#559 What to Do When Your Work Feels Pointless

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0:07It's by the peas.

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1:12Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a$75 sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. The secret test. If the job disappeared tomorrow, would it matter? What do you do about it? Have you had bullshit jobs, Helen? Two and a half. Okay. One part one. Almost every day losing a bit of confidence. I felt a bit scared about, well, this is a really risky career position to be in because you're not doing good, valuable work.

1:51You can just find yourself sometimes in these situations. We probably can't solve it overnight. I don't think these things are necessarily solvable overnight. Like, on paper, not pointless. In reality, pointless. And it was a job, actually, I was really excited about. You will all have a job at some point that feels a bit like this or a lot like this. And so, actually, if you had some ways of finding your way through those moments, that would actually be really helpful. But I do wonder whether sometimes you just know. You just know. And if you do, I think the faster you can get out, the better.

2:29Hi, I'm Helen. And I'm Sarah. And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast, a weekly podcast where we borrow brilliance from something we've been reading or watching or listening to or an event that we've been at, which we think has some inspiration and usefulness for our careers. So, this is, we're laughing before we even start. So, this could feel a bit negative, listeners and viewers but we still think it's worth exploring a few things that we have kind of come across that all I feel like have converged or come together so Helen and I went to the theatre this week we did to see Wankonomics and it was absolutely brilliant if you don't like follow their work it's hilarious and slightly too close to the bone at times I think it's fair to say I think they're doing another one we're based in London They're doing another show in London in November, which we're just going to take all our team to.

3:25I think you've got to just laugh at yourself. Sarah's out there went, this is great tone of voice training for the team. Don't say that. That is exactly what I said. Because they basically go like, everyone uses 10 words rather than three because if you use 10 words, your job's more worth it. You'll get paid more or whatever. So that was brilliant. Before that, I had read this book. I've never read Bullshit Jobs before, probably because the title just does not appeal to me it's quite a lot swearing already in this episode yeah it is um anti-work people are very sweary yeah the rise of pointless work and what we can do about it and i just go oh that feels quite negative so it's probably not a book i would normally pick up yeah um but i think i saw some people refer to it and i was like oh no you should get curious about things that are different remember that anti-reading list you know we had that thing in our reading episode yeah and so i'm like and probably a little bit maybe it was prompted by that even so i i sat and read this in the you know sometimes you read things in really weird situations yeah i was at a soft play i mean that sounds like even more depressing and so i put on some noise cancelling headphones yeah i would always do that in a soft play and then got out this and like sat there happily highlighting it ignoring the two nine-year-olds i was meant to be looking after and i and then at one point i did realize i'd not seen them for like 20 minutes and i was like oh i went wandering around they're not trying to find them um so there's that there's that book.

4:44Yeah, Bullshit Jobs, Wankonomics and... And so the latest book from The Pound Project, so some people will have our book from The Pound Project about confidence gremlins and we are big fans of The Pound Project. We always buy their book every time they release a new one for everyone in the team. Even when the latest one by Amy McNeigh is called I Don't Want a Job. A manifesto. Not a real job. Not a real job. So yeah, I Don't Want a Job, not a real job. So there's two books. Choose Choose creativity instead. And she actually has a really good TED talk as well, if you kind of want to watch that.

5:19So bullshit jobs is probably what we're borrowing the most brilliance from today. But we also thought, oh, it's interesting that there's some of these things that have all come together. It's sort of like an anti-work, anti-job theme. Yes. And actually, it's quite funny. Quite a lot of people I know buy the Pound Project books and people are messaging me going, oh, it's very anti-squiggly. It's very anti-raising. And I was thinking, oh, that's even more reason to read it yeah um and we were talking to jp who's one of the founders and i said oh i found it a really provocative read that he was like yeah i bet you did which is good right there's no point you two that love careers everyone just agreeing all the time and my sister's read it and she was like oh i'd be i'll be intrigued to see what you think of it you know she was saying in a in a sort of very nice way um and i was messaging her and she was like oh i do always really appreciate your optimistic outlook on life, whereas she absolutely loved it, whereas I was like, oh, I think I probably have a bit more of an optimistic view.

