Talked to my son yesterday. He’s in Beverly, MA—I’ve written about the town before. An aside, it’s also home to a bar that would be in my top five all-time, The Anchor Pub & Grille, in the aptly named precinct of Goat Hill.
Anyway, it had been a while. Summer at his age is mainly weddings, pre-wedding stuff and family get-togethers on the Cape. He continues to resist—which is normal.
We talked about all the usual things, eventually getting around to work. He’s been climbing the ladder, which is good, but it comes at a cost. Needy clients, one in particular, that didn’t end well. They left, taking their needs elsewhere.
For the first time since he graduated, I could hear the frustration. Not with work itself, but with a working world that seems to demand a little more at every turn. More availability. More patience. More output. More resilience when things don’t go your way.
He’s 30. Isn’t this supposed to be the good bit? You’re established enough to know what you’re doing, but young enough to still believe the ladder is worth climbing.
The lesson might be that the ladder comes with people on it. Some give, others take, and some leave when you can’t give them what they want.
I know he still carries Australian values with him. Work hard, do the right thing, don’t make too much fuss. Useful values, mostly. But I’m not sure the corporate world always rewards them in the way we once thought it would.
Maybe this is just what happens at 30. You start to realise that being good at what you do doesn’t protect you from difficult people, disappointment, or the occasional knock to your confidence. You keep going anyway.
I listened, offered what little I thought might help, and mostly left him to it. He’ll work out the rest. He usually does.
Nick
That is the third, 30-year-old, that I know of, that has realized "that the ladder may not be worth climbing'. Very different to 20 to 30 years ago. What will they strive for now?