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Места где могут работать люди вне стем в альт протеинс
Answering the Impact Gaps Canvas questions for the issue:
Well-being and health for people in distinct regions and places like remote areas (e.g., Arctic regions), focusing on malnutrition (including obesity, diabetes type 2, etc.), food insecurity, and food dependency, with consideration for additional diseases caused by malnutrition, food quality, and food safety.
Challenge Mapping
Solutions Mapping
Impact Gaps
Learning Logs & Actions
Food insecurity, dependence, and malnutrition among Indigenous peoples in the circumpolar Arctic are complex challenges influenced by environmental, economic, and social factors. Below is an analysis based on the provided questions:
Challenge Mapping Questions
Solutions Mapping Questions
Impact Gaps Questions
Addressing food insecurity, dependence, and malnutrition among Indigenous peoples in the circumpolar Arctic requires a holistic approach that considers environmental, economic, and cultural dimensions, with a strong emphasis on Indigenous leadership and knowledge.
Actually enjoy this:
1. Complex Systems and Learning Opportunities - I enjoy understanding and structuring complex stuff that makes sense in my view (cause If it’s not making sense or not needed, i will not enjoy, i will suffer - ex. micro, customer journey)
Description: You thrive in roles where you need to quickly digest and learn about a complex product, system, or process.
Examples: Learning the intricacies of ticketing systems, backup software, and other technical products.
Why It’s Bearable: You enjoy the challenge of mastering complex information, especially when it aligns with a clear purpose or value.
2. Creativity, high autonomy.
Creativity in your tasks is highly desirable and something you enjoy. High levels of autonomy in your work, with minimal reliance on others. The ability to work independently without unnecessary interference or dependency. Creativity: Roles requiring creativity are enjoyable and energizing for you.
3. Variety and Change - if it’s not a lot of change all at the same time, but like planned change when working in a project based basis, or just task can be different
4. Hybrid or On-Site Work:
You prefer hybrid or on-site working environments over fully remote work.
5.Open Direct Communication:
Workplaces where colleagues and leaders communicate openly and foster collaboration are ideal.
6. Working in International Teams: - but if there is no a lot of dependency, i can work autonomously and just hang out with them, cause i feell like this way more accepted and understood.
You’ve successfully worked with international teams and clients in the past and enjoy the diversity and collaboration they bring.
7. Organize processes from scratch, how things would work and should be done, choose shystems/apps, set up rules, etc. designing systems and structures (e.g., task managers, tables) to manage workloads effectively.
8. Being Informative and Helpful: While not naturally persuasive, you excelled at providing clear and accurate information to customers, aligning with your preference for honesty and clarity.
Willing to bear with this but when there are right conditions for that:
0. Bureaucracy - papers, following rules etc. if they make sense only
Bureaucratic tasks are tolerable as long as they don’t dominate the job (less than 1/3 of the workload). You struggled with administrative tasks like sending closing documents and invoices, procrastinating and feeling miserable while doing them, cause I didn’t understand why we had them and why it’s important to send them, what’s the point. Also I hated that I spend so much time for them, and that I needed to develop some sorts of system.
1. Turning Implicit Knowledge into Explicit Knowledge - when colleagues are willing to share and approachable
Description: You excel at extracting knowledge from approachable colleagues and transforming it into clear instructions, FAQs, or documentation.
Examples: Creating guides and FAQs for ticketing systems or customer support processes.
Why It’s Bearable: The task aligns with your strengths in organizing and simplifying information.
2. Talking to Strangers and Building Confidence - when I have energy to talk to them
Description: While initially challenging, interacting with strangers (e.g., customers, clients) became bearable and even confidence-boosting with practice.
Examples: Calling customers in sales or support roles, or approaching strangers to sell products.
Why It’s Bearable: Over time, you developed a belief in your ability to connect with people and communicate effectively.
3. Physical Work Paired with Liked Products - also when I have energy for that
Description: Physically demanding jobs (e.g., standing for long hours) became manageable when you liked the product or environment.
Examples: Selling ice cream at festivals, enduring long shifts because the ice cream was tasty and enjoyable.
Why It’s Bearable: Positive associations with the product and environment made the physical demands more tolerable.
4. Resourcefulness, when I have energy and when I like and believe in product/company: Your ability to creatively reframe mundane tasks (like imagining fabric threads as "creatures") reflects your ability to turn discomfort into productivity.
5. I can endure a lot out of financial necessity - only at most harsh situations
Description: When financial needs were pressing, you endured difficult conditions (e.g., physical strain, long hours, low pay).
Examples: Continuing in roles despite stress or low wages because you needed the money.
Why It’s Bearable: Financial survival provided a clear and meaningful reason to persist.
Key Contextual Factors for Bearability
What Makes a Role Bearable:
1. Lack of Meaning and Belief in the Work
Description: When the work lacks purpose or doesn’t align with your values, it becomes unbearable.
Examples: Selling subscriptions or services you didn’t believe in, working on products or missions you found meaningless.
Impact: This is consistently your primary reason for disengaging or leaving roles.
2. Lack of Transparency and Honesty
Description: Environments that involve lying, deception, or unclear explanations (e.g., why rules exist or processes are structured a certain way).
Examples: Being asked to deceive customers, or when rules and policies seemed arbitrary and non-adaptive.
Impact: This undermines your sense of integrity and creates frustration.
3. Implicit Communication and Lack of Clarity
Description: Workplaces with unclear expectations, implicit knowledge, or a lack of explicit information and support.
Examples: Colleagues unwilling to answer your questions, unclear processes, or leadership failing to provide direction.
Impact: This causes confusion, stress, and a sense of inadequacy, making it difficult to succeed.
4. Inability to Work Independently
Description: Roles where you’re forced to rely on others for knowledge or support, especially when they’re unhelpful or unwilling to cooperate.
Examples: Struggling with toxic or uncooperative colleagues, or having to depend on poorly communicated knowledge.
Impact: This erodes your confidence and ability to perform.
5. Pushy or Stressful Corporate Environments
Description: High-pressure, competitive, or overly demanding environments with tight deadlines and a "do more, faster" mentality.
Examples: Pushy sales cultures, open office spaces, or toxic corporate dynamics.
Impact: These environments drain you emotionally and physically, reducing your productivity and motivation.
6. Physical Discomfort and Exhaustion
Description: Physically taxing roles (e.g., standing for long hours, working late nights) or roles in extreme conditions (e.g., heat, cold).
Examples: Working late shifts, standing at kiosks, or dealing with Moscow's summer heat.
Impact: While you can endure these temporarily for financial reasons, they ultimately cause dissatisfaction and health concerns.
7. Rigid Rules and Policies
Description: Arbitrary or non-adaptive rules that don’t make sense or fail to accommodate individual needs.
Examples: Being sent home to change because of a dress code, or inflexible workplace policies.
Impact: This feels unnecessary and stifling, creating resentment toward management or the workplace.
Key Takeaways for Future Roles
Meaning and Purpose: You need roles where the mission, product, or work aligns with your values and provides a clear sense of purpose.
Transparent Communication: Environments with clear, honest, and supportive communication are critical for your success and satisfaction.
Autonomy: You thrive in roles where you can work independently without excessive reliance on uncooperative colleagues or implicit knowledge.
Supportive Environment: Collaborative, non-competitive, and non-pushy environments with realistic deadlines help you perform your best.
Fair Policies: Flexible and logical rules make you feel respected and motivated to contribute.
Let me know if you’d like me to use this analysis to recommend specific career paths or strategies to avoid these pain points in the future!
Completely Intolerable (What You Cannot Bear in a Job), Non-Negotiables (What You Need in a Job)
1. No Work-Life Balance + Night and Evening Shifts: → I can also create a work-life imbalance myself pretty easily (like putting to much stress and expectations to myself, also not managing my concentration well, and working in a prolonged way, not efficient)
Clear boundaries between work and personal life are essential to your well-being. Lack of Work-Life Balance: Overwork or jobs that invade personal time are intolerable and detrimental to your well-being. Work-Life Balance: Clear boundaries between work and rest time. A fixed schedule with defined working hours during weekdays, preferably in the morning and daytime. No interruptions during rest time or outside of work hours. Normal weekends without work obligationsUndefined SchedulesCompletely flexible hours without a fixed routine would cause stress and dissatisfaction.
1. No Clear Leadership + Rigid and Closed Hierarchies:
Prefer a leadership style that is open, approachable, and seeks feedback.
Strong aversion to rigid, top-down hierarchies where communication with higher-ups is closed or difficult.
Hierarchies that don’t allow for feedback or engagement with leadership are unappealing.
