Mary Ellen Slayter's Home Page

Friends

By Wade Cowart

I don't work all the time. One of my favorite vacations was in Bellingham, Wash., in October 2004.

Making It Work

As a career advice columnist, I often receive e-mails and letters from people seeking guidance in making big changes to their work lives. American workers change careers, on average, seven times over the course of their lives, I remind them. Job-hopping doesn’t mean you’re flighty, I comfort them, not in this time of easy layoffs.

Or at least, I hope it doesn’t. After all, I have had 19 jobs myself. Before figuring out that I really wanted to be a newspaper writer and editor, I had to pour coffee as a late-night diner waitress, scrub fish tanks for an environmental toxicology company, herd tourists around the only museum in my tiny hometown and spend a mind-boggling number of hours in front of copy machines while temping for government contractors. And I’m only 27.

I’ve never seen the point of sticking with something that makes you miserable when you have other options, and I consider none of those jobs to be a waste. Every one of those positions taught me something about myself.

At the museum job, for instance, I learned how to walk backwards, which is harder than it sounds, especially while explaining how a few Germans managed to build the only dry cellar in Louisiana. (Sadly, I did not learn to chew gum at the same time—we weren’t allowed.)

Charlene Waring and Mary Ellen Slayter, Cocodrie, La., October 1998

By Brian Fry

Charlene Waring, left, and I take a break in the marsh in Cocodrie, La., in October 1998.

The aquaculture toxicology job left me with solid plumbing and electrical skills that have served me well since I’ve become a homeowner. Unfortunately, that job also left me with a weird scar in the crook of my left arm, courtesy of a mycobacterium infection. When I found out that those types of infections are a common affliction among people who work at saltwater fisheries, I moved on.

Until my recent four-year anniversary at The Washington Post, that late-night diner job, at a place called Louie’s near Louisiana State University’s Baton Rouge campus, had been my longest tenure at one place. It’s still probably the most important job I’ve ever had—it broke me of my shyness and paid for college. And to this day I can still make damn-near perfect Cajun hash browns.

The great thing about working as a journalist—and the reason I suspect it’s held my attention the longest—is it’s practically a new job every day. Even better, the area I have chosen to specialize in involves talking to other people about their jobs. So, I’m still learning, but at least this way doesn’t require yet another roll-over in my retirement savings.