Nasewaupee: In Search of My Ideal Job

"I want a job I never need a vacation from." I have no fantasies or delusions about never working. A life spent without work where I was lazing around, sleeping in, playing video games, watching tv, and doing nothing with my time would give me absolutely no enjoyment, in fact it would be the death of me; depression would no doubt be a result of such circumstances. No, I need work in my life because I know I am at my best when I am busy and when I am serving a purpose. When I say a "job I don't need a vacation from" I'm saying that I merely desire a job that doesn't leave me stressed, empty, and cold at the end of each day - where thoughts of Friday are on my mind the minute Monday begins or where two weeks of vacation will be the only highlight of my entire year. Our work is our lives; in many ways it defines us. It's no wonder that one of the first questions upon an introduction is "what do you do" and our response has the ability to make or break relationships. Many of us spend more time at work than we do at home, we spend more time with co-workers than we do with our own families, some of us have spent or will spend years or even decades working for the same company. Needless to say the nature of our work holds enormous power over the direction of our lives. What we choose to do and who we choose to do it for says a lot about who we are and what we value. For some people a job is a job, it pays the bills and that's that; however for me, I intend to be intentional as possible in the work I choose to do.
I was asked in a recent interview to describe my ideal job. Some people know exactly what it is

they want to do, they have that dream job that they've had their eyes set upon since they were six years old and they are slowly working their way toward it, I applaud those people and in my own way I am jealous at the simplicity of their lives and their desires. My dream job when I was a kid was to be a knight (If only we had a Medieval Times in NE Wisconsin). So the rest of us are on a complicated journey toward an unknown destination with a map that is missing pieces. Each successive job takes us down a new path and each experience sheds a little more light on where it is we're headed and helps answer the question of "is this the direction I want to go." There's still a lot of blank spots on my map and my final destination remains unclear but I do know a few things about my ideal job.
First, I need purpose in my role. I need work that demands the best from me, that challenges me and is dynamic enough to keep me from becoming bored or complacent. I need a job that keeps me engaged where I feel as though I am continually learning and developing as an individual.
Second, I need that challenging role to be within a purposeful company or workplace. I need to know that my actions and my hard work are making a tangible difference for the betterment of the world and not merely bringing in more money for an owner or investors. I need to be proud of my work in both the results of my labor and in who I am working for.
  Third I need this challenging altruistic job to be in a physical environment that I find beautiful and aesthetically pleasing. A cubicle or even a corner office with a view is not going to cut it. I need to be outdoors or at least have frequent access to nature during the course of my job.
Fourth, I need community within my work. I don't want co-workers, I want comrades. If these are the people that I am going to spend 40+ hours a week with then we need to be at a place where we can talk about deeper things than sports and the weather. I need to be with like minded individuals who share the same dreams I do. I need to inspire and be inspired.
Fifth, I need my work to provide me a basic standard of living and a reasonable work/life balance. I'm not looking for a lot in terms of a salary, I intend to always live simply and never go beyond my means but there's also nothing romantic or glorious about living in abject poverty and wondering if you can afford groceries or to see a doctor. Also the ability to visit one's family, work somewhat regular hours, and be given time off or have the ability to take time off for important life events is an ever more significant factor when I take a job.
I've been dabbling in different realms over the years trying to find work that gives me the right balance between these needs. Whether it has been work as a camp counselor, an autism counselor, a detention center volunteer, an outdoor educator, a therapy guide, a trail guide, or a teacher I am proud of the work I've done and these jobs have all helped me find my way and get me closer to my destination. The constant over the years of all the jobs I've held is working with youth as an educator/mentor in alternative environments outside of the classroom. This isn't something that I outright planned from a resume building standpoint but rather is simply the type of work to which I've been drawn to because it best fills those needs that I stated above. I've had meaningful work, with good people, in beautiful places...

My ideal job would therefore be a synthesis of the experiences I've had thus far. The challenge and purpose of a wilderness therapy field guide, mentoring young men through addiction, depression, abuse, and a host of other issues that we all face in our lives and seeing them transform over the course of the program into responsible, strong, thoughtful men; combined with the beautiful environment I experience as a trail guide and outdoor educator working in the northwoods of WI and MN on the lakes of the Boundary Waters or the waterways of the St. Croix, Namekagon, and Mississippi; then mixed with the community of summer camp and canoemobile where I lived, played, and worked alongside a team of caring and fun loving comrades over the course of several weeks; and finally blended with the work/life balance and standard of living of working as a counselor for young men with autism at a group home that was close enough to bike to, allowed me to pick my own hours, let me go home at the end of the day, provided me a living wage, and had the potential for long term career opportunities. I don't know if such a job exists - a year round quasi wilderness therapy day camp located at my convenience in NE Wisconsin - but as of this writing I'm actively searching for something resembling it.

