Jobs. A Journey.
By Sarah May Clarkson
In the fall of 2024, I attended a training for school counselors, administrators, and advisors at which we were asked to fill out / create / draw “My Career Map.” So I did. Here’s what I learned from the experience.
My job title at present is college career advisor and here’s the great irony about my work experiences: I don’t have a career, have not sought one, have not achieved a career. And I’m not sure that I want one. What I have done over the course of many years in many different places is a great variety of work and jobs, all of which were valuable to me even when they were hard.
Starting at the beginning, I am the oldest of five children, so I did a fair bit of child minding in my early years, and the first work I was paid for was babysitting for family friends and neighbors. Having cash in hand was such a treat because we did not get an allowance; my own money was greatly liberating. My first real job (regular hours, expectations, co-workers, responsibility) was at a summer day camp in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I was given (in hindsight) a ridiculous amount of latitude and autonomy for a 17-year-old, supervising the program for kindergartners and first graders. It was hot, it required a good deal of patience, and spur-of-the-moment creativity, but I have to say, it was fun, and I learned a lot – about myself and about what it means to work well.
Off I went to college where I worked for the admissions and provost’s offices over different summers. I was a Resident Assistant (R.A.) in the residence halls one year and Resident Director (R.D.) in a small house for senior women in my last year of college. The latter two roles paid for my college housing, which was a relief to me and my parents. I confess that I was not a particularly attentive or heedful residential life staff member. My assignment during my junior year was on a floor in SuperDorm, co-ed by room. There were, as you might imagine, some hair-raising moments. I got schooled about how to manage and balance the tightrope that is hands-off versus micro-managing. I am still trying to figure that out.
During three years in New Hampshire I worked as a marketing / editorial assistant for a small university press. There I was supervised by two women – Nanine and Barbara – whose guidance formed me as a worker and employee in fundamental ways (kudos and hats off to them, more than 40 years later). They were mentors and friends for many years. If I continue to work with words, care about words and books, that was the great gift of the University Press of New England, which, alas, no longer exists. Sigh.
Next I worked for a very funky small independent publishing house in Amherst, Massachusetts, where I was introduced to the work and influence of Paolo (also sometimes Paulo) Freire who wrote Pedagogy of the Oppressed. We were only in Amherst one year before we moved to southern Vermont. In the Bennington, Vermont, area I worked as an editor with Storey Communications for a number of years, I taught college composition at a small private college (that, again, no longer exists), and I had a short stint doing Hospital Community Relations (which I really enjoyed). I also worked in the Office of Communications at another small private college (which does still exist, phew!). Those of you out there who know me, may recall that I wear a wrist-full of silver bracelets, so I was keen to work sales at a small jewelry-making enterprise in
Cambridge, New York. Well, I was terrible at sales, got fired, and somehow cobbled together other jobs after that indignity. In an astounding turn of events, the man who owned the jewelry-making business called me some time after my firing, asked the circumstances of my firing, he made some personnel changes, and . . . hired me back! Gadzooks. And it was in Vermont that I worked part-time as an assistant editor at the Manchester Journal and contributed articles for the Bennington Banner. Those of us with jobs can all talk about deadlines, but when the presses, and the pressmen, are ready to run, you better damn well be ready. It. Was. Stressful. But it was also a lab for how to work under pressure with a catalogue of different people and be a sponge for stories and information. Thank you, during those years, to Mo and Maggie. In all those different places, I met and worked with some absolutely terrific people, learned about family businesses, small businesses, small colleges, publishing and writing, and developing technologies. All the things. Twice during the Vermont years my husband and I went on Semester at Sea (look it up). On the second voyage, I worked in the Field Office helping to coordinate various trips and outings for the students and passengers in each port. How many people can say they have worked on passenger manifests? I can.
After ten years in Vermont we moved to central Pennsylvania where I worked at yet another small private college (still plugging along, amazingly) in the Office of Academic Support. I was almost two decades in that work, where I also taught first-year college composition and a 1-credit class called Peer Tutor Training. I worked very hard at that job, was raising our boys, maintaining a home, volunteering all around. It was a lot, but I made lifelong friends, and learned how much I care about students and their success. From that work and the students I got to know over the course of their four years, I have been invited to their weddings, welcomed their children into the world, written letters that helped students get into medical and professional school. It was hard, but it was incredibly rewarding (though not in terms of salary).
In an instant we faced a life pivot and found ourselves in Idaho, which I want to say here was a happy accident. When we drove across country to relocate here (my husband got a job at ISU), I had never been to Idaho. Early on, I worked at Holt Arena part-time, worked at a Montessori School part-time, was an elementary school librarian part-time.
If those experiences were humbling, they were also, in some ways, essential. I reflected a lot on what work or a job means, what I might bring to a job, where I could meet a need. Those are important things to consider. Again, I met some great people, made terrific friends, acquired new skills and knowledge, and became familiar with the Pocatello area.
It was the husband of one of the women I worked with as a librarian who told me about the college career advisor position, so I applied, and that’s where I’ve been – the woman with a pretty sketchy career trajectory – ever since. The 2025 – 2026 school year will be my eighth in the job. It is amazing. In the high school, I have met incredible young people, some who face crushing pressures and obligations, some who are just about alone as they face the future, and others who will, no doubt, excel and succeed beyond all measure and make the world a better place. At the rally a couple of Saturdays ago, I saw four students – three who graduated in 2024 and one 2025 grad – we hugged and loved on each other. It made me smile so big.
At the same time that I have done these jobs, I have also freelanced as an editor and a writer. Since 1990, I have been the copy editor for the quarterly journal of the American Museum of Fly Fishing, the American Fly Fisher. It’s true. In the 35 years I’ve been editing that journal, I have spent a total of maybe two hours fly fishing (I am not good at it) – so I clearly read and copy edit as a generalist. I have done grant writing, contributed a monthly article to this publication, and the past two summers I co-led a teacher professional development workshop through the Idaho STEM Action Center. And over the decades there has been volunteer work for arts councils, in the public schools, for county libraries, churches on both sides of the country, and CASA.
And though I am socially an introvert, the work relationships I have forged over the years have been invaluable to me. It has been my great good fortune to work with some incredible people and I will always – always – be grateful for that. When I hear stories about the dreadful co-workers and bosses of others, I thank my lucky stars that even the most difficult colleagues were not so awful that I either 1) had to quit, or 2) got sick, physically sick, from work.
Teacher friends of mine have said that they would teach for free, but are paid to grade. The writer, poet, and philosopher Kahil Gibran wrote in his book The Prophet, “Work is love made visible.” So true. The stellar American poet and writer Wendell Berry published a chapbook (that’s what I call it), Life Work, on the subject of work. Early in its pages is this sentence: “There are jobs, there are chores, and there is work.” He sought to write about, and reflect on, what work means to him, what his work journey has been (there have been jobs and chores, to be sure). He writes at the book’s conclusion that “. . . my work is my devotion,” which seems a lovely way to end this wee essay.
What has your work journey been?
