Week Three: Bouncing Around

This week I have spent some time asking about my coworkers’ lives before and while at Fast Company. I learned that the woman who sits behind me spent 8.5 years working for ad agencies, the following year working for the NYT, and then ended up as a sales representative in Ad Sales at Fast Company. She spoke about challenges associated with agency life–stress, low pay, quick turn arounds, but also talked about what wonderful training she had there and how she made some of her life long friends in the agency world, suffering together.

I also spoke to one of my coworkers about  his journey after college. He mentioned that he has bounced around a bunch and worked for a series of different brands. This is not all that uncommon in the media space, which is definitely something that surprised me upon arrival. In my mind it seems rather inefficient to be constantly switching jobs, as it takes time to get used to a company’s culture, environment, and expectations. That being said, in the media world, it’s perfectly normal to switch jobs even after only a year, or even less. When asking my coworker what he thought about this, he spoke about how companies that operate in the media space often don’t invest in their employees or help them through career development. If you want a promotion or to move up in the industry, the easiest way to do so is to switch jobs. On one hand, that sounds kind of nice–no pressure to stay in one place for too long and change is exciting. On the other hand, I am interested in laying down some roots. Not forever, obviously, and not necessarily with my very first job, but I definitely want to work for a company where people want to stay and where people want to grow their careers, not just use the company as a stepping stone.

I’m hoping to gain more insights and delve deeper into the pros/cons of this piece of the culture, but it is definitely something I didn’t fully understand before I got here and continue to be surprised about. Hopefully by the end of my ten weeks here I will have a more complete understanding of why the industry operates this way.