6:16Well, I haven't read Bullshit Jobs yet and I haven't read the new Pan Project book, so I'm going to be open to your insights and think about how they apply. Okay, so I think for Bullshit Jobs, the thing that's really important is actually the definition of what he means. So it's David Graeber who wrote this and he is an anthropologist. So the book, if you do want to read the book, The book is very much zoomed out. It's the economy, it's the rise of pointless jobs like society. It's definitely not written with an individual lens, which is some of what we're going to attempt to try and do today.

6:52And he describes them as jobs that are pointless, unnecessary. And basically, as an employee, you cannot justify its existence, but you're sort of having to pretend that they're worth it, essentially. and the key word is the individual's assessment so it's like they're pointless and you know that they're pointless um and when he he wrote this article in a magazine called stripe magazine which you can read for free so you can read the original article for free and basically what happened was he he sort of put this like phrase out there and then he just got a massive response loads of people all across the world sharing their stories mainly anonymously of being in pointless jobs and often being in quite well-paid pointless jobs um and the secret test which is is quite confronting is if the job disappeared tomorrow would it matter and and he sort of says well there are loads of people in jobs where if it disappeared tomorrow it just it wouldn't matter and obviously there are lots of people in jobs where it would really matter as well um and quite early on in the book he did say there's often sometimes you can be partly right you might be like well part of my jobs feel pointless or part of what I do doesn't feel that useful but part does and that's probably a more sort of pragmatic view um so like I say it's quite a descriptive book not that focused on action yeah um but what we thought we would talk about is our reflections so Helen has kind of got to grips a bit before today with like with this definition and like how we felt about it and then if this is you today if you're in all of a bullshit job part of one or you know someone who is because I actually think the more we explore this the more probably we all realize it relates to us at some point in our squiggly careers like what do you do about it um so I'm not sure how much he'll approve of us then making it really practical you know when you read a book anthropologist we're like and I was like I kept reading I was like what are they what you know like where's the answers where's the help where's the actions like what do you want me to do um and the same with Amy really she doesn't she's not trying to solve you know like I'm like always find that really interesting when people almost accept they're like oh it's sort of it's not up to me to give to give answers or to suggest actions on that point this week I was doing a um I was doing a workshop for Blinkist actually and there's a couple of hundred people on it and the people were I was like interacting in the chat and somebody just said in the chat stop fixing things I can't remember what question I asked but it was that answer did not relate to my question and I said something like oh you're gonna have to I don't quite get that you're gonna have to elaborate a little bit more um anyway the person kindly emailed me uh well I messaged me on LinkedIn afterwards and said I was the person that said stop fixing things um and it was a really kind message and it just it just said I can tell you've got loads of energy for what you do and I've followed your work for a while and he was like I just want you to know you don't have to fix every problem with careers and work actually some of them are just rubbish and you don't need to kind of and I just thought it was directly and empathetic and maybe you know these books I quite like maybe that they are not they're just holding they're just holding there is a bit of an issue here that we should all be holding a little bit and maybe there isn't a fast fix and it's not a do something different tomorrow they're complicated and complex yeah and maybe it's okay so you've you've just gotta it's and it's just very different i think sometimes because naturally the way that we both are and the work that we do that's why it's good to spend time with other people and other perspectives because both of them do that they just they hold they've got really strong points of view they're really provocative um and but then you're there's no resolve you know at the end it's like you've got to sit with it yeah and it actually that feels quite quite uncomfortable um and often i think it's because i'm like oh but i want to help or i want to support or what's a good idea that i could let and it's just it's like no but maybe it's just do you also feel this yes maybe maybe that's enough this do you this is my view my perspective do you also feel this yeah and people people definitely connected yeah i think with both amy's work and david's work people really really connect with it they really recognize it so then you maybe feel seen which is really powerful right you know like it's not just me yeah um and actually the more I've got into the bullshit jobs uh the more I was like actually probably in the context of a squiggly career you will all have a job at some point that feels a bit like this or a lot like this and so actually if you had some ways of finding your way through those moments and we'll kind of talk about why they are particularly hard um that would actually be really helpful which i know is quite practical that's what that is what we're gonna do yes okay have you had bullshit jobs helen yes i was reflecting on this i think i have had two and a half okay one part one well yeah the two were just completely like just completely you know you're like if it disappeared it wouldn't matter i mean both of them did disappear that was the evidence i mean i moved on to do other things but it i was pretty clear not when And I, not on day one, but within a couple of months of like...

