Trying something new isn't failure – especially in tech

When I switched majors at university, in the midst of a tumultuous period in my early twenties, I phoned home bawling.

I was convinced, not for the first time, that I was a failure, that my switch over from an education degree to one in English was akin to lighting my future career prospects on fire. My family hadn’t made me feel this way, my classmates hadn’t done so either. This was purely a homebrewed version of self-hatred. And, anyway, isn’t switching to a degree in the humanities supposed to be kindling for your pile of rejected cover letters?

And now, as we approach the end of July, some of today’s twenty-somethings are in their first summer internships and realizing that the job they’ve strived for is less wondrous than they thought.

It’s an odd world we live in where certain versions of flameouts get celebrated and other vilified. We have some young entrepreneurs who see an ivy league drop out origin story as a prerequisite for later billions, chasing the example of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell and others. Don’t worry, I won’t bore you with some tiresome phoenix metaphor – what would a dumpster fire phoenix even look like – but I will gently suggest that sometimes success requires an absurd amount of failure, first.

This is coming from the guy whose last shot that mattered in his athletic career, taken during the gold medal game of the 2015 Canada Games, was blocked and still went in. If anyone knows how to fail successfully, it seems to be me.

First off, and it might sound odd to be framing this as liberating, most things fail. Not just the absurd things, like my plan to become the UK’s foremost wheelchair-using postman but also the things that, on the face of them, look remarkably sensible. I had always been the kid people came to for advice so it made sense to think I should become a teacher. It was only when I realized that the educational system was deeply ableist and that my skills were perhaps not up to par that I thought it might be time to move on. I went on to finish an English degree, mostly because that was the path that required the least amount of additional classes, and then continued on to an MFA that I barely use.

Well, at least, that’s one version of the story. In the more realistic one I used that time licking my wounds to also get more involved in student media. I started the MFA to get a job in the arts and found one long before graduating.

I won’t pretend that my abrupt career switch looked like a premonition when I made it. Those were not tears of confidence I was shedding, but they led me on a path I quite enjoy. I do, however, put my degrees on a wall that faces away from my webcam so that I don’t have to discuss my academics during work calls. We all contain multitudes.

I think that the tech industry, including in IT, can make us feel like only the entrepreneurs get to fail. If we’re just an employee, there isn’t much space to fail and let that inform our work, but there is. The very reason people learn to code, or have side projects, or get into game development, or start YouTube channels is to learn and, by extension, fail. I had a brief period where I thought I would become a journalist/arts administrator/graphic designer/best selling t-shirt artist.

I learned lots from each of those escapades, including: don’t try to start a business when you’re on a stress leave.

And now I have a career where rejection is part of the game. Rory, the incredible* editor who will be working on this piece, will reject a number of my sentences as outright failures, I’m sure. It’s his job, or at least part of it. As a freelancer, every pitch I send has about a 90% chance of being rejected. Even when I write for myself, whether it be a letter to my doctor or a copy edit for my website, I’m more prone to reject my own thoughts than I am to accept them.

Failure, and switching paths to help make it less common, is a natural part of work and of life. I’m convinced that, in a world where movies worth hundreds of millions can be considered failures, we’ve actually lost track of what the word means. To change, and forgive me for being overtly optimistic as opposed to my usual British-Canadian pessimistic self, is to adapt and to adapt is to succeed.

So, if you don’t like your tech role, or your degree, change it. It might not be immediate, but the first step is to make the decision that you are even looking to mark a shift.

Because I’m a disabled journalist – and I won’t let you forget it – I’ll give you an example from that realm of life that may lend a hand. For many ambulatory disabled people, those who can move in some fashion, it can be really hard to switch from walking to a wheelchair. To some, and to their families, it can feel like giving up, like giving in to the pain and frustration, like a failure to do something others consider so simple they don’t even have to think about it. However, what those same disabled folks often find is that giving in is a blessing. Saying, “I can’t do that anymore” is a way of loving yourself.

And, if doing an arts degree is a bit like throwing your career into a bonfire, I sure have kept myself warm.

_{*Editor’s note: John wrote this unprompted.}