The score is 3 for 2…that’s 3 jobs in 2 years

I'm officially 3 for 2 - no that's not the English Cricket Team's average score over the last 6 months –I'm officially at my 3rd full-time job in 2 years. Yep, you know how at most workplaces, they give you a pen or cufflinks for being there for 5 years, to mark one's loyalty to the business and commitment to developing your career in a considered and systematic manner? Yeah well when you're 3 for 2, I can assure you the closest you are to being given a pen for your loyalty, is being given monitored access to the stationery cupboard to take one additional red biro. Yep, when you're 3 for 2, and the only time you've stayed in place for more than 5 years was High School, you start to think...maybe it's not you, it's me.

If you’ll recall, the first time I went through ‘The Move’, I was ecstatic. The sun seemed to be constantly shining and I couldn’t get enough of dancing around like a crazy person every time I got to see daylight after work. So what happened? Well, the answer to that is probably best summarised by the timeless classic, sung by one of the world’s greatest songstresses of all time, “Oops, I did it again”.

Yes, to my dear Second Job, the one that saved me from descending further into the pits of despair in banking, the one that showed me that it was ok to say “NO” to work, the one that showed me that even though I was an analyst it was ok for me to speak in meetings…yes my dear Second Job, I’m sorry but I played with your heart and got lost in the game. [Just whilst you’ve now got ‘Oops I did it again’ in your head, what’s up with the whole Astronaut returning to give red-latex-clad Britney that thing from the sea in the video clip? What was that meant to symbolise? Why is it not sung, why is it a spoken bit? Who’s the old lady that dropped in the sea? Which sea did she drop it into? Why didn’t she pursue a legal recourse to get her belongings back from this crazy old lady who likes to drop other people’s possessions into this miscellaneous sea? Hmmm what a confusing song.]

Anyway it was the classic rebound story – I thought that taking the token Corporate Development role straight out of banking was the “right” move. It was safe, secure, made me feel loved by constantly being overly-impressed with any Excel or Powerpoint document I gave them, even though realistically I only changed the formatting not the actual content. But something was still lacking. And as an contestant on ‘The Bachelor’ who did not receive a rose between episodes 2 and 14 would attest [because let’s face it, the person who doesn’t get a rose in episode 1, is always the crazy who says she’s in love with The Bachelor following roughly 17 seconds of interaction] anyway, Second Job was just not “The One”.

And so, as does happen, opportunity came knocking…this time it came knocking in the form of a tech company in Sydney in a very random role. And so within3 weeks, and only 15 months after committing to Second Job, I jumped again and fulfilled my destiny as the Gen Y stereotype.

Entitled. Commitment issues. Flakey. I know those are some of the words that will come to mind when people look at my CV in the future [also please feel free to endorse me on LinkedIn for any of these skills by the way…I’m sure one day they’ll be viewed positively].

And sometimes, in one of those half-joking-half-real ways I tell myself that I subscribe to the “quit early, quit often” philosophy as espoused by Professor Deepak Malhotra – that I’m just on this journey to find what I really love doing … but who knows, I might be on this incredible journey, or I might have just needed a holiday or possibly just a facial and I would’ve felt rejuvenated enough to stick with Second Job again.

But oh well, I guess it’s just ‘my prerogative’ that ‘sometimes’ when work drives me ‘crazy’ or the work environment is ‘toxic’, I don’t feel so ‘lucky’ and I’m happy to keep searching for that dream job ‘…[baby] one more time’. Either way, I’m now 3 for 2 and to be honest, I’m pretty happy to keep adopting Britney Spears songs to justify life decisions, until I find something that actually makes this whole going-to-work thing worthwhile.