Defining Client Needs:
Success was dependent on clients’ clarity about their goals and their willingness to answer your questions. Ambiguous or unclear requirements made your work harder.
1. Unfair Compensation:
Competitive pay that supports your needs and reflects your skills and contributions is crucial for long-term satisfaction. Low Pay: While you can endure low pay for a year, you expect a competitive salary that aligns with market standards to meet your financial needs and support your goals. Stress in Money Discussions: Negotiating payments and discussing money caused significant stress, especially when under financial pressure.
1. Highly Routine Work + Overly Bureaucratic Workloads + or I do something that I don’t believe in and don’t understand and it seems very stupid and highl inefficient and highly time consuming:
Mundane, unchanging tasks with little variation or creativity would lead to frustration, especially after the first 6–12 months.
If bureaucratic tasks dominate your role, it would lead to frustration and disengagement.
I hated doing closing documents, like invoices for vacancies publication in m job. You struggled with administrative tasks like sending closing documents and invoices, procrastinating and feeling miserable while doing them, cause I didn’t understand why we had them and why it’s important to send them, what’s the point. Also I hated that I spend so much time for them, and that I needed to develop some sorts of system.
1. Multi-Project Work in Pushy Environments (When someone hurry me up):
Simultaneously managing many projects in a high-pressure, fast-paced environment is draining and stressful for you. Overlapping Roles: You were expected to handle both account management and project management, resulting in unclear boundaries and overwhelming responsibilities. Fast-Paced, High Expectations: The rapid learning curve and immediate workload left little room for mistakes or gradual adaptation, which felt overwhelming.
1. Feeling criticized for not meeting expectations or being perceived as not effective. Being critiqued by superiors for not meeting subjective or unclear expectations. Criticism:
Negative feedback from your boss about tasks that I do not do perfectly, or what I do wrongly, and then tasks where I’ve been not honest. Difficulty handling this feedback, especially when it impacted your pride. Criticism—whether from clients or bosses—took a toll on your confidence and emotional well-being. Being critiqued for not being proactive enough was demotivating and frustrating. Although you endured it, the criticism negatively affected your morale. The conflict with your boss, particularly the yelling and criticism, was unbearable and contributed significantly to your decision to leave.
1. Lack of Autonomy:
No freedom to create your own projects or take initiative.
Being forced to push externally imposed goals onto others without clear reasoning or mutual agreement.
1. Lack of Transparency & Be forced to lie & Top-Down Leadership + Not involvement in decision-making process:
Resistance to unclear, unexplained orders and lack of transparency. Lack of Autonomy in Decisions: You struggled with bad decisions made by others and felt frustrated when things weren’t handled the way you thought they should be. Being excluded from decision-making processes caused stress and dissatisfaction. Being asked to lie to customers/subordinates conflicted with your values and was a major reason for leaving. + The deceptive and cumbersome renewal and purchasing process frustrated you, as it clashed with your values of transparency and fairness.
1. Disconnection from Purpose: Tasks that felt disconnected from a meaningful goal (e.g., following unrelated partner demands or resolving short-term logistics) were unmotivating. Misalignment with Goals: You initially joined the company with the hope of working in a CSR-related role but found the sales position misaligned with your goals and values. → do not lie myself on what I truly want and what truly motivates me in going where I go. Lack of Purpose: Selling subscriptions didn’t feel meaningful or justified, making it hard for you to engage with the work. Once the collaborative, supportive environment with colleagues disappeared during COVID, the role lost much of its appeal. The product itself didn’t align with your personal interests or sense of purpose, leading to disengagement.
1. Bad onboarding, lack of onboarding basically + people with implicit knowledge that not willing to share and support + not time for onboarding, just put right away into a stressful high pacing envrionment
Lack of Industry Knowledge: You entered the role without prior understanding of corporate gifting, design, or project management specifics, which made adaptation challenging. No structured onboarding or resources were provided, leaving you to rely on implicit knowledge from your boss, which added stress. Lack of Guidance: You struggled with insufficient support and explicit knowledge, feeling unprepared and unsupported in your role.
1. Competition and toxicity among colleagues made the workplace emotionally draining. Toxic Workplace Environment: Colleagues were uncooperative, stressed, and hesitant to share knowledge, making collaboration difficult. Conflicts with colleagues, including your own involvement in some, created additional stress.
1. Sensory Overload: The noisy, open-office environment was especially challenging for you due to sensory sensitivities.
1. High expectations, perfectionism and if bosses also have very high demands; High Expectations and Procrastination, aka perfectionism when I do things very slowly: Your perfectionism combined with the pushy demands of your boss led to procrastination and exhaustion. You struggled with completing tasks quickly, which added to the pressure. + Working with someone you knew personally (your boss) created additional tension, especially when conflicts and criticism arose.
1. Technical Frustrations + Heat and Physical Discomfort:
An overworked computer and slow software made it difficult to work efficiently, causing significant stress.
The extreme summer heat in Moscow compounded your stress and reduced your focus.
Poor tools, unclear instructions, or cumbersome systems make it harder to perform effectively, leading to stress and frustration. Illogical and Flawed Systems: The ticketing system had numerous bugs and inconsistencies, which added frustration and made your work unnecessarily difficult.
1. Delegation Difficulties:
Attempting to delegate tasks didn’t go well, highlighting your preference for maintaining control over your work.
Tolerable (What You Can Bear, But Don’t Prefer)
2. Deadline Management:
While you appreciated setting your own deadlines, managing them effectively remained a challenge.
2. Problem-Solving, Resilience, Grit, Терпение, Preserverence, Не сдаюсь, Persistance: You were good at resolving issues and guiding people, even in a high-stress environment. Temporary stressful situations, where I can quickly gather myself together and do, I can deal quite good with stress, but it then affects me pretty hard so I need time to destress and restore after them → in very rare cases, do not want this actually, and probably not good at tolerating, and restoring at it
2. Flexible Work Hours but not very and not for long:
While you can endure flexible schedules, you prefer a structured routine.
2. Remote Work:
Although remote work isn’t your favorite, you can manage it if needed.
2. Lack of Benefits:
Company benefits are not crucial for you and don’t heavily influence your job satisfaction
2. Instability, not secure financing, not secure in terms of employment type etc:
You prefer stable employment with clear responsibilities and long-term job security. Lack of Job Security: Contract-based or freelance work without stability is bearable short-term but becomes increasingly difficult over time as you prioritize financial and professional security.
2. Frequent Work Travel:
Occasional travel (once a month) is manageable, but frequent travel (e.g., weekly) would be exhausting and unsustainable for you
2. Emotional labor when I don’t feel like, don’t have enough energy (forced energy, positivity, or engagement).
2. Diversity Challenges:
Navigating different accents, backgrounds, and disabilities required patience and tolerance.
While you managed, it added emotional and cognitive effort.
2. Externalities and Partnerships:
Frustration with dealing with tasks unrelated to the core purpose of the project (e.g., accommodating partner demands).
2. Need to wait — sometimes it’s really hard for me to wait
2. Hard for me to do tasks, when I don’t know how to do them, especially all social tasks — e.g. cald calling, i didn’t know what kind of words/phrases to use to be effective → I procrastinate, and can’t ask questions for some reason before at least, right now I hope I can ask and realise that I don’t know hopw tp do it and I can ask and double check how they want me to accomplish this kind of tasks that new for me
What Breaks Bearability:
Next Steps to Align Your Career Choices
Search for Roles with Structured Schedules:
Target jobs with fixed weekday hours, normal weekends, and clear expectations about work-life boundaries.
Seek Creative and Autonomous Work:
Look for roles with opportunities to apply creativity, problem-solving, and independent work.
Consider Hybrid Roles:
Prioritize positions with hybrid work arrangements or on-site options to avoid isolation.
Avoid Roles with High Ambiguity or Weak Leadership:
Choose companies with clear leadership structures and approachable management styles that foster open communication.
Focus on Work That Brings Meaning:
Ensure the organization’s mission and your role align with your values and long-term goals.
1. Promoter (Startup selling clothes)
Tasks: Distribute flyers, engage strangers, appear energized and welcoming.
Pains:
Difficulty determining the "right" person to engage with (judgment-related stress).
Maintaining an outwardly happy and energized demeanor (emotional labor).
Feeling criticized for not meeting expectations or being perceived as not effective.
Strengths:
You weren’t afraid to approach strangers, showing resilience and adaptability.
You endured the discomfort, even though it wasn’t a natural fit for your personality or skills.
2. Salesperson (Phones, SIM cards in airports/shopping malls)
Tasks: Engage with strangers to sell products, distribute flyers, and initiate conversations.
Pains:
Similar stress around deciding whom to approach and feeling criticized for making the “wrong” choices.
