My Bohemian Self Versus My Corporate Self
I spent a glorious week in New York City earlier this month. My best friend from college lives in hipper-than-thou Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and I spent a few days with her getting to know that neighborhood and its denizens pretty well. Then I spent a weekend in the middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania, where my best friend from high school got married. As we toured Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater house marveling at the architecture, and biking the Laurel Highlands that surrounds it, I struck up conversations with intellectuals from Japan, Russia, Israel, France, Italy and the UK. When I returned to Brooklyn, I ate up my favorite Middle Eastern delicacies and gobbled up conversations about great works of literature and laughed my ass off as artist-musician-writer types joked satirically about mass American culture.
Here I am, this corporate ladder-climber, who could honestly be no-less-thrilled unless Guy Kawasaki himself had sent her an email. And I write this crazy blog that I might be a little embarrassed by if anyone I worked with actually read it, which I’m pretty sure has even kept me from getting a second-round interview. And I want to get my MBA in marketing and entrepreneurship, and I eat up books like Groundswell, Rich Woman, and E-Myth with the sloppy voracity of a pig in a garbage dump. Two of my friends refer to me as “career lady” and my hair stylist knows we have to toe the line between cutting edge and work appropriate. I’m trying to figure out how I can dress J. Crewish without looking so damned yuppie.
Then there’s this other part of me, the part of me that would be happy to be a coffee-slinging barista for the rest of her life, the part that oh-so-briefly dreamt of making the leap to a shared apartment in Brooklyn with four part-time jobs to make ends meet. It’s the part of me that sits in cafes for hours blogging, reading Henry Miller and Ernest Hemingway, and attending political rallies when I’m not supposed to since I work for the media.
How these two halves of myself possibly be at peace with another?
They usually aren’t.
When I had my weekly call with my life coach and told her about my promotion, she heard the hesitation in my voice. Is this at odds with who I am, who I want to be, I asked. What happens when I’m 40 and I look back and wonder how I got caught up on this corporate ladder?
She reminded me that this isn’t forever. I’m not making some huge statement about who I am or what I believe in. Just because I got a promotion doesn’t mean I shouldn’t still be looking at business schools and applying. This will lead to other things, as every previous position has led to new opportunities.
What’s a different perspective you could take on this, she asked me.
I hesitated.
“I could be like, a bohemian corporate climber?” I asked more than stated.
I could be the blogging, intellectual, semi-rebellious analyst, the manager who challenges the old way things are done, and bringing a new kind of savvy to the business table.
Isn’t that what this whole Gen-Y thing is supposed to be about? Changing the face of achievement in the workplace, challenging the definition of success, and infusing our workplaces with new ideas?
Hi Holly –
Good post and congratulations on your promotion. Always nice…
You wrote about your two sides finding peace and it is my experience (having two sides myself – as most of us do) that it isn’t peace they are trying to find, but honor. Honoring both along with their differences, planning time to spend in both realms and living fully vs. just living one-sided.
Take care and ‘live fully’.
Robin Ogden
http://www.firedupcareers.com
I fight this all the time. How can I want to “stick it to the man” and be “the man” all at the same time?
I reread my blogs and realize that I’m likely unelectable in most US states. Which makes me sad.
I really want to find a great job and be my own boss all at the same time. I want to run sh*t in my pj’s from my bed.
I want to rule the world 5 out of 7 days a week.
How can all of these parts of me co-exist?
I’m hoping that the “rules” will change.
I think I really want infiltrate the corporate/political world so that I can change the rules my d*mn self. LOL.
If we (Gen Y) don’t, then who will.
I have these warring parts of myself, too. But Walt Whitman said, “Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am vast; I contain multitudes.”
If we were cohesive we would not be whole. That one’s me
Holly,
I’ll never forget speaking to one of my coworkers right before I left a well-paying job in Corporate America. She told me that there were two sides to her — one was the woman I saw everyday: polished, professional, with hints of eagerness peeking through her calm demeanor as she envisioned herself climbing the ladder. The other, she told me, was a bit punk rocker. She had a nose ring, dyed her hair, wore grunge clothes. She told me that when she started at this company, she had to make a decision for herself: who did she want to be? Essentially, she said, she changed everything about herself to fit the company’s image.
That was something I’ve never agreed with and a great part of why I left that company (a boss being the other). Of course I don’t think that nose piercings and dyed hair is necessarily appropriate for a corporate image, but she had basically reconstructed her whole personality to fit in with the environment.
