On Having a Job and Associated Deep Thoughts – Part 2

(In case you missed it, here’s Part 1.)

In early 2010, when I still worked as a flight controller but we were between flights and the Constellation program had just been cancelled — in other words, when I didn’t have much to do other than keep a chair warm in my office — I started daydreaming about other places that I’d love to work, and I wrote them down. My “pipe dream” employers were a laundry list of companies that represent various things I’m interested in. There were sports teams like the Astros and Rockets, publications like Runner’s World and Outside, and design-oriented/crafty places like Paper Source or my own freelance design business.

But at the top of the list were place like the Smithsonian, the Houston Museum of Natural Science, and the Discovery Channel. Places that focus on science and the world around us, but with the goal of making it accessible to the masses.

Every time I look for common threads in what seem like a lot of scattered interests, I realize that communicating — visually, verbally, via written word — has been an underlying theme to my daydreaming for years. It started with doing my weekly section layout as an editor on my college newspaper, or maybe with the way I loved making posters for projects in high school, or maybe with things like the “neighborhood newsletter” I designed, wrote, and handed out to neighbors when I was a kid. I’ve never kept a private diary for more than a few months, but I’ve had a public blog for 15 years.

To say it simply, putting stuff “out there” appeals to me.

The enjoyment I get from communicating something, anything effectively has always kind of been there, in one form or another. It’s part of why I am currently happier in my job than I have been at any other point — because my current job is all about communication. Taking a technical issue, understanding its cause and its implications, and figuring out the best way to communicate that to the people who need to know.

(source)

And I’m good at it. I won’t be starting a career as a speaker anytime soon, but I’m pretty good at it. I give a lot of presentations these days, and usually get complimented. A few weeks ago, I was asked to present some information to the Center Director, because my boss’s boss’s boss wanted me to; he’d seen me talk through similar issues before and I impressed him. I feel like I’m in a sweet spot right now, where I get to combine my ability to understand technical things with my ability to communicate them.

When I came back from maternity leave a year ago, there was a rotation opening in the JSC Public Affairs Office (PAO) — in other words, an opening for someone already working at JSC but not already in the public affairs world to join that group on temporary assignment. It seemed too good to be true. I’ve been telling friends for YEARS that I wanted to work in public affairs at NASA, and suddenly it was staring me right in the face.

I went over and talked to the manager, who I knew from our days as fellow interns, yet ultimately nothing happened. I had been back at work for barely 2 weeks. I was struggling mightily with figuring out how to balance work and a baby. The rotation would have required that I be at work at 6:30 or 7 a.m. every day. It was just too much for me to deal with at the time, and I let it pass.

Or so I thought.

A few months later, another rotation opened. This time, they wanted someone to work on social media strategy for JSC and since I’ve been involved in JSC’s social media efforts in the past as a volunteer (see here and here as examples), it seemed like a good fit. Plus, when you have the chance to do something you’ve been saying you want to do for years, well…you don’t turn that down, do you? Right? So this time, I went for it. At the beginning of July, I started splitting my time 50/50 between my engineering job and public affairs.

To say that PAO is a different world would be an understatement. It is a different planet. A different UNIVERSE. The past several months have not been at all what I expected — sometimes in good ways, and sometimes in bad. I thought I knew what I was getting into, but I quickly realized that I am in over my head.

In early 2012, I applied for a job as Director of Online Media at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. In retrospect I realize that I was completely and utterly lacking in qualifications, but I must have written a decent cover letter because they were kind enough to interview me. I didn’t get the job, but I wasn’t too surprised and therefore wasn’t too disappointed. Life went on. But that interview keeps coming back to me lately as I attempt to navigate the murky waters in Public Affairs. It turns out — news flash! — that being active in the social media world personally is SO not the same thing as doing it professionally. I suppose this should have been clear to me, but I was somewhat blinded by the chance to work in an organization at NASA that I have long wanted to support.

It has been a huge struggle to stay afloat and I don’t really think I’m doing a very good job. I don’t know how to write a communications strategy. I don’t know how to write a social media strategy. I don’t really know what I am doing at all. And so I stumble over and over and over again, and then retreat into the 50% of my job that I am good at. I am frustrated and embarrassed that I have so little to show for my almost 5 months in PAO thus far. I am frustrated and embarrassed that I can’t figure out what I need to do.

(source)

Needless to say, this experience has thrown me for a loop. I repeat a litany of funny mantras to myself —

Procrastination makes hard things harder.

The worst mistake is to not make any.

Fake it till you make it.

Sucking at something is the first step to becoming sorta good at something.

And somehow, the last one sticks. Because I really suck at this. And I think maybe I can be sorta good at it? But I just don’t know how.

(To be continued…)