Flop Eras are Normal: Just Don’t Let them Define You
gather around as I tell you about mine
Seasons, epochs, periods, eras, whatever you want to call it, aren’t just for pop stars who reinvent themselves to sell you a new version of their product. As regular degular folks, we go through periods of experimentation, learning, and exploring different ways to create meaning for our lives. Sometimes, the seasons can feel long, arduous and cursedly unfair. For me, the period between 2011-2013 felt that way. I was reminded of this time after a recent International Women’s Day event. The Bold and Badass Women: Stronger Together event brought out a diverse audience of women. Though it took me a couple of questions to hit my authentic stride and feel like I was being helpful, I had a grand time. There are thoughts I did not get to share because the timing was not right, so I will share them here, especially since I’m confident I was the most senior of the attendees.
Feeling Stuck
We all get stuck at some point, which can happen multiple times in our lifetimes. How to get through those bottlenecks was one of the questions posed at the Bold and Badass event. One speaker, Pearlé Nwaezeigwe, noted that some periods are for building ourselves up. In other periods, we see our growth pushing through the soil like a weed (that last part is me editorialising). Another speaker, Anna Weiss, highlighted how taking a step back to engage in self-reflection was essential to making satisfying progress. They are both correct. Those periods are normal, perhaps even necessary for healthy personal development.
I want to tell you a story about three years during my early thirties when I felt stuck in my career and personal development. I had almost convinced myself that my decline was without end. At one point, apart from the love of my wife, crying to a Katy Perry song and repeating a mantra from a Pixar film were the only things keeping me pinned to this earth.
My British Flop Era
I moved permanently to Britain in April 2010. I did not have to think about work because I had negotiated a six-month consultant gig with the Smithsonian job I had left in Washington, DC. Once I did start searching, landing a job in the museum field in Britain proved difficult, especially since I did not live in London. I’m unsure if it would have been easier since I lacked any personal or career networks in England. The museum world here is even more insular, white and middle class (Americans—this means upper middle class to you). Lacking that network in another country made me realise that I had benefitted tremendously from the one I was initiated into and built upon in Washington, DC. Striking out in the museum education field in England be damned, I needed a job. My wife and I made a financial blunder in 2011, making having a second income critical to avoiding debt. Any job, even a financially insecure one, would do. Bills never have a flop era; they are always thriving in abundance.
You Haffi Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work
People who leave the finance industry and speak about it as a dark period in their lives will understand that is the way I feel about retail. Specifically, beauty retail because I have also worked for Aldi and feel much more positively toward that company and experience. This is not to knock retail or service jobs or those who do them. Every human would benefit from interfacing with the public in a customer service job at least once. It is humbling and teaches you about human behaviour, particularly how a small amount of situational power can turn people into tyrants. Fuck military conscription, a 6-month customer service job should be mandatory.
Between 2011-2012 I worked for an employment agency that provided temporary staffing for department store retailers including Selfridges, Debenhams, House of Fraser, John Lewis, and more. I worked at beauty counters in all four, including Chanel, Illamasqua, Kiehls, Dermalogica, and Sisley. In department stores, the brand counter matters less than the culture of the department store itself and its management. The counters are there as a mutually beneficial partnership with the store. Any counter that consistently fails to meet targets set by the store will be replaced by another brand. By far, the worst was Selfridges, even though the Illamasqua counter manager was lovely. Selfridges treated its employees like shit unless they were selling above and beyond their targets. Many of the counter employees also overidentified their status in life with the brand signing their pay cheques. Girl, you’re an hourly wage employee for Armani Beauty; you don’t own shares in the company. Relax that eyebrow when you look my way. By contrast, I encountered less of this behaviour at counters in John Lewis and other stores. I think the attitude approach in management culture made a difference.
Anyway, I stuck it out, bouncing from department store to department store. My feet hurt, my back hurt, and my face grew tired of wearing the mask of empty pleasantry. To remind myself of the woman I once knew-- the one who didn’t think starting over in England would be this difficult--I started playing Katy Perry’s song, ‘Firework’, like it was going out of style.
Katy is going through a setback with her latest album, but she was the thee pop girly in the first half of the 2010s. I don’t care how cringe anyone thinks that song is, I listened to it repeatedly during my walks to work. I sang the lyrics fervently and cried often, careful not to let my mascara run. I had a master’s degree, for goodness sake. How did this become my life? I had the CV and the belief that I could do much more.
I knew what I was doing was not it, but I had no vision of what it could be. I was lost and going through the motions. This was my second time being an immigrant in a new country. I know this chasm between one’s intelligence/capabilities and how one is perceived in their new country can be vast. It beats down on many an immigrant. ‘Firework’ reminded me that just because the people around me saw me as little more than a shop girl, that wasn’t the sum of me. I did not have to internalise their perception. To echo Shyamala Gopalan Harris (the mother of the woman who should be right now POTUS): don’t let people tell you who you are; you tell them who you are.