My plan for the summer and early fall was to work as a kayak guide in the tourism industry of Door County, yet another position that would mesh well into the evolution of positions I have had over the years and give me a new perspective on the outdoor industry. I knew going into the season that working purely with tourists as opposed to urban youth or even camp kids was not going to leave me with the same warm feeling or sense of purpose as past jobs but it was a compromise for the work/life balance that would allow me to go home and still give me an adventure and afford me the opportunity to become a more skilled paddler. Like most jobs I take on, I put in my full effort into becoming the best that I could be at my position. I wrote my own scripts for every tour location and had them set up in a way to deliver the most amount of information in the most relevant and entertaining way possible. I went to the library weekly, reading books, watching documentaries, and educating myself on all things Door County from geography, to explorers, to shipwrecks, to fish, to restaurant recommendations, to the modern day economy. I reconciled the fact that I would mostly be paddling with wealthy tourists instead of kids by acknowledging that people of all ages, classes and backgrounds need environmental education, and the added bonus that my position was now tip-able and I could be paid additional money based on my service didn't hurt either. In addition to the American Canoe Association trip leader training I also had access to sea kayaks on my time off to explore and sharpen my skills. I came into the season rusty at best in terms of kayaking but after our staff training and a few independent paddling sessions I felt fully confident in my abilities to kayak for the summer. I even taught myself how to consistently roll! I was ready for the season but my left shoulder wasn't.
Only three weeks into the season and I started developing a constant dull pain on the front side of my left shoulder that worsened as I paddled. Being a typical twenty something year old guy, I told myself that my arm was just sore and that I could paddle through whatever this was. A week after the pain started and I was barely able to lift a frying pan or brush my hair without having shots of pain radiate down the length of my left arm. The doctor told me I had bicipital tendonitis, an inflammation of the biceps tendon that occurs from a lifetime of normal activities (which at the age of 24 is simply not possible) or from repetitive overhead motions in sports such as swimming, tennis, or baseball. Cases of this in kayakers are rare and usually only occur after years of paddling, not weeks. In the days and weeks leading up to the injury and the week of the injury the only routine physical thing I did was lift boats and paddle. It's the only explanation for my shoulder injury and yet it still makes no sense how I could go from being perfectly healthy to being quasi helpless in terms of the use of my left arm in a matter of days. The doctor didn't have answers for me either. When I asked if I could paddle again this season he told me he didn't know. He gave me an anti inflammatory steroid, told me to take ibuprofen routinely until the pain went away, and to stretch my shoulders more if possible. Luckily as quick as the pain came it dissipated. A few days after seeing the doctor I was riding my bike again, doing yoga, and gardening as if I never had this injury in the first place. Yet I was still shocked and a bit afraid at the notion that this had happened to me and could happen to me again seemingly without warning since I still don't have a logical explanation as to how this occurred.
Collectively my supervisor, boss, and I decided that I should take a break from paddling until I have a better understanding of how my shoulder is operating. As of now I'm done for the season but if I can get cleared from a doctor and paddle without pain there's a chance I can come back. I plan on doing a "rehab" paddle with my parents' kayak soon to see if paddling aggravates my arm again. I'm bummed out that I got sidelined before the season really got going and that I had to start job searching two months sooner than I had anticipated but everything happens for a reason right? So I'm still searching for something resembling that ideal job and in the meantime I found work as a waiter at a fancy new restaurant in town. My first day of work is tomorrow and I'm excited since I've never really worked in the restaurant industry before aside from Five Guys' and my stint at Ziggy's Kitchen in Mexico neither of which resemble work in high class dining. It's new, I'm sure it'll be initially challenging (I've got over 40 wines to get familiar with), it's not that purposeful (eh), it's in a aesthetically pleasing restaurant (when compared to most offices but most certainly not as beautiful as Lake Michigan), I may have the opportunity to work with some good people (we'll see, I don't truly know my new co-workers yet), and it'll allow me the option to bike to work, have more flexibility with my schedule, and earn some "serious cash" (as told to me by experienced waitstaff). Like I said, this ain't the final destination but maybe this will shed some more light on that map and give me some connections that'll bring me closer to landing that job I never need a vacation from.

Practicing my wine presentation

Journal Entry June 6th, 2016

Lake Michi-Huron is the largest lake in the world by surface area, and along with Superior, Eerie, and Ontario they contain nearly 85% of the freshwater in the United States, and have enough volume to cover the continental US in under 10 feet of water; capable of waves greater than 30 feet and sinking hundreds of ships throughout history the term "lakes" really shouldn't be used to describe them - these are inland seas. Vast, beautiful, powerful entities that define our region (and holding 20% of the world's fresh surface water) they define our world. I'm blessed and proud to have Lake Michi-Huron as my office for the summer as I enter a season of kayak guiding for the Door County Adventure Center. Water is life and I get to spend every day on it and in it! There's no resource more valuable. I want to use my influence as a guide this summer to strike this point home. These are our waters, and in a world where drought is a growing threat, and the future conflicts will be over water rather than oil, we need to protect them, not just for us, but for all life.