12:11Yeah, I don't think you ever apply for one, right? Yeah, you don't apply. Well, I hope you don't. Please may I have one. Please may I have a pointless job. I've heard you have some going. Yeah. High paid pointless jobs. I'd love one. We'll talk about why high paid pointless jobs aren't great. But I definitely had two that I realised. And then I had one where I could kind of see the potential. I, what I was, you know, I come, like I had to almost be in the pointless job to see the potential so I could create a better one. So I'm going to say there was definitely some time in Pointless, but I got to turn it into something much, much better.

12:43Two and a half, what about you? One definitely. One completely pointless. And I knew and was really unsure what to do about it. How quickly did you know? Six weeks, like a month in, six weeks, definitely within the first 90 days. And it was a job, actually, I was really excited about. So I didn't think it was going to be... I was like, brilliant. I was really looking forward to it. So on paper, not pointless. In reality, pointless. And I think it's really disappointing and frustrating. And one of the things actually David Grover does talk about is just how stressful it is. So it sounds like it shouldn't be stressful because actually one of the things about a lot of these jobs is you are relatively well paid.

13:27Some of them are very well paid, but you are relatively well paid. But they talk about like the psychological damage and harm of almost pretending. Because usually you're in this very weird masking moment of being like. Yeah, you're scared. disappointed a bit but more scared because I knew I wasn't doing a very good job yeah and I knew if people were going to critically evaluate me it was not going to look good like I wasn't doing anything of a significant I was you know maybe talking good talk because I felt like I had to yeah um not that I wanted to I wanted to do good work but I felt a bit scared about what like this is a really risky career position to be in because you're not doing good valuable work yeah so you're often having to like pretend to quite a lot of people that what you do is worth it and you sort of know that it's not um you'll have like you have like a funny relationship people have to talk about like having a funny relationship with maybe people who work for them or the people that they work for like do they think it's pointless or so you know like and it's exhausting that's one of the things that definitely comes through so there's lots of stories and examples in the book um and people just describing how it feels and people like you know at the start people are a bit like oh okay maybe maybe it's easy yeah um but I think quite quickly it becomes really draining because just because of like your you imagine every day and I do actually really remember this being like every day felt so long you just haven't often you haven't got enough to do and often you do try I think most people try to be useful you know maybe you ask a few of the questions like is there anything else i can get involved in or what else could i do and then you just sort of have this realization of like uh it's not that there isn't really they're like this isn't this basically isn't a real job um but maybe it's there because your manager needed to keep the head count yeah that's what i was gonna say why were yours why was yours um do you know what's interesting i wonder whether so i had applied for a job in this team a more senior job and didn't get it right and then they but they wanted me anyway and so I wondered what I wonder whether in hindsight it wasn't a real job because they were just like we really want her but not quite in the job that they'd advertised for because I wasn't quite ready for that yet and so did they sort of make up a job for me because almost like they wanted me which is flattering right they wanted what I could bring but then there wasn't the actual work to do maybe what about you I think one I was hired in the context of organizational change and so a bit like they wanted I think they wanted me but the change hadn't they knew change was coming and I just had to kind of sit in that situation almost sit and wait for the change yeah so there's a period time where it's just like well this work isn't valuable and that job got made redundant.