Being critiqued by superiors for not meeting subjective or unclear expectations.
Selling and self-promotion were tasks you could do but didn’t align with your strengths or passion.
Strengths:
You overcame shyness or discomfort to perform the job, demonstrating grit and a willingness to push yourself.
Despite not being a natural salesperson, you could interact with strangers effectively.
Emerging Themes So Far:
Pain Points:
Emotional labor (forced energy, positivity, or engagement).
Feeling judged or critiqued for subjective decisions (like choosing who to engage).
Lack of alignment between tasks (e.g., sales) and your intrinsic skills/interests.
Strengths:
You’re resilient in challenging roles, even those outside your comfort zone.
You have the capacity to engage strangers despite initial discomfort.
3. Volunteer Role (NGO)
Tasks: Implement goals, manage subordinates, work with diverse populations, deal with partners' demands.
Pains:
Lack of Autonomy:
No freedom to create your own projects or take initiative.
Being forced to push externally imposed goals onto others without clear reasoning or mutual agreement.
Externalities and Partnerships:
Frustration with dealing with tasks unrelated to the core purpose of the project (e.g., accommodating partner demands).
Diversity Challenges:
Navigating different accents, backgrounds, and disabilities required patience and tolerance.
While you managed, it added emotional and cognitive effort.
Top-Down Leadership:
Resistance to unclear, unexplained orders and lack of transparency.
Strengths:
You stayed calm and tolerant, even in challenging interactions with diverse groups.
You had the drive to question and critique structures that didn’t make sense or align with your values (autonomy and purpose).
Despite frustrations, you could manage subordinates and implement goals effectively.
Emerging Themes from All Three Roles:
Pain Points:
Lack of autonomy and creative freedom.
Emotional labor in managing people or engaging with strangers.
Resistance to tasks misaligned with the project’s core purpose or your own principles.
Criticism or top-down directives without clear explanations.
Strengths:
You’re resilient in navigating discomfort, whether it’s social (approaching strangers), managerial (leading subordinates), or logistical (partner demands).
You excel in roles where purpose and clarity are present, and you have the freedom to create.
You demonstrate tolerance and adaptability in diverse, challenging environments.
4. Hostel Administrator
Tasks: Cleaning, managing bookings, answering calls, handling guest needs, maintaining the snack shop, ironing/folding linens.
Pains:
Criticism:
Negative feedback from your boss about tasks like ironing/folding linens perfectly or issues with honesty (e.g., eating snacks without paying).
Difficulty handling this feedback, especially when it impacted your pride.
Repetitive and Mundane Work:
Cleaning and ironing weren’t naturally enjoyable for you, although you endured by creating routines and imaginative narratives to make tasks more engaging.
Emotional Labor:
Staying polite and responsive while managing calls and guest needs, which required constant emotional regulation.
Strengths:
Resilience: Despite not being naturally skilled or passionate about tasks like cleaning, you developed strategies (e.g., imaginative thinking, routines) to complete them.
Adaptability: You managed multiple responsibilities (cleaning, bookings, guest interaction) and handled them adequately, even in less-than-ideal circumstances.
Resourcefulness: Your ability to creatively reframe mundane tasks (like imagining fabric threads as "creatures") reflects your ability to turn discomfort into productivity.
Emerging Themes Across All Four Roles:
Pain Points:
Lack of Creative Freedom: When roles were overly prescriptive (e.g., NGO goals, hostel routines), you struggled with feeling stifled or unmotivated.
Criticism and Feedback: Receiving negative feedback, especially without understanding or support, was emotionally taxing for you.
Emotional Labor: Jobs requiring constant politeness, energy, or engagement with strangers/guests drained you, even if you could manage them.
Misaligned Tasks: Repetitive or mundane tasks (e.g., cleaning, ironing) weren’t fulfilling but were tolerated when framed creatively.
Strengths:
Resilience: You consistently endured challenging or misaligned roles, finding ways to push through discomfort.
Creativity: You reframe tedious tasks and find imaginative ways to stay motivated.
Adaptability: You succeed in diverse, often unrelated roles by quickly learning and applying new skills.
Curiosity and Structure: When given autonomy (e.g., managing bookings), you excel at creating order and finding meaning.
5. Transportation Company (Call Center Co-Manager)
Tasks: Managing night and evening shifts, connecting drivers with clients, explaining logistics in multiple languages, handling negative emotions from customers, learning software and company procedures.
Pains:
Emotional Strain:
Handling negative feedback and personal attacks from stressed customers was challenging.
Internalizing criticism that was directed at the company felt personal and caused significant stress.
Night Shifts:
While younger energy helped you manage, working irregular hours was physically and mentally taxing.
Pressure of Coordination:
Balancing the demands of both drivers and clients required quick thinking and multitasking, which added stress in high-pressure moments.
Strengths:
Quick Learning: You adapted rapidly to understanding company processes, software, and car-related logistics.
Multilingual Communication: Switching between Russian and English allowed you to bridge gaps and effectively manage diverse customer needs.
Problem-Solving: You were good at resolving issues and guiding people, even in a high-stress environment.
Resilience: Despite emotional challenges and long hours, you pushed through and completed your responsibilities.
Emerging Themes Across All Five Roles:
Pain Points:
Emotional Overload: Whether dealing with strangers, subordinates, or customers, you found it difficult to handle criticism or frustration directed at you personally.
Lack of Autonomy: Roles with rigid structures or repetitive tasks (e.g., cleaning, following strict protocols) didn’t align with your strengths.
Disconnection from Purpose: Tasks that felt disconnected from a meaningful goal (e.g., following unrelated partner demands or resolving short-term logistics) were unmotivating.
Strengths:
Adaptability: You excel in learning new systems, understanding procedures, and applying knowledge quickly.
Multilingual Skills: Your ability to communicate effectively in multiple languages is a key strength, especially in high-pressure roles.
Resilience: Despite emotional and logistical challenges, you consistently endure and perform.
Creative Thinking: When allowed autonomy, you thrive by organizing, reframing, and solving problems creatively.
6. IT Company (Account Manager for Career Portal)
Tasks: Managing client accounts, handling client inquiries and emotions, assisting in decision-making for the job portal project, and organizing workflows (e.g., creating task systems, tables).
Pains:
Lack of Autonomy in Decisions:
You struggled with bad decisions made by others and felt frustrated when things weren’t handled the way you thought they should be.
Being excluded from decision-making processes caused stress and dissatisfaction.
Interpersonal Conflicts:
Miscommunication with coworkers and managing negative client emotions were emotionally draining.
Taking negative feedback personally, to the point of crying, added to your stress.
Organizational Challenges:
While you excelled at creating organizational systems, the pressure to keep everything running smoothly created its own challenges.
Strengths:
Proactive Problem-Solving: Your complaints about ineffective decisions led to being entrusted with more autonomy and responsibility (e.g., becoming a project manager for your own project).
Organizational Skills: You excelled at designing systems and structures (e.g., task managers, tables) to manage workloads effectively.
Resilience and Adaptability: Despite emotional challenges and interpersonal struggles, you maintained professionalism and delivered results.
Emerging Themes Across All Six Roles:
Pain Points:
Autonomy and Decision-Making: A recurring frustration is being excluded from decisions or feeling that decisions were poorly made. You find it difficult to endure when others’ choices don’t align with your standards or logic.
Emotional Labor: Managing negative emotions (whether from clients, customers, or coworkers) takes a toll on you, especially when criticism feels personal.
Interpersonal Challenges: Miscommunication with coworkers or being at odds with management creates tension and dissatisfaction.
Misalignment with Core Values: You dislike tasks or structures that don’t align with your sense of purpose, efficiency, or fairness.
Strengths:
Proactive Leadership: You naturally push for better outcomes, even if it means challenging authority, and you thrive when trusted with responsibility.
Organizational Excellence: You consistently demonstrate strong skills in structuring workflows and creating systems to manage complexity.
Adaptability: Across roles and industries, you quickly learn, adjust, and deliver results, even under stressful conditions.
Drive for Improvement: Whether in processes, decisions, or interactions, you are motivated to improve situations and push for alignment with values and goals.
7. IT Company (Project Manager for Career Portal)
Tasks: Managing subordinate relationships, liaising with IT for feature development, working with a demanding boss in a fast-paced environment, balancing personal life with professional demands.
Pains:
Conflict Resolution:
Dealing with interpersonal conflicts between subordinates was emotionally taxing.
Firing someone you were friends with was especially difficult and left a lasting negative impact.
Unmet Expectations:
Frustration with IT feature requests being delayed or ignored.
Lack of understanding of how IT development worked initially exacerbated the stress.
