Southern California Careers / Dream Jobs : For Some, Perfect Job Can Be Carved Out of Current Work
It took no small amount of perseverance and ingenuity, but Mary Larson and Kim Johnson finally found their ideal niche in Corporate America--just a few doors down from where they began their search.
The two working moms spent nearly six years informally surveying the child-care needs of their 3,000 fellow workers at the Seattle-area corporate headquarters of the Weyerhaeuser Co. And although they had long concluded that the giant lumber and paper manufacturer ought to do more for the family needs of its employees, their recommendations went unheeded.
Then in 1993, the two women--Larson worked as a computer project planner and Johnson was a paralegal--learned that Weyerhaeuser’s senior vice president for human resources was auctioning an afternoon of his time to raise money for a local charity. With a bid of $65, the two won a captive audience with the executive who could approve their plan to help Weyerhaeuser employees find child care.
Over lunch, Larson and Johnson argued that Weyerhaeuser would be a more competitive company if it helped its employees cope with the stresses of juggling the responsibilities of home and office. Within the year, Weyerhaeuser had created a Work/Family unit, with Larson and Johnson sharing responsibilities at its helm.
Larson says it’s clearly a dream come true--but not necessarily an outcome they had counted on when they began their odyssey. “Of course we wanted to get the jobs for ourselves,” she explains. “But it was more important that the job itself got done, no matter who did it.”
Says Steven Hill, the “hijacked” executive: “They had a passion and a vision about what they wanted. And they made a proposal that made fundamental sense for our company.”
Despite the “happily ever after” ending to Larson and Johnson’s story, it is not a fairy tale beyond the reach of workaday employees. Given the right idea, an effective presentation and ample perseverance, career counselors say, you can often persuade your bosses to let you design your own job within the confines of the existing corporation.
The crucial elements are putting your employer’s bottom line above your desires and packaging your proposal in terms of how it will help the company, not how it will make you happier.
“You have to market your job plan as a solution to a problem or opportunity your company has,” explains Susan Miller, a Los Angeles career counselor. “You don’t just want to be selling yourself to the boss; it’s just too easy to be turned down.”
To be sure, this approach won’t fly everywhere. A growing business with a corporate culture built on risk-taking, employee empowerment and innovation is more likely to let workers fashion their own careers than a stodgy company averse to breaking old molds. But even companies that are downsizing or re-engineering can be made to see the wisdom of allowing their workers to create “dream jobs” that fit both their skills and the corporation’s goals.
What are the best approaches? Barbara Sher, a New York author of “Wishcraft” and “I Could Do Anything if I Only Knew What It Was,” says the key is first to figure out what you do well and what you enjoy doing, and then to stick to those activities. At the same time, she says, explore your company for opportunities to pursue your dream, determining what corporate needs are unfilled.
“Become ‘best friends’ with the people who are doing the kind of work you want to do. Volunteer to help on your own time to learn how their system works and how you can fit into it,” advises Sher. “It’s an excellent way to get inside information about job opportunities and the lay of the land.”
Finally, she urges workers to “just do it.” Create a sample. Draft a business plan. Write a proposal. Remember, it’s easier to ask forgiveness for possibly overstepping your bounds than to get permission to do the unorthodox.
“If you just talk about your ideas, it’s easy for people to say ‘no,’ ” she says. “But if you create something to show, you can explain it better, and people are more amenable to hearing you out.”
Underlying all this, it should be stressed, is the strong warning against whining to your boss about your job conditions and unmet expectations. If you want to get them to buy your plan, you must pitch it as a solution to their problems, not just yours.
Take, for example, what Amy Sausser did.
The Mar Vista resident, now 30, had spent her entire career in nonprofit agencies and was looking for another job herself when she realized that Southern California needed a central registry for nonprofit job openings. In San Francisco, she discovered, there was a publication devoted to printing classified ads for jobs in nonprofit agencies. Los Angeles, she reasoned, ought to have the same thing.
Sausser spent months researching her plan and learned that the Center for Nonprofit Management in Downtown Los Angeles had been interested in creating just such a publication. She took her plan to the agency, and for a year has been the $30,000-a-year managing editor of the twice-monthly publication, Opportunity NOCs (Nonprofit Organization Classifieds), a position she says fulfills her dream of working in a nonprofit agency and provides a community service.
“The pieces all have to come together,” Sausser says. “You have to decide what you really want and who can use it. Then you’ve got to figure out how to bring it all together. If I did it, anyone can.”