16:26So that wasn't great. One, I think there was a lot of politics that were getting in the way of the position and had to kind of wade through that. Actually, two was about politics. Two is about like, it needed to be different, but making it different was limited by like politics and dynamics in the company. But one was, yeah, organisational change, which I honestly think if you're going particularly big companies, it's very likely that you're going to wade into that at some point whether you apply for a new job or it happens around you like you're you might have been a great job and then suddenly because it's no longer organizational strategic priority it can feel a bit bullshit but you're still doing it yeah and people I mean some of the examples and people do laugh at themselves which is it sounds really bleak but there is definitely a people not taking themselves too seriously in some of the stories one person described like basically being a manager and he was like I think it was a he he's like oh I've got a really capable team so basically they just don't need me you know my job is like to maybe like delegate work to them but he was like but they don't they already know what they're doing so essentially I just sort of have to like pretend to be in charge of these people who are already incredibly capable and he was like yeah it's just like not worth it they just don't but at the same time you know the real I suppose the much more serious dilemma is then people do like acknowledge oh yes but then I've got a mortgage to pay and and I can't just who doesn't want to be in a more useful impactful job but then you know people feel really stuck yeah I think you should make me redundant because I'm not like no no I think you should just find me a better job yeah yeah yeah um and actually I do know I know one or two people who I think now that I've kind of learned a bit more about this probably did know that they were in pointless jobs and actually did a really good job of making themselves redundant so that they could do something different you know and it almost was quite admired as like a oh we can save money on this senior person who probably has paid a lot of money um and then they were very open to doing something different in that company or they were quite open to leaving and going somewhere else but again that doesn't work for everyone all the time um so having when we both had the realization that we had at least both had done one and I think I've had a few part ones as well.

18:49We have then tried to come up with some ideas and we thought we would take it in turns to actually talk about things that have kind of worked for us or some which are sort of more prompts that we think might be useful. Do you want to start something that worked for you in those two and a half jobs? I think I've got three things. Do you want me to go through all three? Let's take it in turns. Let's take it in turns. So I think the first one is a framing one. So I've got some things that are very, very practical, but I think this is more of a like psychology type thing, which is I think look at your jobs as experiences rather than as an identity.