Burnout:
High expectations, fast pace, and working through personal events (e.g., during a wedding) led to burnout.
Ultimately, you felt disconnected from the purpose of the work and resigned.
Strengths:
Growth and Adaptation: Working with the CTO helped you gain insight into IT development processes, demonstrating your ability to learn and adapt.
Perseverance: Despite emotional challenges, you continued to push through and perform your duties until burnout became overwhelming.
Additional Reflections on Account Manager Role
Invoicing and Documentation:
You struggled with administrative tasks like sending closing documents and invoices, procrastinating and feeling miserable while doing them.
Eventually, you developed a system, showing some improvement, but the workload left you drained and unmotivated.
Emerging Themes Across All Roles
Pain Points:
Interpersonal and Emotional Strain:
Handling conflicts (e.g., subordinates clashing, client negativity) was emotionally draining and sometimes overwhelming.
Criticism, especially when perceived as personal, affected your confidence and resilience.
Lack of Purpose or Autonomy:
Feeling disconnected from the work’s purpose or dealing with delays and unmet expectations (e.g., IT feature requests) led to frustration and burnout.
Roles with rigid structures, unclear goals, or a lack of creative freedom were demotivating for you.
Administrative Tasks:
Repetitive tasks like invoicing, documentation, and follow-ups were particularly difficult for you, leading to procrastination and dissatisfaction.
Burnout from Overwork:
High-pressure environments with demanding bosses and blurred work-life boundaries left you exhausted.
Strengths:
Adaptability and Learning: You consistently learned and improved, even in challenging environments (e.g., understanding IT processes, developing organizational systems).
Proactive Leadership: You excel in roles where you can take initiative, influence decisions, and improve processes.
Creative Problem-Solving: When given autonomy, you thrive by creating systems, structures, and solutions that align with your goals.
Resilience: Despite emotional and logistical challenges, you pushed through and delivered results, even when tasks didn’t align with your strengths.
Summary of Recurring Themes
You thrive when:
You have autonomy, creative freedom, and a clear purpose in your role.
You can organize and structure tasks in ways that make sense to you.
Your work involves meaningful connection to goals, people, or values.
You struggle when:
Tasks are repetitive, overly rigid, or disconnected from a clear purpose.
You face interpersonal conflicts or must handle significant emotional labor.
Criticism feels personal, or decision-making is out of your control.
Work pressures overwhelm your work-life balance, leading to burnout.
Would you like me to refine this further or start mapping it to possible career pathways and ideal roles for you?
Here’s an updated breakdown of your Project Manager role, now including the additional challenges you faced, followed by a refined synthesis of recurring themes across all roles.
7. IT Company (Project Manager for Career Portal) – Updated
Tasks: Calling unfamiliar people, managing subordinates, liaising with IT, handling administrative work, and maintaining pace in a high-demand environment.
Additional Pains:
Cold Calling:
Making calls to strangers caused significant stress and procrastination.
Although you managed to complete the tasks, it was slow and emotionally draining.
Physical and Emotional Burnout:
Long work hours and staying at the office late into the night, combined with poor sleep and eating habits, led to weight gain and serious stress.
The intensity of the work environment eroded your mental and physical health over time.
Strengths (reiterated):
You pushed through difficult tasks (e.g., cold calling) despite high stress.
You maintained professionalism and adaptability, even under immense pressure.
Refined Recurring Themes Across All Roles
Pain Points:
Emotional Labor and Criticism:
Handling negative emotions from clients, subordinates, and coworkers often felt overwhelming.
Criticism—whether from clients or bosses—took a toll on your confidence and emotional well-being.
Burnout from Overwork:
Long hours, high expectations, and an inability to disconnect from work contributed to burnout (e.g., working during personal events, staying late).
Poor work-life balance affected your physical health (e.g., weight gain, poor sleep).
Repetitive and Unaligned Tasks:
Administrative work (e.g., invoices, documentation) felt draining and uninspiring, leading to procrastination.
Tasks that didn’t align with your strengths or values (e.g., cold calling, rigid processes) caused stress and disengagement.
Lack of Autonomy or Purpose:
Being excluded from decision-making or stuck in rigid structures left you feeling frustrated and disconnected from your work’s meaning.
Misaligned goals or unclear directions further exacerbated dissatisfaction.
Strengths:
Resilience and Adaptability:
Despite emotional, physical, and logistical challenges, you consistently delivered results and pushed through discomfort.
Proactive Leadership:
You thrive when trusted with responsibility and autonomy, especially in roles that allow you to organize, improve processes, and lead projects.
Organizational Skills:
You excel in creating systems and structures to manage tasks and workflows, even under stress.
Creative Problem-Solving:
You enjoy improving processes and aligning them with meaningful goals, making you effective in dynamic roles where creativity is valued.
General Observations:
When You Thrive:
Autonomy, creativity, and alignment with your values energize you.
Opportunities to structure, facilitate, and problem-solve play to your strengths.
Work that involves purposeful connection (e.g., facilitation, organizing events or projects) is fulfilling.
When You Struggle:
Repetitive, low-autonomy tasks or environments with unclear goals frustrate you.
Emotional labor (e.g., dealing with negativity, conflicts) drains you over time.
Lack of work-life balance or overly demanding roles can lead to burnout and health issues.
8. Corporate Gifts Startup (Account Manager/Project Manager)
Tasks: Selling, ideating, and developing corporate gift projects; managing client relationships; organizing purchases and project execution.
Pains:
Lack of Industry Knowledge:
You entered the role without prior understanding of corporate gifting, design, or project management specifics, which made adaptation challenging.
No structured onboarding or resources were provided, leaving you to rely on implicit knowledge from your boss, which added stress.
Overlapping Roles:
You were expected to handle both account management and project management, resulting in unclear boundaries and overwhelming responsibilities.
Fast-Paced, High Expectations:
The rapid learning curve and immediate workload left little room for mistakes or gradual adaptation, which felt overwhelming.
Lack of Guidance:
You struggled with insufficient support and explicit knowledge, feeling unprepared and unsupported in your role.
Strengths:
Adaptability: Despite limited resources and support, you took on the challenge and attempted to learn and manage projects.
Problem-Solving: You tried to make sense of a chaotic environment and navigate implicit knowledge to execute tasks.
Emerging Themes Across All Roles
Pain Points:
Lack of Clarity or Support:
Jobs where onboarding, guidance, or explicit resources are absent create significant stress.
Implicit knowledge in managers’ heads leaves you feeling unprepared and unsupported.
Overlapping or Ambiguous Roles:
Positions that combine multiple functions (e.g., account and project management) with unclear boundaries lead to overwhelm.
Emotional Strain:
Handling stress from steep learning curves, high expectations, or personal criticism creates lasting dissatisfaction and burnout.
Disconnection from Purpose:
Roles with a lack of alignment between tasks, goals, and your strengths often result in disengagement or frustration.
Strengths:
Adaptability and Resilience:
You consistently rise to the challenge, even in unfamiliar or unsupported environments, showing grit and determination.
Quick Learner:
You absorb knowledge rapidly and take initiative, even when faced with incomplete information.
Problem-Solving Under Pressure:
You can manage projects and create solutions in fast-paced environments, even if the learning curve is steep.
Desire for Structure and Clarity:
You thrive in environments where expectations are clear, resources are provided, and systems are structured, as this aligns with your organizational skills.
8. Corporate Gifts Startup (Account Manager/Project Manager)
Tasks: Selling, ideating, and developing corporate gift projects; managing client relationships; organizing purchases and project execution.
Pains:
Lack of Industry Knowledge:
You entered the role without prior understanding of corporate gifting, design, or project management specifics, which made adaptation challenging.
No structured onboarding or resources were provided, leaving you to rely on implicit knowledge from your boss, which added stress.
Overlapping Roles:
You were expected to handle both account management and project management, resulting in unclear boundaries and overwhelming responsibilities.
Fast-Paced, High Expectations:
The rapid learning curve and immediate workload left little room for mistakes or gradual adaptation, which felt overwhelming.
Lack of Guidance:
You struggled with insufficient support and explicit knowledge, feeling unprepared and unsupported in your role.
Strengths:
Adaptability: Despite limited resources and support, you took on the challenge and attempted to learn and manage projects.
Problem-Solving: You tried to make sense of a chaotic environment and navigate implicit knowledge to execute tasks.
Emerging Themes Across All Roles
Pain Points:
Lack of Clarity or Support:
Jobs where onboarding, guidance, or explicit resources are absent create significant stress.
Implicit knowledge in managers’ heads leaves you feeling unprepared and unsupported.
Overlapping or Ambiguous Roles:
Positions that combine multiple functions (e.g., account and project management) with unclear boundaries lead to overwhelm.
