This one is for my Friends enthusiasts:
Career Life Lessons: Friends Edition
Lesson #1: Life is not predictable. This one’s pretty general but just as the theme song goes “So no one told you life was gonna be this way👏👏”. Did I expect to still be on the job search 1 year post graduation, definitely not. But that’s life. Things don’t always happen on the timeline you expected.
Lesson #2: You will never be happy at a high paying job that you hate. In the earlier seasons Chandler probably made the most money out of all his friends with a career in- wait what was his job again? Oh right he worked in “Statistical Analysis and Data Reconfiguration”. Despite his high paying job with an amazing office view of NYC, he was probably the most miserable one of his friends. He had no passion like Ross did with dinosaurs, Monica with cooking, Phoebe with massage therapy, Joey with acting or Rachel with shopping. Sometimes we have to take the job we don’t love (see lesson #3), but staying in it for too long will burn you out.
Lesson #3: Sometimes you need to pay your dues before landing your “dream job”.
This is probably the one I resonate with most. Rachel had a huge reality check when she moved out to the city to make it on her own. She wanted to get a job in the fashion industry, but having never worked her whole life, the only job she could get was as a waitress. By the end of the series, she was an Executive at Ralph Lauren. I know it’s just a tv show, but I’d be lying if I said her storyline didn’t give me hope about my own future career.
Lesson #4: If you quit your dream too soon, you’ll never know what you could have been.
Joey had been pursuing acting for 10 years, but was getting no where. He had to work all of these odd jobs just to make ends meet. He sold Christmas trees, did infomercials, sampled cologne, gave tours at the museum, served coffee at Central Perk, etc. But the one thing he didn’t do was give up his dream. He had plenty of reason to, given that he was constantly getting bad press or denied parts. But he stuck it out and ended up being the star of his own tv series and staring in huge movies. By the end of the series, he went from borrowing money from his friends he couldn’t pay back, to being the highest paid of all his friends.
Lesson #5: You should be passionate about your career, but your career shouldn’t be everything.
Phoebe worked as a masseuse, but her career was the least talked about on the show. Instead, her love for music was shown in almost every episode. Though a terrible singer/guitarist, she loved to perform at the coffee house. She got no financial gain out of it, but it made her happy. She also did a lot of charity work and even was a surrogate for her half brother and his wife. She liked her job, but what made her life so meaningful was what she did outside of work. The impact you make on others can be unrelated to your career.
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