19:26So I think, you know, if you go into a job as a, I don't know, it doesn't have to be a head of, but whatever the job is and you like you identify with that job and the title and I don't know the status or significance and what this means for you in your career. I think then when that isn't working it kind of hits quite hard because you've like created this very emotional connection to the identity of that job and what that means for your development all that kind of stuff whereas I think if you and links to something Seth Godin said on the podcast years ago when he came on our podcast years and years ago and he was talking about like treating your career as a series of projects and experiences and it's always kind of stuck with me that like if you just think like what is this experience teaching me like rather than my identity is connected to this role this this is no longer the role I'm wanting so what does it mean for me and my identity rather than getting into that trap which is yeah quite like significant just think like this is an experience of many yeah this is my experience right now like what what what can I gain from this experience and kind of know that there'll be another and I'll talk about what I did to get to another but I just think just try not to personally identify too much with the position because that's where I think it becomes quite quite challenging that's my first thing is a framing thing what's yours my first one was something that I actually did do in that in my probably my most pointless job I think was I found work from someone and somewhere else so I think I had tried first well can I have some work can I have some more work from the person I was working for in that team and I think once I started to have that realization of like this is a bit made up and I do remember thinking I'm going to have a CV in a year's time and those bullet points are going to be blank like I don't know what those bullet points are going to say because I'm not not doing anything um and then but I did work with some of the teams and other teams that I was like thinking their work does seem more useful and it's quite connected to what I do but it's not quite the same and I sort of attached myself a little bit to like that area that person and I think probably made quite clear that I'd got capacity that I could support and I couldn't you obviously can't just because also there's like this fiction they he uses that word like fiction there's sort of this fiction that you're having to try and maintain that you do have this other job um so you can't just be like I'll just do 100 % of my time such a good term yeah um elsewhere but I do I can remember it now I really remember this project that I worked on for a different leader um with someone else in like a different team and I just put loads of effort into it loads more time than it needed I basically did then put like energy into that a lot of enthusiasm and it was also really interesting and it felt really meaningful and real and quite different to what to like the other job that I was meant to be doing um and that was usually there are teams where they do they've like they need help they need support and you might have something to offer um and that really helped me to build some new relationships with a different part of the company um gave me some energy because i was actually doing some work that i kind of cared about um and then i went to work in that team and and so it was also my roots out of that role into another role in the same company so it's interesting you know you can have a bullshit job in one team and then I moved into one of my favorite ever jobs in that same company yeah um so I'm just like can you it's sort of like a bit of a sideways scan can you look at other teams other areas other people and you don't even have to say the words out loud right but I bet people sort of know oh Sarah in that job in that team she probably got this she's probably got a bit of spare capacity can I talk to those people about my strengths the ways I could be useful what I could do and just see if I can sort of find myself some opportunity yeah that worked my second one's very very similar to that so I almost imagined that my team um was in like like the center and then I kind of did you know your scan I was like what where are all the like other teams that I should be useful for like I was like who should care about the work that I'm doing like what other teams what other managers yeah and then I because I thought well maybe maybe I'm missing part I was like maybe I'm missing something yeah so I went to have some conversations with those people and I was like how is my team useful for you like what are your priorities how can the work that my team helps to solve it um and sometimes they're like well probably probably not but sometimes I was like okay you're just validating that I'm in a bullshit job but what what I was able to do in those conversations is a build a relationship but I was I was really conscious that some of my experience and expertise was not being surfaced in that job so people didn't know okay what I could bring because that job wasn't allowing me to demonstrate it so when I had those conversations with people under the guise of I really want to understand how my team can help your team and how we can work together which was a genuine question but in in that conversation I was like oh okay if that's one of the things you're working on actually I've got some contacts over here or one of the things I did previously is this it could be useful and so it gave me I didn't I didn't really say oh I'd love to work on that project I probably didn't do what you were doing which I could have done but it was more I wanted to showcase that I was more than this job yeah and I think that helped me to build some advocacy because where I didn't have like evidence in the job and I would have loved to have evidence yeah I didn't have at that time what I did build was some initial advocacy people that would have said oh but Helen Tupper's good like she's she's she's good she's valuable um and I just I had quite a lot of those conversations and they were only really basing it I was trading on my past experience because I hadn't done it in the job that I was in today but that definitely that definitely opened some doors for me people brought me into meeting conversations and like oh Helen I'll have a perspective on that or even at some events people would sit next to me because like I wasn't they wouldn't sit next to me because I was doing good work but they sit they sat next because we had a good conversation um and I that was helpful to me when I was like almost every day losing a bit of confidence yes which is rubbish um yeah because my next one was really practical um which is related a little bit to that which is get out of the office as much as you can I do think um as much as you can get away with basically I think this is the moment for events, communities, career conversations, mentoring, volunteering, coffees with people who work in your company.

26:09You know, sort of, I think those things stop you feeling trapped by where you are in that moment. Because I think you can't always move out of these jobs super fast. Yeah. You might be able to. And I think if you can, great. Almost like the longer you're in them, I think probably the worse you will feel. um because my final point basically is like leave so you know and you're like but you can't you can't do that overnight and you've just got into a job and like I was saying quite quickly I knew it wasn't going to be right but you can't just make that change but probably what you can do is think okay well what are the events related to like this job that could be interesting who else could I go and talk to can I talk to people in similar jobs in other companies try and find out if their jobs are also pointless or have they found a way to make it useful um and so I did a good job I think during that time like I did quite I built quite a lot of like mentoring relationships um I focused a bit more on like my career um I started to think about like things I might apply for for learning if I look at that time I'm like oh so I managed to do an MBA at that time yeah of course I did I got loads of capacity.