Emotional Strain:
Handling stress from steep learning curves, high expectations, or personal criticism creates lasting dissatisfaction and burnout.
Disconnection from Purpose:
Roles with a lack of alignment between tasks, goals, and your strengths often result in disengagement or frustration.
Strengths:
Adaptability and Resilience:
You consistently rise to the challenge, even in unfamiliar or unsupported environments, showing grit and determination.
Quick Learner:
You absorb knowledge rapidly and take initiative, even when faced with incomplete information.
Problem-Solving Under Pressure:
You can manage projects and create solutions in fast-paced environments, even if the learning curve is steep.
Desire for Structure and Clarity:
You thrive in environments where expectations are clear, resources are provided, and systems are structured, as this aligns with your organizational skills
9. Ice Cream Seller (Festival Stall in St. Petersburg)
Tasks: Selling ice cream, engaging with strangers to attract them to the stall, explaining flavors, giving tastings, handling money, and working in outdoor conditions.
Pains:
Criticism:
Being critiqued for not being proactive enough was demotivating and frustrating.
Although you endured it, the criticism negatively affected your morale.
Physical and Environmental Challenges:
Standing and working in cold, rainy weather during the summer in St. Petersburg was physically taxing.
Long commutes (walking to and from the job) added to the hardship, especially given financial constraints.
Repetitive and Boring Work:
The work itself lacked stimulation, as it involved repetitive tasks like serving and explaining the product.
Strengths:
Resilience: Despite the challenges, you endured and performed the role because you needed the job and liked the product.
Adaptability: You managed money handling and customer interactions, even in an unstimulating and physically demanding environment.
Connection to Product: Your enjoyment of the product itself (its taste and look) helped you stay motivated and endure the difficulties.
Emerging Themes Across All Roles (Updated)
Pain Points:
Criticism and Emotional Labor:
Criticism, especially when not constructive, affects your confidence and motivation.
Roles requiring frequent engagement with strangers or emotional labor are draining, particularly when paired with criticism.
Physical or Environmental Hardship:
Physically taxing environments (e.g., long commutes, standing in the cold) are challenging but bearable when paired with other motivating factors.
Repetitive or Low-Stimulation Work:
Jobs that are monotonous or lack creativity fail to engage your strengths and lead to dissatisfaction.
Financial Stress:
Roles where financial constraints amplify challenges (e.g., commuting costs, survival needs) create additional pressure and reduce bearability.
Strengths:
Resilience Under Pressure:
You consistently endure difficult environments when driven by necessity or intrinsic motivation.
Connection to Meaning or Product:
Your ability to stay motivated increases significantly when you genuinely enjoy or value the product or purpose of the work.
Adaptability:
You adapt to unfamiliar or difficult roles, learning necessary tasks (e.g., handling money, engaging strangers) even when they’re outside your comfort zone.
Drive for Purpose and Creativity:
You thrive when there’s a meaningful connection to the work and opportunities for creativity or autonomy.
10. Telecom Company (SIM Card Sales)
Tasks: Selling SIM cards, engaging with strangers, providing information, performing basic operations for customers, and meeting sales targets.
Pains:
Physical Strain:
Standing for long hours caused knee issues and fatigue.
Working in cold conditions (next to doors in winter) made you sick frequently, adding to the physical toll.
Ethical Concerns:
Being asked to lie to customers conflicted with your values and was a major reason for leaving.
Toxic Work Environment:
Competition and toxicity among colleagues made the workplace emotionally draining.
Limited Growth Opportunities:
The lack of career advancement or meaningful challenges made the role feel temporary and uninspiring.
Night Hours:
Irregular hours contributed to health concerns and reduced job satisfaction.
Strengths:
Informative and Helpful: While not naturally persuasive, you excelled at providing clear and accurate information to customers, aligning with your preference for honesty and clarity.
Adaptability: You learned the necessary skills during the adaptation period and approached the role with resilience despite its challenges.
Persistence: Despite hesitating to talk to strangers, you pushed through and tried, showing determination.
11. Brief Job as Calling Agent (Acknowledged)
You’ve noted that this role was particularly disliked, and you’ll elaborate later.
Updated Emerging Themes Across All Roles
Pain Points:
Physical Strain and Health Concerns:
Physically demanding roles (e.g., standing for long hours, working in cold conditions) have consistently taken a toll on your health.
Conflict with Personal Values:
Ethical dilemmas, such as being asked to lie to customers, are a significant source of dissatisfaction and lead to disengagement.
Toxic or Unpleasant Work Environments:
Competitive, uncooperative, or toxic workplace dynamics (e.g., with colleagues) are emotionally draining and a recurring reason for leaving roles.
Repetitive or Uninspiring Tasks:
Roles lacking creativity, growth opportunities, or alignment with your values tend to feel temporary or unfulfilling.
Strengths:
Honesty and Informative Approach:
You thrive in roles where you can provide clarity and helpful information rather than relying on manipulation or persuasion.
Resilience and Adaptability:
You consistently endure challenging environments and learn quickly during adaptation periods, even when roles are misaligned with your skills or preferences.
Preference for Meaning and Growth:
You value jobs where there’s potential for learning, growth, and alignment with your values and strengths, even in temporary or part-time positions.
11. Internet Marketplace (Sales Agent)
Tasks: Selling subscriptions or services to small businesses via phone calls in a high-pressure, open-office environment.
Pains:
Pushy, High-Pressure Environment:
The emphasis on constant calling and sales quotas created a stressful atmosphere that felt overwhelming.
Sensory Overload:
The noisy, open-office environment was especially challenging for you due to sensory sensitivities.
Misalignment with Goals:
You initially joined the company with the hope of working in a CSR-related role but found the sales position misaligned with your goals and values.
Lack of Purpose:
Selling subscriptions didn’t feel meaningful or justified, making it hard for you to engage with the work.
Strengths:
Clarity of Self-Awareness: You quickly recognized the misalignment between the job and your strengths, goals, and values and made the decision to leave.
Adaptability: You endured the role briefly despite the overwhelming environment, demonstrating resilience in a challenging situation.
Updated Emerging Themes Across All Roles
Pain Points:
Sensory Overload:
Noisy or chaotic environments, especially in open offices or customer-facing roles, are particularly challenging due to your sensitivity as an autistic individual.
Misalignment with Values or Goals:
Roles that lack a clear purpose, ethical alignment, or connection to your personal goals (e.g., CSR aspirations) are deeply dissatisfying.
Emotional and Social Strain:
High-pressure, pushy atmospheres and competitive or toxic colleagues contribute to emotional fatigue and disengagement.
Physical or Environmental Challenges:
Physically enduring roles or roles in uncomfortable environments (e.g., cold weather, standing for long hours) negatively affect your experience.
Repetitive or Rigid Tasks:
Jobs lacking variety, creativity, or opportunities for meaningful problem-solving are uninspiring and difficult for you to sustain.
Strengths:
Self-Awareness and Alignment:
You have a strong sense of when a role aligns with your values and goals and are willing to step away from situations that don’t serve you.
Adaptability Under Pressure:
Even in misaligned roles, you push through and adapt to challenges temporarily, demonstrating resilience.
Clarity and Honesty:
You value meaningful communication, ethical practices, and transparency in your work, thriving in roles where these align with your strengths.
Goal-Oriented Thinking:
You are motivated by roles with clear purposes, connections to broader goals, and opportunities for creativity or growth.
12. Backup Software Company (Account Manager/Customer Success Manager)
Tasks:
Managing customer accounts and renewals.
Handling angry or dissatisfied customers, particularly around pricing, tax exemptions, and auto-renewals.
Conducting business review calls to help customers maximize product value.
Analyzing feedback from customers who canceled subscriptions.
Processing payments and subscriptions, while navigating a cumbersome renewal process.
Pains:
Ethical Concerns:
The deceptive and cumbersome renewal and purchasing process frustrated you, as it clashed with your values of transparency and fairness.
Stressful Customer Interactions:
Handling angry customers and feedback from cancellations created emotional strain.
Decline in Job Satisfaction:
Once the collaborative, supportive environment with colleagues disappeared during COVID, the role lost much of its appeal.
The product itself didn’t align with your personal interests or sense of purpose, leading to disengagement.
Strengths:
Adaptability: You quickly learned to work with a complex product and navigate customer relationships in a foreign language (English).
Problem-Solving and Feedback Utilization: You gathered and analyzed customer feedback, using it to improve processes and product usage.
Emotional Regulation: With support from a coach and therapist, you learned to manage your emotions constructively, advocating for change rather than reacting impulsively.
Team-Oriented Mindset: You thrived in a collaborative and supportive work environment, drawing strength and motivation from your colleagues.
