Sounds like a lot of the men of the pit have weighed in here. I want to know what the women think who get trapped in the same situation. Im sure they feel the resentment and probably wish they had more fulfilling lives as well.
i'll chime in here. i have had two careers since getting out of grad school. the first i absolutely hated. i was miserable all day every day. it paid well, given my lack of experience, and had good benefits. but beyond that, it was completely unfulfilling, and i spent so many hours working that i had no time for a fulfilling time outside of work. i thought at the time that ALL corporate and desk jobs were like that. it was my goal to work for a non-profit, because i thought that was the only way to have a fulfilling job.
i quit that job and spent 4 months living in the woods and hiking while i tried to figure out what i wanted to do next. wound up more confused than ever before about what i wanted to do with my life. came home and tried to pursue non-profits but didn't come across anything (late 2009. the economy sucked), so i pursued the corporate route just thinking it'd be temporary. got into my current company, and found out that there ARE actually great corporate jobs out there. while there are certainly bad days every now and then, my job has overall been wonderful. every time i have asked for a change of some sort, it has happened (i started in operational reporting, but my background was SEC reporting, so i asked for the switch. it happened almost immediately). they pursued me when a position opened that is impossible to get hired into externally. you MUST be promoted from within. i got that job and have been doing it for about 6 months now. it has challenged me a lot, but also given me direct access to all of our top executives, and put me on the fast-track to climbing the corporate ladder. i mostly control my own work, have a great relationship with my boss, and daily get to do work that is actually meaningful to the company.
it's certainly not saving the world like i thought i had wanted to do. but i work with awesome people. i get paid well enough. my boss values work-life balance. i'm challenged every day to stretch myself and learn new things, yet i feel like if i ever got overwhelmed or felt in over my head, they would provide whatever training i needed.
i never thought i'd be a career woman. i always wanted to take the wife/mom route someday. and i still think that'll likely end up being the case eventually. but for now, my career is the most important thing in my life, and i actually kind of like it that way.
