

Change careers like Tarzan - wallflower
http://sivers.org/tarzan

======
ekpyrotic
Over at his blog, the ever-interesting, never-boring Derek Sivers has compared
transitioning between careers with Tarzan, swinging between vines. I wanted to
put that under a bit of pressure.

Derek says rather than quitting one career abruptly and moving onto the next,
there should be an overlap period. In his own words:

Remember how Tarzan swings through the jungle? He doesn't let go of the
previous vine until the next vine is supporting his weight.

Of course, that is great advice. But, at the same time, I worry the Tarzan
image might be might be too limiting; I worry the picture it paints of
people's working lives might be too simplistic.

In the new online economy, the very concept of the traditional 'career' is
possibly dead.

In the 1950s, people used to make the vast majority, if not all, of their
annual income from a single job. Just like Tarzan in the animation, you would
only ever hold onto one vine at any one time. Moments when you holding onto
two were exceptions to the norm, exceptions just like when you were
transitioning between careers.

Is this still true today?

Not obviously. These days people are much happier (and able) to juggle
different sources of incomes, to wear different hats at different times. Or,
put in terms of the Tarzan analogy, people are much happier (and able) to hold
onto multiple vines &mdash; many, many, many more than two &mdash; at any one
time.

At one point you might be programming, writing and consulting; at another you
might just be writing and consulting; at another you might be running a coffee
delivery business, consulting for an e-reading start-up while making a few
quid from blogging.

The Tarzan analogy is limiting because it encourages you to think of careers
as those things that you have one of, or, at a stretch, two.

When it comes to careers, a better analogy might be a garden, or, even better,
a window box.

Sources of income are like plants in this window box. At different times, some
plants are smaller, some are bigger; some are growing, some are whithering;
some flourish in this weather, and others flourish in that.

But, how can we make sense of career transitions in this new language?

Using this image, transitioning careers is like planting a new seed, alongside
all the other plants you have growing, watering that one carefully &mdash; but
not ignoring the others, maintaining a window box of flourishing flowers that
will help you navigate changes in externalities like shifts in the economy and
disruptive new technologies.

With this new image we can see another important lesson: You must adjust your
skills and expertises to the changing, shifting economy; just like you should
put different plants in your window box at different times of the year and in
different climates and weathers.

~~~
buzzybee
Related: Told mother about a friend the other day. "Where does she work?" she
asked. "Uh," I explained, "most of her income at the moment is in Patreon
donations." Then I had to explain Patreon. "And then she also has some
commissioned music and writing work, and one or two other things."

Said friend isn't convinced that this is a stable situation either, but it's
the position she's working with. Mother, of course, was left dumbfounded by
this bombshell, among others regarding friend.

Mother describes her own employment history as "I took whatever gigs I could
get," and this time I asked where she expected that to lead, at the time. Said
she thought there would be stable employment but the rise of recorded music
everywhere killed most of the market for live gigs. Which, in hindsight, seems
so, so obvious. But also speaks to a common ideal that the market discourages
now, when expectations are that every job that's already there will be
automated away someday.

------
blisterpeanuts
I have always imagined Tarzan letting go of the previous vine and flying
forward in free-fall for a second before grasping the next one, sort of like
Spider-man.

What's more, if he did hold onto the old vine, and missed the new vine, he's
going to swing backward, helplessly out of control and unable to either
proceed or retreat.

All in all, not the best visual metaphor. That said, certainly it's good
advice and common sense that you carefully plan out your next career more
rather than plunge blindly ahead, burning bridges behind you.

But when you know something's right, you just feel it in your bones. The catch
is that the money might not be there at the outset. But if you have planned
ahead and stashed a year or two's living expenses, then you will have probably
enough time to determine whether you have made a good decision or whether you
need to go back to what you were doing.

~~~
Someone
_" What's more, if he did hold onto the old vine, and missed the new vine,
he's going to swing backward, helplessly out of control and unable to either
proceed or retreat."_

Still way better than if he let go of the old vine and missed the new one,
although [http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/501600/Tarzan-s-New-
York-...](http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/501600/Tarzan-s-New-York-
Adventure-Movie-Clip-Boy-Gone.html) shows that is survivable.

~~~
blisterpeanuts
Interesting point. Kids, don't try that at home!

------
applecore
This is good advice.

Employers are increasingly unforgiving of people with gaps in their resumés.
There are fewer second chances in this world and it's getting harder to
recover from early failures.