Updated Emerging Themes Across All Roles
Pain Points:
Misalignment with Values:
Ethical conflicts (e.g., deceptive sales practices, lying to customers) consistently lead to disengagement and dissatisfaction.
Emotional Strain from Customers or Colleagues:
Dealing with angry or critical customers, as well as toxic workplace dynamics, contributes to emotional exhaustion.
Lack of Purpose or Belief in the Product:
You struggle to stay engaged when the product or mission doesn’t align with your values or interests, even if other aspects of the job are manageable.
Loss of Workplace Community:
Collaborative, supportive colleagues significantly improve your job satisfaction, while isolation or a lack of camaraderie reduces engagement.
Stressful or Repetitive Tasks:
Cumbersome processes, repetitive tasks, or roles with limited variety feel draining over time.
Strengths:
Resilience and Adaptability:
You navigate new challenges (e.g., working in English, learning complex products) with determination and persistence.
Team Collaboration:
You thrive in environments with supportive colleagues, where you can build meaningful relationships and contribute as part of a team.
Values-Driven Approach:
Your focus on fairness, transparency, and ethical practices informs how you approach work and decisions.
Problem-Solving and Analysis:
You excel at gathering, analyzing, and utilizing feedback to improve processes and outcomes.
Self-Awareness and Growth:
You’re proactive about addressing challenges through personal growth (e.g., therapy, coaching) and advocating for constructive change.
13. Education Startup (Project Manager)
Tasks: Managing corporate online course projects, coordinating processes, and working with a small team in a fast-paced environment.
Pains:
Lack of Experience and Clarity:
You were unfamiliar with managing educational courses and felt unprepared to handle the processes.
The lack of alignment with your preferred way of working added stress.
Ethical and Emotional Conflict:
You felt misaligned with the mission and realized you weren’t entirely honest with yourself or your values when taking the job.
Working with someone you knew personally (your boss) created additional tension, especially when conflicts and criticism arose.
High Expectations and Procrastination:
Your perfectionism combined with the pushy demands of your boss led to procrastination and exhaustion.
You struggled with completing tasks quickly, which added to the pressure.
Low Emotional Tolerance:
The conflict with your boss, particularly the yelling and criticism, was unbearable and contributed significantly to your decision to leave.
Strengths:
Self-Awareness: You recognized early on that the role and environment weren’t a good fit, and you made the decision to leave instead of continuing in an unhealthy situation.
Adaptability: Despite your lack of experience, you still attempted to manage the tasks and responsibilities.
Resourcefulness: Securing a credit card during this time helped you navigate financial challenges, showcasing your ability to create practical solutions in tough situations.
Updated Emerging Themes Across All Roles
Pain Points:
Ethical or Value Misalignment:
Misalignment between your personal beliefs and the organization’s mission or processes consistently leads to disengagement and dissatisfaction.
High Pressure and Perfectionism:
Pushy environments with unrealistic demands exacerbate your tendency toward perfectionism and procrastination, leading to exhaustion and burnout.
Conflict and Criticism:
Conflicts, especially with people you like or respect, are particularly hard for you to handle. Harsh criticism deeply affects your emotional state and motivation.
Lack of Clarity or Support:
Entering roles without sufficient onboarding, guidance, or alignment with your strengths creates stress and hinders your performance.
Strengths:
Self-Awareness and Boundaries:
You know when to walk away from roles that don’t align with your values or where the environment is toxic.
Adaptability and Problem-Solving:
Even in challenging roles, you find ways to endure and create practical solutions (e.g., handling tasks without experience, securing financial support).
Values-Driven Approach:
You perform best in roles that align with your passion and purpose, where you believe in the product or mission.
Emotional and Ethical Integrity:
You value fairness, honesty, and meaningful work, and you struggle in environments that compromise these values.
14. Startup for Tourist Organizations (Support Agent/Salesperson)
Tasks:
Supporting customers to find trips with tourist providers.
Encouraging customers to use the company’s services.
Pains:
Technical Frustrations:
An overworked computer and slow software made it difficult to work efficiently, causing significant stress.
Heat and Physical Discomfort:
The extreme summer heat in Moscow compounded your stress and reduced your focus.
Adaptation Struggles:
Lack of clarity about the product and inadequate onboarding left you feeling unprepared.
Misalignment with Values:
You didn’t believe in the product, which undermined your motivation.
Low Pay:
The inadequate salary didn’t justify the challenges and stress.
15. Support Agent for Acquaintance’s Company
Tasks:
Customer support for another small company from your community.
Pains:
Stressful Environment:
Adapting to the role felt overwhelming, and the stress outweighed the benefits.
Short Duration:
You left quickly due to the intensity of the role, even declining payment.
Misaligned Interests:
You lacked energy and enthusiasm for the work, further exacerbating the stress.
14. Another Remote Support Role
Tasks:
Handling incoming calls and WhatsApp messages from customers.
Pains:
Emotional and Physical Exhaustion:
Dealing with stressed and demanding customers was emotionally draining, especially when you were already low on energy.
Remote Isolation:
Lack of social connection or camaraderie with colleagues made the role less engaging and harder to endure.
Pushy Atmosphere:
High-pressure demands from the company further diminished your ability to cope with the job.
Updated Emerging Themes Across All Roles
Pain Points:
Technical and Physical Struggles:
Inefficient tools, technical issues, and physically challenging environments (e.g., extreme heat) significantly reduce your productivity and patience.
Emotional Exhaustion and Isolation:
Dealing with stressed or demanding customers without sufficient energy leads to burnout.
Remote work without social interaction or supportive colleagues feels isolating and unfulfilling.
Misalignment with Values and Interests:
Jobs lacking a meaningful connection to your values or passions fail to motivate you and increase your tendency to disengage.
Stressful Onboarding and High Expectations:
Poor adaptation processes and unclear expectations make new roles more difficult to navigate, leading to early dissatisfaction.
Strengths:
Resilience and Persistence:
Despite physical and emotional challenges, you consistently attempt to adapt and perform, even in difficult environments.
Values-Driven Approach:
You’re clear about the importance of aligning work with your interests and beliefs, and you don’t hesitate to leave roles that fail to meet this standard.
Honesty and Self-Awareness:
You’re transparent about your struggles and quick to identify when a role isn’t sustainable for you, enabling decisive action.
Efficiency and Problem-Solving:
When given proper tools and support, you excel at managing tasks and finding ways to navigate challenges.
16. Consultancy Startup (R&D and Knowledge Base Development)
Tasks:
Conducting desk research and developing a knowledge base to streamline client support processes for FinTech and IT companies.
Writing and editing documentation related to client-servicing processes.
Pains:
Communication Mismatch:
Expectations from your managers were unclear, and there was minimal explicit feedback or guidance.
Your attempts to clarify through questions annoyed your colleagues, creating further tension.
High Expectations and Deadlines:
Overworked colleagues with high standards made it hard to meet expectations.
Struggling to meet deadlines and failing to communicate effectively about delays increased stress.
Emotional Strain:
Perceived negativity from managers and colleagues led to feelings of inadequacy and exhaustion.
Conflicts at work added to your emotional toll, as you dislike workplace conflict intensely.
Monotony of Desk Research:
While not dealing with customers was a relief, the solitary nature of the work lacked the engagement and creativity you seek.
Strengths:
Skill Development:
You gained valuable insights into writing, editing, and structuring text effectively, which is a transferable skill.
Process Knowledge:
You learned a lot about client-servicing processes and streamlining operations, which adds depth to your skill set.
Adaptability:
Despite the challenges, you attempted to adapt and push through, reflecting resilience.
Updated Emerging Themes Across All Roles
Pain Points:
Communication Challenges:
Misaligned communication styles, unclear expectations, and minimal feedback create significant stress and disengagement.
Feeling undervalued or misunderstood at work affects your confidence and performance.
High Pressure and Emotional Exhaustion:
Overworked environments with high standards and tight deadlines leave you feeling drained and unmotivated, especially when paired with unclear guidance.
Conflict Aversion:
Workplace conflicts, whether with colleagues or managers, are particularly distressing and hinder your ability to thrive in a role.
Misalignment with Interests:
Roles lacking creativity, social connection, or meaningful alignment with your values fail to engage you, leading to disengagement and procrastination.
Strengths:
Skill Development and Adaptability:
You continuously learn from your roles, whether it’s refining writing and editing skills or understanding new processes and systems.
Values-Driven Approach:
You work best in environments where the mission and tasks align with your interests and values, allowing you to connect deeply with your work.
Emotional and Ethical Integrity:
You value fairness, transparency, and harmonious relationships, and these principles guide how you approach your roles.
