CAREERS : SHIFTING GEARS : Careers for the Ages : Preparing for Brave New World of Work Means Breaking Out of Lock-Step Notions

Once upon a time, careers were linear.

They started when you were young. They ended when you were old. There were a few, mostly predictable landmarks along the way. Maybe you moved: upward, downward, sideways. Maybe you made new connections, met new people. Maybe you switched firms. Maybe you had a mid-life crisis, and then got over it.

But whatever the individual deviations, you could plot your progress against a stable societal standard: career was the X axis, age the Y. You knew where you were supposed to be, and when.

Now the career graph is broken. Huge changes in the economy have distorted the lines. Corporations are cutting white-collar, managerial jobs by the tens of thousands. Manufacturing jobs are going overseas. Businesses are increasingly relying on temporary contract workers rather than hiring full-time employees.

As a result, each generation--having progressed to its proper point on the old graph--is left scrambling to find a new guide.

Generation X, the twentysomethings, face a tougher job market than their parents or their parents’ parents. People in mid-career are often left wondering what it was they spent the last 10 years pursuing and why. Older workers, who trudged dutifully along their paths until the end was in sight, suddenly face some unexpected zigs and zags before they can retire.

With the abrupt loss of continuity, age divisions become increasingly sharp. Sometimes the generations blame each other for their predicament.

“There’s not going to be much of a job market for college graduates until those baby boomers start retiring,” grouses a typical Xer. Older workers see the young, cheap labor force as a potent threat.

But while there is generational competition, each group is absorbed mainly with the task of redrawing its own graph, and recrafting the concept of “career.”

Generation Xers work part-time, overtime or shift between jobs many of their parents don’t consider “real.” Part of that is the result of economic reality and part of it is by choice. They see how the slavish devotion of time and soul required of their parents’ careers has paid off and they’re not anxious to imitate it.

The thirty- and fortysomethings, often high-powered and ultra-directed, are reassessing their values, thinking more about making work enjoyable. Flexible hours, working from home, having more control over their lives are being woven more tightly into the definition of career success.

For older workers, the terror that comes with the realization that the end may not be as steady as expected also brings the realization that unpredictability can be invigorating. The end does not have to be the end.

“One of the dilemmas is that people of all generations are needing to change careers,” says Richard Knowdell, executive director of the Career Planning & Adult Development Network in San Jose. “In the year 2000, close to half the jobs there are going to be (then) have not been created yet. We all have to change our paradigm of what the rules are in life.”

Here are the stories of three workers facing these changes.