~~~
michaelochurch
_Employers are increasingly unforgiving of people with gaps in their resumés.
There are fewer second chances in this world and it 's getting harder to
recover from early failures._

I can only give this advice because I haven't had to do it (I wouldn't
publicly endorse it if I were out doing it) and don't think I ever will:
people need to start lying.

As far as I'm concerned, employers who hold gaps or unemployment or "job
hopping" or low previous salaries or past political adversity against people--
basically, the dumbfucks who evaluate people based on social-status shit that
has nothing to do with getting the job done-- deserve to be lied to. They
won't do the right thing unless deceived, so deceive away. I don't lie on my
resume (I don't need to, and I'm too much in the public) but I don't think
it's unethical to inflate titles, play with dates, misrepresent performance
reviews, or otherwise inflate one's status. As long as you're not claiming to
be able to do work that you actually can't perform (i.e. actual job fraud as
opposed to status inflation) you're OK as far as I'm concerned.

Of course, misrepresenting objective skills and training is different. If you
claim to be a doctor and you've never set foot in a medical school, you're
putting lives at risk and should be sent to jail. Job fraud is wrong, social
status inflation is OK.

Great minds discuss ideas, middling minds discuss events, and small minds
discuss people. The problem in business, especially with resume culture, is
that everything comes down to discussion of people, because there are so many
small-minded people in positions of power. Those who are unemployed for more
than 6 months become "dirty" even if they're more than capable. As far as I'm
concerned, that's proof of the current system's ethical bankruptcy and a bit
of lubrication (harmless deception) to overcome its pernicious inefficiencies
is right in order.

~~~
FLUX-YOU
>I don't lie on my resume (I don't need to, and I'm too much in the public)
but I don't think it's unethical to inflate titles, play with dates,
misrepresent performance reviews, or otherwise inflate one's status. As long
as you're not claiming to be able to do work that you actually can't perform
(i.e. actual job fraud as opposed to status inflation) you're OK as far as I'm
concerned.

Especially relevant to programming. Though I do struggle with convincing
myself to put some things on my resume.

Example: I spent a year messing with front-end web development. Some days I'd
just write a few Javascript functions and try to fix/break stuff, other days I
would bang out a small project start-to-finish. Total maximum time per week
would probably average to 15 hours.

If my prospects ask for 1 year of experience, it's really unclear what level
of time spent and knowledge they're looking for. At 780 hours for that year,
I've put in 3/8ths the time of someone who works full-time at (supposedly)
2080 hours per year and wasn't also distracted by a completely unrelated job.

Ethical Me wants to be responsible and not misrepresent. Practical Me says I
need the money.

Unlike the doctor example, programmers have a lot of time to research and
tinker without making someone bleed. It's difficult to be sure of what I can
actually do before I've done it whereas doctors go through many, many tests to
verify their skills.

~~~
BSousa
Well, think of it this way: 90% chance if they like your inflated resume, they
will ask you for a technical interview. If you don't pass that, ok, no harm
done, if you do, you might get a job, and they think you will be able to do
the job at hand.

I've advocated what Michael is saying before here. I was lucky to never have
to do it, but I have been on the recruiting side and didn't care much for some
resume inflation on candidates (specially in companies where HR are involved
in the process because no one has 5+ years of mongo experience but if they
hear you need an experience mongo guy that is what they are going to put in
the ad)

------
adamzerner
I think that this is probably good advice, and it's communicated clearly and
effectively with a great metaphor.

But... I think it fails because it's ineffective. You have to talk about the
problem, not the solution
([http://katgleason.tumblr.com/post/47257463324/talk-about-
the...](http://katgleason.tumblr.com/post/47257463324/talk-about-the-problem-
not-the-solution)). People don't trust a solution. They have to understand the
problem itself, the alternatives, and finally, why the solution is the best
amongst the alternatives.

------
piratebroadcast
I am really amazed at the amount of things that make it to the front of Hacker
News with such little substance. I mean, that was a gif and a rather short few
paragraphs of obvious advice.

------
Axsuul
Sometimes the best thing to do is to just take a leap and grab the next vine--
vines that are too close won't take you very far.

------
Gigablah
I was slightly disappointed that this wasn't about Tarzan switching from ape-
man to British aristocrat.