27:18You know, like I, not all of that time, but I was doing an MBA. I applied to the marketing academy, which is something both Helen and I have done. I could do that. I don't remember that being stressful for my job because I wasn't doing loads in my actual job. I used to go to the gym every day at lunchtime. Wow. Every single day. Like there was a gym in the building. Now you say it, I'm like, oh, learning, networking and going to the gym. Yeah, which I know. It sounds good, but it doesn't always feel good. and but ultimately it definitely didn't make up for because obviously they are really small pockets of time and then you're still at work for ages and I really remember thinking and those were like the best parts of my day like the one career I'd have like one mentoring meeting in a week and I've really looked forward to it or like going to the gym was probably like it helped me survive the day yeah I think rather than like energize my day because you know what you're going like back to or whatever in the afternoon.

28:12So I think it's a stick. All of those things, I think, are slightly more sticking plaster than sorting it. But sometimes you need the sticking plasters for at least a bit because you can't just change straight away. Well, it's very fit. I remember the times. My third one, I don't think either of those authors would like me for saying this. I'm not sure either of those authors would like us that much. Helen Tupper's a bullshit person. They might be like, well, because my third one, and the reason I say it is because I know not everyone would do this, but I did genuinely do this and it did work for me was that I pitched a new position in two of those jobs that were pointless.

28:48I don't even know where I got the confidence from to do it. But in two of them, I pitched a new position. I went to my manager in one, I went to someone senior in another. And I said, I think like, basically, I think there's a better structure. I think there's a better opportunity for the business. I definitely pitched it as a business rather than just me. Like, I think I could be doing something better. I kind of pitched the opportunity and then put myself in a position to do the job. And I think I did that. And if that had been a no, then I probably would have done the leave thing. But in both of those instances, it worked out.

