Being a bartender, working late into the night, and standing on your feet for hours on end is no easy feat! This is only made harder when you’re required to ensure your bar is stocked, seating areas are clean for customers and trying to keep yourself in good spirits! Even if you have never worked in the service industry before; I am sure the majority of humanity out there have stayed in a thankless job way beyond expectations, even though that job was good to you in the beginning. You do not need to even work at Starbucks with an arts degree to figure that one out (just riding a point home here, that is all.) It is normal for everyone to feel like a fish out of water sometimes! Unfortunately it happens to all of us at some point. You find fit, healthy, and strong people in hospital unexpectedly, or that your home can be too small (or even too big) for our needs. Therefore figuring life out isn’t that straightforward is difficult.
It is up ourselves to work on our values system and figure things out. The system ingrains in our skulls that we need to go to school, get good grades, and then get a great job. Then we are expected to meet the right person, and get married and settle down with a mortgage on a house with a dog and 2.5 kids. Can you see a problem here? Some people, like myself, realise their potential later in life, and such a system can set some people up for failure. Never in this mindset does it tell you to quit school early, enter a trade, or start a business, get any job that helps you make ends meet while at a crossroads/transition period, or to engage in work that you love.
I was put off from creating art for years because it doesn’t fit to that system. I was tricked into the belief that it was a hobby and not something I could make a living out of. Well what if I told you “It’s hard to make a living, when all you do is work! This system does not encourage you to buy a house either or research crypto for that matter. It sounds like a heavy burden if you dare get off the treadmill of that system. Life is not linear. Never in this plan does it say to change careers, take a rest or grieve after the death of a loved one.
It all makes sense to write about not fitting in, in our careers. Work is our avenue for self expression, and self fulfilment. Most of all, the majority of our waking hours are spent at work, or in the case of being unemployed, looking for a job. After all we need to work in order to provide for many of life's needs and comforts beyond food, shelter, and clothing.
I am sure you can relate to not fitting in at some point in your career, from working in a job that is so not right for you, to a job that may not be challenging enough, or maybe too challenging. You could have also worked in a toxic working environment, or in one that led to career burnout. You may have worked in a profession that is right for you, but perhaps working in and for the wrong team, department, boss, or company. I am sure that many of you have applied for a job, even when you made it to the final stage of the recruitment and selection process, only to be told that you are not the right fit for the organisation and/or for the job applied for. That can either be true, or it could simply be the recruiters opinion and perception. As I said, nothing makes a grain of sense, and nothing is linear. As human beings we change and evolve (that is the point of us being here, in order to learn certain life lessons). Some things may no longer be a right fit for us, because our ambitions are growing. We are growing. That is healthy and natural. In terms of not fitting in, I once fitted in so well! I worked in bars and travelled all across Europe and North America feeling unstoppable and somewhat illustrious in my environment, so much so that I became complacent in my position. As time progresses, I knew I no longer fitted into that role and realised the culture surrounding that job became toxic. The gossiping behind everyones back was intolerable and on the occasions when I was not such a target; I knew that some of my colleagues were. This was already bad enough but being bullied and singled out by the senior member of staff really topped off the experience for me. I also saw a pattern when it came to the deterioration of my health, and I knew that something was not right. In addition to the bullying, as well as developing an alcohol & drug dependency to keep up with the lifestyle my health started to take a turn for the worse!
Leaving a role like this one coupled with moving country, being diagnosed bipolar and living in a completely toxic environment just made me feel right out of place, and now I was just Cai Nai, a lad of leisure trying to sort his life out, living in a mad house with no identity at all, except for the vague idea I wanted to be a tattoo artist..
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