Self-Awareness:
You recognize quickly when roles aren’t a good fit, and you’re proactive in addressing misalignments when possible.
16. Consultancy Startup (Continued)
Additional Insights:
You endured nearly a year despite struggles with communication, unclear goals, and stress.
You adapted to writing and engaging with strangers, demonstrating persistence and growth.
A major frustration was the lack of direction from leadership, which conflicted with your need for clarity and alignment in your work.
17. Freelancing (Summer 2022)
Tasks:
Freelance projects with various clients, involving self-managed tasks, deadlines, and deliverables.
Pains:
Underpayment and Overwork:
Freelancing often required late hours and intense effort, yet the pay didn’t match the workload.
Deadline Management:
While you appreciated setting your own deadlines, managing them effectively remained a challenge.
Strengths:
Autonomy and Creativity:
You thrived in choosing your projects and working independently, particularly when clients provided clear requirements.
Adaptability:
You succeeded in meeting diverse client needs, even under challenging conditions.
18. Senior Support Agent for Ticketing Systems (Autumn 2022 Onward)
Introduction:
You enjoyed the product and found it interesting, but challenges arose that you’ll expand upon next.
Updated Emerging Themes Across All Roles
Pain Points:
Lack of Direction or Leadership Clarity:
Ambiguity from leadership about organizational goals or role expectations creates confusion and disengagement.
Overwork and Emotional Strain:
Long hours, demanding clients, and the emotional toll of dealing with criticism or difficult situations are recurring struggles.
Misaligned or Inefficient Processes:
Poor tools, unclear instructions, or cumbersome systems make it harder to perform effectively, leading to stress and frustration.
Conflict and Criticism:
Harsh feedback or workplace conflicts affect your confidence and motivation, particularly when relationships with managers or colleagues are involved.
Strengths:
Resilience and Adaptability:
You persist through challenges, learning and adapting even in stressful environments.
Autonomy and Problem-Solving:
When given independence and clear goals, you excel in managing tasks and delivering results.
Values-Driven and Goal-Oriented:
You work best when aligned with a product or mission you believe in, and you actively seek clarity and purpose in your roles.
Skill Development:
Through each role, you build new skills, such as writing, editing, managing deadlines, and customer support.
17. Consultancy Startup (Continued)
Additional Insights:
You endured nearly a year despite struggles with communication, unclear goals, and stress.
You adapted to writing and engaging with strangers, demonstrating persistence and growth.
A major frustration was the lack of direction from leadership, which conflicted with your need for clarity and alignment in your work.
17. Freelancing (Summer 2022)
Tasks:
Freelance projects with various clients, involving self-managed tasks, deadlines, and deliverables.
Pains:
Underpayment and Overwork:
Freelancing often required late hours and intense effort, yet the pay didn’t match the workload.
Deadline Management:
While you appreciated setting your own deadlines, managing them effectively remained a challenge.
Strengths:
Autonomy and Creativity:
You thrived in choosing your projects and working independently, particularly when clients provided clear requirements.
Adaptability:
You succeeded in meeting diverse client needs, even under challenging conditions.
18. Senior Support Agent for Ticketing Systems (Autumn 2022 Onward)
Introduction:
You enjoyed the product and found it interesting, but challenges arose that you’ll expand upon next.
Updated Emerging Themes Across All Roles
Pain Points:
Lack of Direction or Leadership Clarity:
Ambiguity from leadership about organizational goals or role expectations creates confusion and disengagement.
Overwork and Emotional Strain:
Long hours, demanding clients, and the emotional toll of dealing with criticism or difficult situations are recurring struggles.
Misaligned or Inefficient Processes:
Poor tools, unclear instructions, or cumbersome systems make it harder to perform effectively, leading to stress and frustration.
Conflict and Criticism:
Harsh feedback or workplace conflicts affect your confidence and motivation, particularly when relationships with managers or colleagues are involved.
Strengths:
Resilience and Adaptability:
You persist through challenges, learning and adapting even in stressful environments.
Autonomy and Problem-Solving:
When given independence and clear goals, you excel in managing tasks and delivering results.
Values-Driven and Goal-Oriented:
You work best when aligned with a product or mission you believe in, and you actively seek clarity and purpose in your roles.
Skill Development:
Through each role, you build new skills, such as writing, editing, managing deadlines, and customer support.
18. Senior Support Agent for Ticketing Systems
Tasks:
Providing customer support for ticketing systems, managing conflicts with clients, documenting product processes, and navigating bugs and system issues.
Pains:
Misalignment with Values:
Supporting groups and artists you didn’t align with on a values-based level felt unfulfilling and disconnected.
Toxic Workplace Environment:
Colleagues were uncooperative, stressed, and hesitant to share knowledge, making collaboration difficult.
Conflicts with colleagues, including your own involvement in some, created additional stress.
Illogical and Flawed Systems:
The ticketing system had numerous bugs and inconsistencies, which added frustration and made your work unnecessarily difficult.
Customer Stress:
Dealing with angry, yelling customers took an emotional toll over time.
Financial and Emotional Strain:
The need to take on side projects to address family emergencies increased your workload and stress levels.
Strengths:
Documentation and Process Improvement:
You took initiative to document system processes and address the lack of explicit knowledge, improving team efficiency.
Resilience and Experience:
Having over 10 years of experience in similar roles made the core tasks manageable, allowing you to endure the stress for almost a year.
Goal-Driven Persistence:
You stayed in the role to meet personal financial and logistical goals, demonstrating discipline and focus.
Updated Emerging Themes Across All Roles
Pain Points:
Toxic or Uncooperative Work Environments:
Teams with poor communication, implicit knowledge, and a lack of cooperation hinder your ability to thrive.
Customer and Emotional Labor:
Dealing with high-stress customer interactions (e.g., yelling, anger) over time erodes your emotional resilience.
Misaligned Values or Purpose:
You struggle in roles where you don’t connect with the mission, product, or clients on a deeper, values-based level.
Systemic Inefficiencies:
Flawed processes, illogical systems, and insufficient tools make your work harder and less satisfying.
Strengths:
Documentation and Process Clarity:
You excel at organizing, documenting, and improving processes to make systems more understandable and efficient.
Resilience and Problem-Solving:
Your ability to persist through challenging roles while finding ways to contribute meaningfully reflects your determination and adaptability.
Values-Driven Work Ethic:
You are motivated by alignment with meaningful products, missions, or roles that have a clear purpose.
Experience and Versatility:
With over a decade of experience in various roles, you bring a wealth of transferable skills in customer support, documentation, and adaptability.
Comprehensive Summary of Career Insights
Key Strengths:
Adaptability: You’ve thrived in diverse roles, developing new skills and contributing meaningfully in various industries.
Process-Oriented Thinking: Your ability to analyze, document, and improve workflows is a standout skill across your roles.
Resilience Under Pressure: Despite difficult environments, you persist and adapt to challenges.
Values Alignment: You work best in roles where you believe in the mission or product and have a clear sense of purpose.
Key Challenges:
Toxic or Unsupportive Work Environments: Poor team dynamics and a lack of collaboration hinder your job satisfaction and performance.
Misalignment with Goals or Values: Jobs that don’t resonate with your values or personal goals lead to disengagement and dissatisfaction.
Customer Stress: High-pressure customer interactions are emotionally draining, especially in unsupportive environments.
Systemic Inefficiencies: Flawed processes, unclear instructions, and technical challenges add unnecessary frustration to your roles.
17. Freelancing (Various Projects)
Tasks:
Independent projects for various clients, involving defining deliverables, negotiating pricing, and executing tasks autonomously.
Pains:
Underpayment and Pricing Challenges:
Struggled with pricing negotiations, undervaluing your services, and lacking confidence in charging higher rates.
The low rates affected both your financial stability and how clients perceived your work.
Defining Client Needs:
Success was dependent on clients’ clarity about their goals and their willingness to answer your questions. Ambiguous or unclear requirements made your work harder.
Stress in Money Discussions:
Negotiating payments and discussing money caused significant stress, especially when under financial pressure.
Delegation Difficulties:
Attempting to delegate tasks didn’t go well, highlighting your preference for maintaining control over your work.
Strengths:
Customer Communication:
Years of experience helped you handle client interactions confidently, particularly when clients were clear about their needs.
Autonomy and Independence:
You thrived in the freedom to manage tasks, schedules, and deliverables independently.
Adaptability:
You worked across different industries and projects, tailoring your services to fit client requirements.
Updated Emerging Themes Across All Roles
Pain Points:
Underpayment and Financial Stress:
Insufficient pay and undervaluing your work have consistently been significant challenges, particularly in freelance roles.
