changing for my partner and me. So I decided to go for it. I spent three hours crafting a strong cover letter and sprucing up my resume and it landed me a spot as a finalist. They quickly started talking with my references and brought me in for a panel interview and to meet the program director. I felt like I interviewed well and they liked the questions I had. At the end I asked about compensation – framing it as I wanted to be respectful of their time and asking what the budgeted range of compensation was. They said they were unsure, but gave me a number they thought was going to be where they landed. It was $38k, several thousand lower than what I currently make. My partner and I are already struggling financially and I can’t take a pay cut. I asked the compensation question in the panel interview and in the meeting with the director since they were separate but the answer was the same.
Later that night, I sent this message: “Thanks again for meeting with me today to discuss the X opening. It was great to learn more about the scope of the position and the initiatives Y is exploring to import creative talent to Y. I remain deeply interested in the position and appreciate your candor regarding the compensation budget. In that spirit of openness, I feel it’s essential to be transparent as well. While I find the role highly appealing, the proposed salary of $38k is below my current compensation level of X. I must uphold a minimum salary requirement of $50k for my next role. I understand that this may impact my candidacy as a finalist, but I believe it’s crucial to communicate this as openly as you were with me during our discussions. Thank you for your understanding, I look forward to any further discussions about the position.”
This was their response: “I’m not sure if you’ve already heard from X, but I did speak with him about this. Unfortunately we won’t be able to meet your salary requirements, though it’s very understandable. I’m sorry we weren’t able to save you the time you spent by listing the salary range clearly upfront, but sadly I don’t have say over such things. It really was a pleasure to meet you! I hope to see you at art events around town.”
Etiquette-wise, could I have handled this better? Did I jump the gun by disclosing this? I know it might have been better to speak up about this in the interview, but I was still processing their answer. I knew sharing a salary goal $12k higher than they expected was likely to eliminate me, but I didn’t want to wait until the last minute to be honest about where my financial standards are at. I also didn’t want to disclose my specific wages of where I’m currently at. I had some friends say I should have waited to see if I actually landed anything to counter, and others said it was professional to let them know sooner rather than later.
Nope, you’re fine. It doesn’t make sense for either side to invest further time in the interview process if you’re not going to be able to agree on salary. It’s good to get the employer to name a number first if you can so that you don’t inadvertently lowball yourself — but you got them to, and the number they shared was well below what you’d accept. It’s smart to just get that into the open and see if it makes sense to continue on or not.
If I could change anything you did, I’d say not to peg your salary expectations to what you’re earning currently, but rather to the market rate for the work. “Pay me more because I want to earn more than I’m earning now” will never be as compelling — or as relevant — to the employer as “you should pay more because it’s the market rate for this work done at the level you want.”
4. Do I need to wrap up our department D&D game as we get more hires?
I used to be in one department at my company, and when I was there we started up a department Dungeons & Dragons game. I’m not a manager, but I am the Dungeon Master. At the time, the team was me and four others, including the director of the department, which is arguably the perfect size for a campaign. One of the players has since moved on to another job entirely. We kept her in the game and have added a new hire from the department so they didn’t feel like the odd man out, so we’re up to five players. Our team is about to get two more people, which is awesome, but I don’t want the new people to feel like they’re not getting in on a department social event even if it is outside of work hours and only one Wednesday a month. I might be able to run a game for seven, but that’s getting a little dicey in size for me to manage. Is there a way for the campaign to keep going or do I have to wrap it up so the two new folks aren’t missing out on social face time with their manager and their department?
Can you see if they’re interested and, if they are, break it into two games? (I don’t know enough about D&D to know if this is practical.)
I do think there’s potentially a question for your manager at some point about whether she feels like the D&D players are getting extra access to her, but that’s not something you need to preemptively solve for her (and frankly, one Wednesday a month isn’t a huge deal anyway).