After failing to secure two different management positions at Selfridges and John Lewis beauty counters, I took time to be honest with myself. Did I even want those jobs? Or was my pursuit born of a limiting belief that I should go for what was convenient? I am no longer a religious girly, but sometimes rejection is the universe’s protection. In more secular terms, The Pause, as Alice Walker describes it, is “the universal place of stopping. The universal moment of reflection”. Based on a practice from the I Ching, pausing is necessary for true wisdom, requiring one to sit in those uncertain moments. This is especially true when we are between accomplishments or rejections. I’m thankful I discovered this piece of writing by Walker during my years of trial.
I kept working for a paycheck, but I stopped pursuing a career in retail when I admitted that I hated it. I began looking for opportunities that spoke to my interests, even if they did not pay, paid little or were temporary. In this way, I started making new networks in the industries that fulfilled me. In turn, I got to speak to people about their career trajectories and show them my hard and soft skillsets. I actively let those people know I was looking for work.
A list of paid jobs that I held between 2011-2013:
Beauty Retail
Business Development Manager (sales)
Researcher & Transcriber
Black History Month Coordinator for a university
Audience Coordinator
Project Coordinator
Aldi Assistant
Because I am more than a wage earner, I pursued soul-sustaining avenues for my passions, be they temporary or long-term. I also took advantage of a free therapy programme at St. Martin’s Church in Birmingham City Centre.
The things I did to sustain my soul:
Cupcake Blogger
Makeup Artist
Independent Museum Guide
Radio Co-presenter
Tumblr blogging (Scandal)
Fiction Writer
A frequent lie I told myself during the winter of my discontent was that I had peaked in my 20s, with my most important accomplishments behind me.
I began to compare myself to friends and colleagues I left behind, tracing how far they had gotten whilst I was back at the starting line. Counselling helped, being loved helped, and Dory from Pixar’s Finding Nemo helped. I would tell myself frequently, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming. I did, and finally, I hit dry land. The valley of despair is more than 10 years behind me, and I look back with grace (and a chuckle) at the woman I was. I had no idea how my life would change or that all my time on essays about a TV show would propel my academic career.
Over three years, I took a circuitous route that did not begin to stabilise until 2014. This piece would be too long if I detailed my experience with all of those jobs and passion outlets. What’s important is that each of those was a building block toward a satisfying and diverse career in academia and entrepreneurship.
Emerging from the Valley
Things did not change in an instant nor heralded by a trumpet from the sky. The first sign of clarity came almost like a dream, a pinprick from my subconscious. I woke up one day early in 2014 and knew that I would pursue a PhD. Having been out of higher education for 9 years and in another country, I knew it would be challenging. I figured it out. My shift into a sustainable path worthy of my billowing capacity occurred over 12-14 months. My network led me to apply for a PhD bursary programme in Sociology at BCU, which began in 2015. It took 5 years to re-establish myself intentionally and change career paths.
Now that I’m safe from that downward slope, I can find the humour in it. More than that, I found grace and empathy for the younger me who survived it and thrived afterwards. And if another downward slope comes, I’m better prepared because I know who I am.
I am not special because people, particularly women, go through periods of uncertainty and instability. The bottom can sometimes feel like it’s falling out beneath us. Stick around; you will get through it. You do not have to anchor your identity or progress in your twenties or early thirties. Finding who you are can also mean exploring what you want to do with your time. Having said that, I know some people have less room to explore than others, but where you can, please do.
Fear of Aging Discourse Online
Zooming out to a more significant point, I wanted to share this story because I observe worrying discourse and behaviours online from Gen Z that mask a lot of fear around ageing. I don’t doubt that some young women see the march toward thirty as a ticking countdown of doom. I wanted to share how messy my early thirties were (I didn’t even mention how that biological clock thing really happened to me!) so that you know you have plenty of time. I admit this advice is less fit for the dolls who have mummy aspirations early in life.
We live in a world where patriarchal forces convince us that a woman’s usefulness is in the youth of her body and face. No wonder young women are so mean to those over thirty-five: you see your future in front of you, and it scares the shit out of you. Be not afraid because once you free yourself from the lies of being bound by your body’s attractiveness, so many possibilities for fulfilment are open to you. I no longer worry about publishing my first novel or book of short stories before I’m wizened. I know I can do that when I get serious about it (and push through my fears).
When I was a yute, I used to talk to women over forty about what it was like to get older, what it meant to be an adult (it was a mystical world to me). Besides complaints of random aches and pains, one consistent theme emerged: feeling less self-conscious or getting a second wind. As a painfully self-conscious person back then, I longed to reach that milestone. Being well into my forties, I can say they did not bullshit me. I’m grateful for all those conversations and stories. This Substack is my way of paying forward what those women gave to me.
Have you had a flop era yet? Tell me about it.
This was incredibly beautiful storytelling, thank you for sharing- it’s always so difficult to see the other side of the tunnel when you’re right in it but this filled me with so much hope 🥹❤️