New horizons

When you’re stuck in a job rut it can be easy to admit you’re not happy, but difficult to actually make a change. Kylie Bartholomew meets three women who swapped careers and couldn’t be happier.

Alex O’Neill, 54, lives near Mundubbera, Queensland
Former career: solicitor. New career: grazier

Alex O’Neill qualified as a solicitor in the mid 1970s in Brisbane. It was a time when women were rare in the legal profession. “They’d just blink at us and think: ‘What are women doing in law?’ So we were coming into that game at a time when, I think only the year before, they did away with women having to wear hats in court. Can you imagine? And wearing a pants suit in the courthouse was very risqué,” she recalls with a hearty chuckle.

After working for a Brisbane firm, Alex moved about 300 kilometres north of Brisbane to work in two small towns, Childers and Gayndah. “My mother grew up on the Barcoo in the 20s and 30s, so I grew up with stories of the bush and the west, but I never had any experience of it. When I came to the bush to work as a solicitor I really loved the interaction within a smaller community.”

She went into partnership at a practice at nearby Mundubbera and worked full-time until marrying in 1985. At 33, the marriage to her grazier husband also meant another kind of union – marrying the land. “I married a bloke whose hobby is work; whose every other interest is the land and his cattle,” says Alex. Their ‘Doondoon’ cattle property is 75 kilometres west of Mundubbera. The travel to ‘town’ was one of the reasons she reduced her workload to part-time for the next five years. She also sold out of the partnership at the practice.

Then in 1990, just 14 years after qualifying as a solicitor, she gave it away altogether. She found her life was full with other things; she didn’t need it any more. “Growing up in the city and then coming out here and learning how to work on a property, there’s lots of things you don’t know, from learning how to ride and muster and brand, to fencing… and all the little things you have to do,” she says.

Since going bush, Alex has taken active roles in various committees and groups including the Cattleman’s Union, state and national Landcare bodies, and AgForce. As comfortable as she is with her life on the land, it’s hard to believe it was a place even she wouldn’t have thought she’d end up. “If someone had told me that while I was working in Brisbane, I would have shaken my head because I had no experience in the bush,” she says.

But this gutsy woman wasn’t deterred by the unknown. “I jumped in, boots and all,” she laughs. “I just did my background on it. I asked my husband in great detail what I was supposed to do. I’d drive him crazy. Often here you can’t physically do what a man can do, but there are other ways to manage a situation. I find women are ingenious – if a fence post falls off the back of a trailer and you’re the only one there, how do you get that back on? You don’t just lift it up, but you’ll work at getting one end up on the vehicle and getting it back on. So although you don’t have the brawn, you’ll think outside the square to manage the situation.”

After two decades running the cattle property and 17 years since opting out of the legal profession, Alex has no regrets with her career move. “In the city I tended to prove I was equal in my ability to do my job as a solicitor. In coming out here, I don’t have to prove I’m equal,” says Alex. “I know that physically I’m not; mentally it’s a different story. I’ve learned to accept the limitations I have as a woman because I’ve had to face them physically out here. Both sexes have strengths and good partnerships are made up of that. That’s what I’ve learned in going bush. You’re more in touch with the land and your environment and you have a more peaceful existence if you want it.”

Making the switch

Kate Southam, editor of CareerOne.com.au, says staying in a job you don’t like impacts negatively on other areas of your life. “If you feel happy at work, and that you’re making a contribution, you’re being stimulated on all levels – whether that be creatively or intellectually, it makes you feel great about other areas of your life,” she says.

Kate says people easily get put off making a change because they attempt to solve the issue from the outset. “People think: ‘I don’t know what to do; it’s all too hard’. They shut down and it becomes overwhelming. But it sometimes takes up to two jobs to make the career transition,” she says. From her experience, there’s an obvious change in people who at least investigate stepping into a career or job they’re passionate about. “Suddenly they’re excited again. It’s like getting back into an exercise routine or social networking and not realising how shut down they’d become,” she says. 

Kate says changing careers is a growing trend and is becoming more accepted. “We’ve got the ageing workforce, casualisation of the workforce and the mobility of the workforce − three pretty strong drivers that scream change, change, change.”

Where to start?

Putting your ideas on paper is the first step, and allows you to visualise the situation. “It’s that psychological process of going from ‘it’s impossible’ to ‘it’s possible.’ Just by taking action you think: ‘Maybe this is possible; maybe this isn’t as crazy as I thought,’” says Kate. She says the most vital step is the initial research, which can be broken down to make the goal feel more attainable.

• List all your skills whether it’s related to your job right now or not. 
• Don’t rush – you can be put off if you feel you have to solve it this second. Allow at least two months to research.
• List your networks – family, friends, clients, old clients, old bosses. See where they are and who you can contact to get information from.

Career help

Finally, Kate says a careers counselor may be useful after the research phase. However, a visit could end up costing quite a bit of money initially as they decipher answers from you which could be gleaned on your own with some patience, soul-searching and research.

 

Photography: Scott Hawkins. Hair & make-up: David Novak-Piper.