Thanks for being a reader! 👋🏾 Every so often, I share a key personal career story which changed the way I thought about the workplace forever. 😈
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On being “workshy”…
I didn’t get my first proper job until January 2014.
Whilst I’ve been a marketer and entrepreneur for over 10 years, I have a massive professional gap that’s always remained unexplained — never asked, but nonetheless still unexplained.
Until today.
For 7 years, between the ages of 16 and 23 (2007 - 2014) I didn’t have a job.
Not in the traditional sense anyway.
To employers, parents and my peers, if they knew; I’d certainly be described as ‘workshy’.
But if you ask my closest friends today, they’d probably say I have the strongest work ethic out of everyone they know.
So why the stark dichotomy?
What was I doing for 7 years?
Lounging around at home, playing video games and spending hours upon hours on online forums.
Truth be told, I was a broken young man who didn’t know his place in the world.
I wasn’t ready to be an adult with responsibilities.
And to be perfectly honest, I didn’t want to be.
I guess dealing with unchecked anxiety, depression and body dysmorphia for 20+ years takes its toll on someone.
And whilst I was trying so hard to ‘find my thing’, the alternative to getting a regular job like everyone else scared the living daylights out of me.
But why?
Upbringing, anxiety and entrepreneurship
Every single day — without fail, seeing my parents work to the bone, multiple jobs, shift work; in industries most would deem highly respectable, just to put food on the table for me and my siblings, seemed like a fool’s errand.
“What an ungrateful git, they cry.”
But have you ever lived with someone who had to deal with on-going employment tribunal cases, no increase in pay for years, whilst expressing to you their job dissatisfaction — more so if they were your parents?
Why would I choose that for myself?
Instead I chose the entrepreneurial journey and was always certain that if I was going to work/be part of this modern world, it would be on my own terms and nobody else's.
Hence why I started working remotely, on my own projects years prior.
But it wasn’t easy, not in the slightest.
I had mental demons plaguing my existence during the day, with sleep paralysis taking over in the night.
And I got zero help with any of it.
Just me, surrounded by four walls; talking to myself for years on end until I made a breakthrough.
How I made that breakthrough, is unclear.
And how I managed to create two brands which would pay dividends for me years later, is a mystery to be explored.
But at this moment in 2014, I realised I had to get something down on the resume.
So I got a marketing job, paying £14,000 ($23,000) to write blog posts about CES and product descriptions for hundreds of Rangemaster cookers all day.
Whilst being belittled by a “Senior Marketing Manager” who didn’t know the first thing about marketing strategy or how to use WordPress. 😅
Not bad, for a 23.5 mile journey.
About these career stories
This newsletter contains a series of stories which cover the full hire-to-fire pipeline of my experience in marketing and SaaS; from job interviews, working as a freelancer and consultant, in a team, as a founder and everything in between.
No stone will be left unturned and yes...there are names! 😈😜
If you liked this entry, share some ❤️. Want the tea before it spills ☕, connect with me on Linkedin or email me at djoragui@gmail.com ... there's no embargo 🤣