I believe that there is a different “you” that you portray in different situations — the girlfriend, the friend, the daughter…the barista and the intellectual. I believe that those are parts of you that make up a whole. But rather than changing yourself entirely, choosing one over another, I think it’s necessary to find some sort of balance.
I truly hope that you find that for yourself, whatever it may be, and that you let your personality continue to shine through which whatever path you choose to pursue.
Holly, i’m glad you are finding time to update your blog, since i really enjoy it, and i think you express in a good way how to find, or at least try to find, balance bewtween work and your personal life.
Congratulations on your promotion, you just have to read a couple of your posts, to realize that you are something special, with some real potential.
Finally, i think that there’s no better place to make some changes in today’s world, than on the top. The revolution starts from above. The trick is to don’t forget what you believe in when you get there.
PS: I did some spanish publicity of yourself and your blog in mine, i hope you get some more argentinian readers.
I think we all deal with that, at least in one manner or another. As we grow up, we tend to look at certain part(s) of our personality as a focal point, and minimize other portions as just ‘filler’. In my own experience, I love to focus on being that tattoo’d guy with the awesome computer skills. But what do I do? I’m a straight-laced investment officer and a family man. Those things rarely go together. Nor do they have to.
I think of most things in my life as simple events. Nothing more, nothing less. I am less concerned with finding that ‘one’ thing to define myself on this planet, and more open to just going along for the ride.
My boss looked me in the eyes and said, this is it, Holly; this is the big time.
a great promotion it would seem
is challenging your childhood dream
but corporate dog
and bohemian blog
are without doubt, the modern team
worklovelife is gaining momentum; this is the big time indeed
Your two final paragraphs are dead on, I think. For me personally, what you’ve described is certainly what I strive for.
I figure if the C-Suite aren’t debating getting rid of me because I’m making them uncomfortable for constantly pushing the company to the limits, then I’m not doing a good enough job. At the same time, I think that being the semi-rebellious analyst manager who challenges the way old things are done while bringing a new kind of savvy to the business table has built in job security. But that’s perhaps a different story for anther time.
Happy to see more posts coming back through : )
@Robin Ogdin: Yes! My life coach is always telling me to honor the different sides of myself. Honor the Holly Who Runs, the Holly Who Blogs, the Holly Who Climbs Corporate Ladders.
@Lifeinthemiddlelane: I couldn’t sympathize with you more. “How can I stick it to the man and be the man at the same time?” Ha. So true.
And I think you’re right about “infiltrating” the top. That’s why I could never get on board with anarchy as a political movement. If you want to change the way the game is played, you need to play the game first.
@honey: How about the whole is greater than the sum of its parts? If I were just a corporate lacky then I wouldn’t be such a great asset to my company, would I? Excellent point.
@susan pogorzelski: Thanks for sharing the anecdote. I definitely don’t want to kill off the bohemian self. I just want to find a way to express it, like you said, in my career as well.
@Carlos: “The revolution starts from above.” I love that. Thanks for the link love.
@Norcross: I think that’s what makes you so cool! Like I said to Honey above, it’s the combination of these things in us that make us more valuable to our companies than just the corporate/career side of ourselves. They just don’t always realize it!
@anonymous: Thank you, Masked Poet! Man, you have a knack for summing things up. Thanks for the comment.
@nathan snell: You know, I hadn’t thought of it that way. I like the idea of embracing it instead of cowering from it. My new boss says she wants me to make a nuisance of myself in my new role – push the other managers, emphasize the necessity of change, etc. I think I have the cojones to do that.
As to more posts, yes, I’m finally back on track! Hopefully I’ll be able to keep it up. I believe I will, anyhow.
This is good reminder to not fit yourself into boxes that are too small for you. I did that myself in a previoud career that cost me dear.
Don’t define yourself by roles or titles – they’ll always change and you’ll always struggle to find how they fit the different versions of you.
Instead, define yourself by what matters to you and how you engage with those things.
I think this is something most of us struggle with. I mean, if you are even vaguely intelligent or ambitious, you probably see yourself as counter-culture (what’s that old bumper sticker? If you aren’t angry, you aren’t paying attention…) But then again, the smart, ambitious women are also the ones in the corporate world.
I try to tell myself that “The Man” doesn’t have to be evil, and it’s up to me to help find some of those ethical balances.
This is brilliant. I have been on your blog for 2 hours now and can’t help but feel like you are writing my life.
I am a 24 year old alcoholic, sober 3.5 years and I struggle daily with being a bohemian, rebellious, successful and often skeptical HR Consultant.
I appreciate your fresh perspective. Thanks for sharing your (&my) story.