17 Jobs in 12 Years

48 Days To the Work You Love: Day 3

My Work History

The average time an employee stays at each job is about 3.2 years.  I am averaging just over a year per job since earning my degree.  I have worked for startups, small sub contractors of large corporations and I have worked for 3 large corporations.   I have been around the block a few times and I think I’ve seen what I need to see.  If you include work while I was in school, I have had 17 jobs in 12 years! As I was making the list it was hard to remember them all. I’m not counting the 3 companies I currently own and draw income from.  I was also a day trader one semester in college and earned a couple thousand dollars.  Needless to say, my taxes can get complex sometimes.

Assembling Industrial Laminators (~ 4 months), McDonald’s Cashier (3 weeks), Recycling Plant Worker (1 Month), Crop Dusting Wing Hop (1 Month), Roof Inspector (1 Month), Asbestos Removal (3 months), Dish Washer (1 Semester), Carpet Cleaner (1 semester), Landscaping (1 month), Teaching Assistant (5 semesters), Computer Engineer Intern (2 Summers), QA Engineer for surveillance systems (10 months), Online Marketing and Sales Manager (1 year), sub-sub-sub-contractor to Yahoo! (3 months), Software Engineer on an MMO game that was never released (1 year), and technically I work for YouTube/Google as a content creator (18 months).  I also make money from a few websites that I have created. I have been at my current job almost 4 years.  I won’t mention the name for privacy and legal reasons.

I am a troubled individual.  My wife feels very fortunate that I have stuck with her for 9 years.  I chose to leave each job for one of 3 reasons

1. Found a higher paying job.
2. Schooling.
3. Hated the job or felt stifled in my personal growth.

“All Progress Requires Change, But Not All Change Is Progress”

Although my income has steadily grown over the past 12 years, I can’t say I have always progressed.  I have changed jobs plenty but there are key times when I knew the job wasn’t a good fit but rather than stick to what I knew I was hopeful that the work would become interesting.  Here is the rub.  My current position has allowed me to progress financially without progressing in skills and productivity. In fact, I wonder if I am less skilled and productive than I was 4 years ago.  There are many factors at play there but the lack of growth motivates me to move on.

What interesting jobs have you had? What has motivated you to make a change?  What is the average  length of the jobs you have had?  Can anyone beat me?