29:20I create myself new positions. Now, I don't think that would happen every time. But I literally had, you know, a presentation where I think this is what the structure would be. This is the opportunity. and actually it had been informed to your point about get outside both of those had been informed by what I'd seen in other organizations okay like oh they're doing something that we're not and I kind of use that as evidence yeah to be like oh it could look like this um so that that did work for both those and it meant that I moved into a position which was better for the business and better for me my other thought was can you use time to upskill yourself usually uh or pretty universally actually if you're in one of these jobs you have got time which there'll be loads of times in your squiggly career where the exact opposite is true but this is one of those times where often you're a bit like you might be a bit bored or you do have capacity um and i'm like okay well can you be the person who's learning loads and sharing that with your team um and at the moment given like everyone's trying to upskill themselves on ai with whatever ai you can use in your company could you do that could you use could you do 10 minutes of an AI skill sprint that we've done could you do that every day and I would be looking for upskilling I was also thinking back to again what did I actually do to kind of think about because I don't think I actually did upskill myself loads during that time but what I did do was start side projects um and just made stuff up and I mean some of the stuff I think it was me just needing an outlet like an outlet to to do something but they still felt work related and I think this actually is quite a controversial one because I have spoken to people who are probably in this situation almost quite recently and they are so drained by basically how shit their job is they're like I've got no they have nothing left over to do they they would quite like to do a side project or something that they're really interested in but they're just like oh yeah but all of the capacity to do that is being taken away by pretending masking the job so I don't think this is for everyone I think when I was in that job that was a thing that kind of gave me energy so actually having something that I was just like making up and coming up with ideas and it was actually do you know what it was it was pure escapism because it wasn't a proper side project at all it was I'd like make stuff up or have ideas about who else I wanted to work for I was like dreaming and like visualizing because I didn't want to be where I was and so it was it was my form of escapism it wasn't it wasn't a side project actually in any form nothing that anyone could have ever seen um I just made it up for myself and probably in some ways it was a bullshit side project but I convinced myself that it was I don't know I think I just enjoyed it yeah um and that was enough it was enough to have that kind of escapism so it I don't think it has to be a side project but it's sort of something that I think that makes you feel better about yourself I think that's what it did because like you said you were like oh my confidence was being knocked a bit every day I think that's what these jobs do to you because you start to question your own value yeah and your own worth and have I got any strengths and all like all of those questions and is it me if someone else is in this job would it be brilliant so when do you leave because that was your last thing when do you leave when do you leave well I don't know I when I was in this sort of a job which is quite a while ago now I think there was more stigma than there is now about leaving fast so I know quite a lot of people now who have gone into jobs and sometimes they just haven't worked out but sometimes I think they have figured out quite quick this is this is pointless it's like this there's not like a real job here and I think people are calling it faster and moving on quickly yeah and just being really honest about wasn't a good fit job job didn't work out and I think that's a brilliant thing to do and if you can you know obviously find something else because for most of us you can't just be like oh bye yeah you know if you can find something else in that organization you're in or in another organization I think calling it quick if you feel really confident that this is not a good job and there's not a real job here and if it disappeared tomorrow like no one would care no one would noticed obviously you want to do all the stress testing of like does it need a bit more time or can i do some job crafting can things change like all the things that we would always that we would always advocate for but i do wonder whether sometimes you just know you just know and if you do i think the faster you can get out the better because essentially everything that you and i have talked about today are just like survival tactics um which are not fun if you're doing a job that you really enjoy and that's really useful and meaningful you'd still do loads of things that we talked about today and that and they would be great but we're really only talking about them as like coping strategies yeah yeah fast ideally i just think oh i'm just thinking about people that are in um you know like because i have that like i fix it there's people that are in this right now oh my gosh don't hold it solve it yeah yeah i would either like i just want to give like i give them a hug because it just feels really hard but i'm also like i just think oh knowing you're not alone and the benefit of community and how can we help you I'm just thinking about things like because we do occasionally we do like squiggly careers in conversation on LinkedIn yeah where there's like a community of curious people that are joining our LinkedIn lives and then we do the sprints which will be in September and again that's like thousands of people in a community who are learning together and I just think I know we're not supposed to solve it but I feel like I feel like I just want to know I want people to know that we do have this brilliant squiggly careers community of lots of like-minded learners and if you've ever considered joining one of our conversations which are all free it might be a good thing to do if you are feeling very disconnected from your work right now like connect with the squiggly career community instead I also hope that it feels reassuring to hear both of us talk about it because you know we we've had more than one between us we've had quite a few and that is some of those were quite far into our careers we've done quite a lot of work on self-awareness and like learning and growth and you know sort of that it's not your fault yeah you can just find yourself sometimes in these situations um and like I said I don't I don't I think it will happen to everybody um because initially when I started reading it I was like oh no like they're talking here because a lot of the examples will be I don't know like corporate finance or whatever so I was like corporate finance yeah I know I know um and I say that like I do know people who work in that area who do really good stuff but a lot of them are like law or corporate those kind of things and so initially I was like oh like this is not really me and actually when you look at the definitions we both looked at some of the definitions he divides up the jobs into like five different types and you were like you and I were like oh no we haven't really done like he says one of them's like box ticking jobs where you're just there to tick a box or duck tapers people who are hired to fix problems that shouldn't exist in the first place so you initially both both of us went oh no we don't fit in those categories and then when you really think about it you're like yeah but everybody has their own version and i know that feeling um so we probably can't solve it overnight i don't think these things are necessarily solvable overnight but hopefully it's helpful to hear and maybe there are some actions we can help with a bit well let us know we love we love feedback and we'd love to hear from you.

36:58So you can always email us. We're Helen and Sarah at squigglycareers.com. And thank you so much for listening. I'm back with you again soon. Bye for now.