Other Interests: pursuing your passion

Changing careers

Take Two (a US NPR feature via The Occupational Adventure) features a range of people who have changed jobs.

On a similar theme, JD Bliss' Success Stories features lawyers who have changed careers or who have added other things into their legal practice to achieve personal satisfaction.

These stories are always interesting; they may not always be applicable to your circumstances but do demonstrate the inventive ways people can change or improve their lives.

Can you get paid for creative work?

Gaping Void has a sex and cash theory: "The creative person basically has two kinds of jobs: One is the sexy, creative kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills."

To me that is a fairly cynical approach. I'd like to think that if your life is a circle,  you can adjust the size of the slices to match your priorities. Ultimately you can arrange things so that you get paid for the "sexy" work.

Public Library Access to Databases

I had a great conversation with a law firm librarian during a break at the Open Content Licensing Conference.

We covered knowledge management, IT, litigation support and training in big law firms.

We complained about subscription practices by some online newspapers.

We then spoke about public libraries and the advances they are making. I praised my own BCC library and she then observed that I should have access to the databases it subscribed to.  I didn't know.

Lo and behold: I checked the BCC online library catalogue and there is a huge range of databases I can access FREE (click on online references). Great for a solo!

The Legal Profession

Via the [non]billable hour and Three Years of Hell To Become The Devil in a discussion of things to improve in law schools, comes this link to On Being a Happy, Healthy, and Ethical Member of an Unhappy, Unhealthy, and Unethical Profession written by  Patrick J. Schiltz, an Associate Professor at Notre Dame Law School in 1999.

It's quite an amazing, well researched but emotional and personal article directed at law students about their future in the legal profession. Whilst there are blogs that are clearly satiric in their analysis of Big Firm Law (eg  Anonymous Lawyer), Schiltz wears his heart on his sleeve in his assessment of the happiness, health and ethics of lawyers in big firms (and firms who wannabe big firms).

The data on health, depression and alcoholism is US based but there is no reason to suggest it would not be similar in Australia.

That's not to say that there are not people in the legal profession with a strong community and justice focus. But the business of law can sometimes clash with the needs of clients.

Just work!

This interview with Russell Muirhead (from HBS Working Knowledge)discusses his book Just Work.

He observes that that the book title's "double meaning gets at the two faces of work. One is the side of necessity. Work is something compulsory, not merely an option or a lifestyle choice. The other side is more hopeful. It invites us to find work that is fulfilling, that is part of a good life."

A key quote: culturally, we make a big thing of work. It is a source of status, of personal identity, and a sign that we are contributing to the common good. Because of this, we cannot really help taking it seriously, and asking as much from it as it asks from us.

The 5 second rule

The IgNobel Prizes have brought to light that someone has actually researched the 5 second rule (ie If You Drop It, Should You Eat It?).

This news actually created a bit of discussion in our household, as it has on CNN's poll on the topic.

Worthwhile

Via Curt Rosengren is this link to a preview of the first edition of Worthwhile magazine.

It contains articles designed to inspire you. In particular I like the the fact that the article "50 songs to fire you up" has been turned into an iTunes playlist (iTunes required).

Trick Interview Questions

This Fortune article (via Business Pundit) reviews a new book devoted to brain teasers asked at job interviews to assess applicants' problem solving skills (and, I suspect, their ability to stay cool under pressure).

Reminds me of the story told about an interview at a very upmarket legal firm: the applicant was asked whether he would stand up for an elderly person on a bus. Applicant thinks: if I say yes, it shows I'm soft, if I say no I'm uncaring. Ends up saying he'll make sure the elderly person gets his seat when he goes. On his way out he hears the interviewer say to his colleague: "he catches a bus!"

Super Size or Downshift Your Career?

There is a new book out called Better than Sex: How a Whole Generation got Hooked on Work.

The thesis seems to be that for some people work is so satisfying that they are hooked on it, 24/7 to the exclusion of all else. "It decides status, adds or detracts from meaning. It has eaten up all the available space in society and become the defining institution, taking over from religion, family, politics and culture."

Certainly most people go through stages where work is all absorbing and demanding but on a long term basis that must damage a person's life.

Contrast that theory with Downshifting a study by the Australian Institute which identifies a group of people who are actually changing careers and accepting less money to lead a balanced life.

Perhaps both studies just show that people think more today about their careers and their life values.

Gradual Career Change

This article argues that it takes 2 to 6 years to make a career transition.(via The Occupational Adventure)