The road to happiness in the workplace isn’t always a straight line

I have never been a career goal setter, plotting at how to move from one role to another. I think it’s because in my final year of my English and Drama BA at university, I realised that my dream job was out of my reach. I am simply not very good at acting.

I knew from the age of 20 that my fantasy of stage and screen was not going to happen for me.

Once that was taken out of my plans everything else felt mostly incidental. I stumbled and tripped over the first five years of earning, trying everything from the film industry (exhausting and too many very angry women) to data capturing (not ideal for a numerical dyslexic) to experiential marketing (fun but not well paid.)

Then one day at a party, I met someone who was looking for a junior public relations person to join her technology focused agency. I knew very little of PR but thought – I can write!

So armed with a book from the library called “How to write a press release”, and some coaching from a friend who was working on a campaign to increase mushroom consumption, I walked into my first interview. And miraculously got the job.

More miraculously, I was really good at it. I loved technology, I loved writing and I “got” people. Add in some almost pathological people pleasing and the thrill of a front-page story (newspapers were still a thing then) and ta da! I had found my niche. At last, I was stumbling and tripping in the right direction.

This is how my career has always gone. A teetering zig-zag path of leaning towards what interests me, saying yes to things that feel out of reach, and always taking the coffee date.

A few years and a retrenchment later, I was leading a tech PR agency in Cape Town. It was a wild ride, both with clients and the people who joined me.

I watched them grow, learn, and develop into practitioners who wanted more than my agency could provide.

I got over my fear of endings and learned to love that they would one day leave when the time was right. It was still hard, often inconvenient, and always sad but also a celebration of a journey completed.

Once I closed my agency, mostly because of some very bad financial decisions and running the business on hope (another client will come!) rather than prudence (cut costs till the client comes!) I made a side-ways move into communication strategy.

Another failed business later and I stopped with all this empire-building nonsense and went to solo consulting. Just me, a co-working space and laptop.

It was a 3-year exhale, when I wasn’t panicking about my next month’s debit order. When I look back now I see it as my recovery period. Taking it slow, building up my confidence after two businesses that didn’t work, and a divorce.

I was also a time of trying new things. I leaned into what made me curious, I volunteered my time for projects that would never pay, while I did what I could to extend my networks, my capacity for work and creativity.

Through one volunteer project, I met a man who ran a growing business that needed some communication strategy. When I walked into that boardroom in Stellenbosch, I had no idea that this relationship with this unassuming, smart man was the one that would change the trajectory of my life and work.

After a few years of consulting and working in more than just the marketing and comms team, I was offered the role of Chief People Officer. My first instinct was to say No. To be honest, my first response wasn’t No it was “What?!?”

My imposter syndrome jumped up, grabbed me by the throat and declared “You can’t do this you crazy woman! You have no experience, you have two failed businesses, you aren’t smart enough, you will mess this up and you will hurt this smart man and his smart team and his growing business.”

But there was another voice that said “YAAAAASSSSSS. This is it, Sarah. This is the transition, the moment, the time. We can do this we can take all the lessons, failures, successes, therapy and experience and we can make this good. Take it. Take it. Take it.”

It took it. For about six months I got a knot in my stomach every time I was called to the smart man’s office, waiting for him to say, “we have made a terrible, terrible mistake!” But it never happened.

Two-and-a-half years later I am still here. And you know what? I love it. It’s the best job I have ever had.

I get to use everything from my years of communication strategy, my writing, my love of people and my extensive experience in what it takes to fail. I don’t get everything right.

I still trip and stumble and zig-zag, but I have a few work besties, make a difference, watch people develop and I get to grow.

I still have no idea what the next step is. I don’t plot my path. I lean into what it interesting and I listen intently to what the business needs from me.

I don’t know where this will lead me, if anywhere. All I know is that it’s exactly where I need to be right now. That is enough.