Defining Needs and Misaligned Expectations:
Ambiguity in client or employer expectations creates stress and inefficiency in your work.
Stress in Money and Pricing Discussions:
Negotiating pay or discussing pricing is emotionally taxing and impacts your confidence.
Delegation Struggles:
Delegating tasks doesn’t come naturally, as you prefer to maintain control over your work to ensure quality.
Strengths:
Autonomy and Independence:
You excel in self-directed roles where you have control over your work processes and outcomes.
Customer Communication:
Your ability to interact with clients and understand their needs has improved significantly over the years, making you effective in client-facing roles.
Adaptability and Versatility:
You’ve successfully worked in diverse roles, gaining experience and developing transferable skills across industries.
Self-Awareness and Reflection:
Your capacity for reflection helps you identify what works for you and informs your decisions about future roles and projects.
Key Insights for Future Work:
Financial Security:
Pursue roles or projects that offer fair compensation and align with your financial needs to avoid underpayment stress.
Clear Expectations:
Work with clients or employers who have well-defined goals and processes, as clarity improves your productivity and job satisfaction.
Autonomy:
You thrive in independent roles where you can manage your work with minimal oversight and control the quality of your output.
Pricing and Negotiation Skills:
Building confidence in pricing your services and negotiating terms could help you feel more valued and improve your financial stability
1. Work-Life Balance
2. Role Responsibilities
3. Team and Workplace Environment
4. Organizational Structure
5. Compensation and Benefits
6. Career Development
7. Physical and Emotional Demands
8. Nature of Work
9. Social Interaction
10. Location and Mobility
11. Ethical Alignment
How to Use These Criteria
Would you like me to help create a customized framework or checklist for evaluating specific job opportunities?
1. Feeding Your Curiosity
What you do: Reading, researching, organizing complex ideas, creating structured outputs.
Why it matters: Curiosity fuels your need to understand the world deeply, make sense of it, and then create something useful out of your understanding. You thrive when you can dive into knowledge and synthesize it into actionable frameworks.
Examples: Researching STDs, creating a gender/sexuality database, exploring food security.
Key insight: You’re a natural knowledge gatherer and synthesizer, driven by a desire to make information accessible and practical for others.
2. Connecting People and Opportunities
What you do: Instinctively linking people to ideas, opportunities, or each other based on their interests and needs.
Why it matters: Connection isn’t just about relationships; it’s about facilitating
You’re uncovering rich and meaningful patterns here. Here's what stands out in this second part:
3. Being a Community Anchor
What you do: Organize events, facilitate cozy gatherings, and create shared emotional spaces where people connect and have fun.
Why it matters: You deeply value building a sense of belonging and joy for yourself and others. Being the one who fosters flow and connection gives you purpose.
Key insight: You don’t need to be in the spotlight; your fulfillment comes from enabling others to feel at ease and connected.
4. Curiosity and Discovery in Everyday Life
What you do: Roam cities, notice small details, take photos, and revel in the sense of “wow” and discovery.
Why it matters: This taps into your creative, observant side and connects you to the beauty of the present moment. It reflects your ability to find meaning and joy in the ordinary.
Key insight: Exploration and visual discovery are grounding and recharging for you. They help you stay inspired and connected to yourself.
5. Practical Creativity and Problem-Solving
What you do: Fulfill your own ideas, double-check rules or information, and serve as a reliable resource for clarity and accuracy.
Why it matters: This reflects your practical intelligence and creativity. You don’t just dream; you make your ideas actionable and tangible.
Key insight: Your sense of accomplishment and satisfaction is tied to seeing your ideas come to life and helping others navigate complexity.
Themes Emerging from Both Parts:
Take a moment to reflect on how these resonate with the first part before diving into the next!
1. Professional Areas of Excellence
Feedback: You could succeed in building a startup or working on eco-projects.
Analysis:
This aligns with your interest in projects that have meaningful goals, particularly in sustainability and social impact.
Your ability to ideate, plan, and structure processes is essential for leading innovative or eco-focused ventures.
2. Skills and Knowledge
Feedback:
You excel at systematizing knowledge and planning processes.
You’re good at achieving both financial and moral goals.
Analysis:
Your ability to turn complex or scattered information into clear systems and guides (e.g., turning implicit knowledge into explicit) makes you well-suited for roles in project management, knowledge management, or strategy.
Balancing financial and moral goals highlights your potential for leadership in mission-driven organizations, such as social enterprises or sustainability-focused companies.
3. Personality and Character
Feedback:
Your personality is described as "semi-masculine," indicating qualities like confidence, strategic thinking, and the ability to lead large, significant projects.
You’re seen as persistent and capable of working with "cold calculation" to achieve your goals.
Analysis:
These traits point to resilience, determination, and strategic focus—qualities ideal for leadership roles or tackling ambitious projects.
Persistence, when aligned with clear goals, can help you overcome challenges and maintain long-term focus.
4. Access to Connections
Feedback:
You have many human resources and connections within your reach, and you’re skilled at navigating networks to access what you need.
Analysis:
Your ability to connect people and resources is one of your key strengths, making you a natural facilitator or networker.
You can leverage your extensive network to build partnerships, secure funding, or find collaborators for projects or ventures.
What You Can Do with This Feedback
Career Paths
Startup Leadership or Eco-Project Development:
Use your organizational skills and goal-oriented mindset to lead innovative or sustainability-focused projects.
Build a startup or join an early-stage company where your ability to create structure and achieve results will be valued.
Project or Knowledge Management:
Work in roles that involve organizing complex systems, documenting processes, or creating strategies, especially in mission-driven industries.
Networking and Facilitation:
Take on roles that involve connecting people and resources, such as community management, partnerships, or facilitation for global or eco-focused initiatives.
Action Steps
Build Your Knowledge:
Learn more about startups, eco-project funding, and organizational structures to feel more confident in these areas.
Leverage Connections:
Identify key people in your network who can help you with specific career goals, such as mentorship, funding, or collaborations.
Play to Your Strengths:
Focus on roles or projects that allow you to systematize knowledge, plan processes, and balance financial and moral objectives.
Take on a Leadership Role:
Use your strategic mindset and resilience to take ownership of significant projects, whether as a team leader or an independent consultant.
Would you like further recommendations on how to implement this feedback into your career plans, or explore specific industries or projects that align with your strengths?
Knowledge/Process Architect.You excel at structuring complex processes and turning tacit knowledge into explicit.
Ideal Company Development Stage
good on roles and exerises from food prize toolkit and other
These figures hold significant power through policy-making, resource allocation, funding, and control of food systems—either mitigating food insecurity or perpetuating dependencies.
Below is a concise overview of when (at what organizational stage) these functions/roles typically become necessary, why they are needed (the “business case”), and a few key performance indicators (KPIs) or measures of success (MoS) commonly used to evaluate them. Although details vary by type of organization (e.g., UN agency vs. indigenous cooperative), the general progression is: emerging → expanding/scaling → mature/institutionalized.
1. Knowledge/Process Architect
Typical Stage
Why / Business Case
KPIs / MoS
2. Community & Partnership Builder
Typical Stage
Why / Business Case
KPIs / MoS
3. Project/Program Manager (Impact-Focused Fields)
Typical Stage
Why / Business Case
KPIs / MoS
4. Content/Research Lead
Typical Stage
Why / Business Case
KPIs / MoS
5. Cross-Functional “Translator”
Typical Stage
Why / Business Case
KPIs / MoS
6. R&D Coordinator for Sustainable Food Solutions
Typical Stage
Why / Business Case
KPIs / MoS
7. Policy Analyst or Advisor (Public Health / Environmental Sustainability)
Typical Stage
Why / Business Case
KPIs / MoS
Key Takeaways
All these roles are ultimately about maximizing mission impact (reducing malnutrition, increasing local self-sufficiency, protecting indigenous rights, etc.) while ensuring organizational sustainability, credibility, and growth.
Hypothesis that I am good at event management, community building and facilitation and that roles/functions do not arise in startups normally, only in well established companies
startups also need marketing, community to buy our product, startrup kickstarter, crowdfunding - games?
Based on your reflections, here’s a breakdown of the types of organizations you find challenging to understand and why:
1. Startups
2. Social Enterprises
3. Corporate Cultures in International Cooperation
4. NGOs and Private Foundations
5. Public Sector (Government Organizations)
Next Steps to Better Understand These Organizations
1. Read Books and Articles
2. Create an Assessment Framework
Develop a simple framework to analyze these organizations based on:
3. Seek Practical Experience
4. Research Case Studies
Study well-documented case studies of successful organizations in each category to understand their strategies, challenges, and successes.
Would you like help with building the assessment framework, finding specific resources, or identifying practical ways to get exposure to these organizations?
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