Annie Handmer and I turn things around. Instead of looking backwards to what we always wanted, we ponder the question of what do I want to be when I grow up?
Annie Handmer is a final year PhD Candidate at the University of Sydney’s Faculty of Science, in the School of History and Philosophy of Science. Her research traces the social history of Australian space science projects in order to better understand international and interdisciplinary cooperation, the social construction of achievement, and the nature of the military-industrial-academic complex in Australian space science.
In addition, she is on the Advisory Council for the Space Industry Association of Australia, a member of the Space Generation Advisory Council ‘Ethics and Human Rights in Space’ Project Group, the Space Law Council of Australia and New Zealand, program consultant to the Australian Youth Aerospace Association ASTRA Committee, and is also the host and creator of the Space Junk Podcast.
In Spring 2021 (southern hemisphere), Annie will be undertaking a residency at the Sydney Observatory.
Twitter / Instagram: @anniehandmer
Space Junk Podcast: https://play.acast.com/s/space-junk-podcast/
Space Junk Video: https://www.youtube.com/c/spacejunkpodcast/
Space Ethics Library: https://spaceethicslibrary.wordpress.com/
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Opening Remarks
Hi Everyone,
I’m so glad to have Annie Handmer as my guest on the podcast again. I love the way she sees the world and everything she thinks about.
In this conversation Annie and I turn things around. Instead of looking backwards to what we always wanted, we ponder the question of what do you want to be when you grow up. What effect does that question have on kids when they hear it? And what’s really the point of asking when the jobs available will be completely different in 20 years.
For example the work Annie does now was inconceivable when I was growing up. Annie actually teaches Space Law, she advises the United Nations on Space Ethics, and works for her state government predicting the future in order to come up with better policy. Wow.
If you haven’t yet listened to our previous conversation, do check out I Always Wanted to Go Into Outer Space from September 2020. She proposes some great alternatives to Space Tourism for those of us who are not billionaires. It’s not a prerequisite for this episode but it’s well worth a listen.
In today’s conversation we talk about better questions to ask children than what do you want to be, and discuss how our differences influence our point of view. Annie speaks on behalf of all millennials and I speak for all boomers and together we make sweeping generalizations that are absolutely sure to be true.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Here’s the interview.
(timecode begins after my opening remarks – add 2:35 to times)
Liz Sumner 0:00
My guest today is Annie Handmer. Annie has just about completed her doctorate in the history and philosophy of science. Annie hosts a podcast about space junk, and was my guest last year for I Always Wanted to Go Into Outer Space. Welcome, Annie.
Annie Handmer 0:15
Hi, it’s great to be here.
Liz Sumner 0:18
I’m so glad to have you back on the show again, because when we spoke last year, you said something that made me want to have an entirely new conversation with you. Here’s what you said.
Tell me about your career and your your field of study?
Annie Handmer 0:32
Well, the first thing is, I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. I never have known. And I think that we actually do kids a disservice by asking them that question all the time. Because the idea is that we do one job, and then that’s what we are, we’re an accountant, or were, you know, a businessman, it really doesn’t capture the wide variety of options that are open to us.
Liz Sumner 1:00
Do you remember that?
Annie Handmer 1:01
It’s interesting, because sometimes when you hear something that you said a year ago, you think I probably changed my mind. But I actually really stand by this, I think I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up, I still don’t know what I am. And I want to get into that a bit with you just talking about how we define who we are, by what we do and how we even define what it is that we do. And the ways in which we use signifiers to signal to each other how to feel about each other. And on the kids point I– so since since we last spoke as well, my my brothers have had kids. So I now have three nibblings which is the gender neutral term for nieces and nephews like siblings, but nibbling, which I think is very appropriate, especially when they’re teething. And I every day I see videos from them and you know, photos that I think they’re such brilliant little people coming into this world. And I do think that asking children, you know, what do you want to be when you grow up all the time, asking them to dress up is like their favorite occupation. And all of that is– it doesn’t actually work in the world that we’re in now. Because the jobs that exist today didn’t exist when my parents were kids, didn’t exist when I was going through school. And the jobs that my nibblings will do one day will not be the same jobs that exist now. And social attitudes to those jobs change over time as well. So, you know, really, a lot of the time when we ask children, what do you want to be when you grow up, we’re encoding expectations in them of what things are appropriate for them to aim for, and what things we think are, you know, less important jobs, or whatever the case is. And really, really, which is kind of encoding our own sense of privilege and end of social status I think in a lot of cases on children. That’s my thinking. But, you know, this is this is the view that not everybody has. And not everyone would agree some people feel that they do define themselves by their job and their career. And they’re very happy in that. And I’m conscious that my perspective is not the same as everyone else’s perspective on these things. But you know, you talk to a lot of people on your podcast, who try out new things and are constantly redefining who they are and who they see themselves as, what’s your take on on this particular issue.
Liz Sumner 3:42
It’s reminding me of a time when I was about 11 years old. I’m a baby boomer and the opportunities for women in the early 60s were a lot different from what they are today. And I had an assignment in my sixth grade class, that we were to read a book about occupations and make a report on it. It was a series of books about different careers that that people could have. And it was really clearly delineated as to boy careers and girls careers. And the ones available for women were “I want to be a nurse” or “when I grow up, I want to be a school teacher.” And and I didn’t see anything there that piqued my interest. And I I remember picking one to be obnoxious, I wanted to to be a little disruptive at the time. And so I picked “I want to be a truck driver.” And my stepmother at the time was a career woman and had inspired me always that I could be anything I wanted. And she fully supported the idea of being disruptive for this particular assignment. But I can still remember just how how proud I was of saying, I want to be a truck driver.
Annie Handmer 5:05
Absolutely. I had a similar experience, I think in year eight or nine in Careers class. So we had a class every two weeks. And we had to research some sort of career we thought we might want to have and then, you know, the study pathways and how we get there. And, and I’m not sure if I told you the story. But I decided to say that I wanted to become the Pope.
Probably for similar reasons to you in six in six class, so I, I did a whole assignment on how I would go about becoming the Pope. And, and I suppose the point of it was that I was what 13, 14 I was like, I don’t know what I want to do. But I was told I had to do this research. And I was so– I just thought, Oh, this will be entertaining. And actually, I did quite a good assignment on the process of becoming a pope. And the key impediments for me, were not being Catholic, and being a woman. But once I sort of dispensed with those those difficulties I did, I did quite a credible assignment talking about the various pathways I could take to solve those problems. And also, and also studies I could undertake, and you know that the teachers were remarkably– they put up with me, which was lovely. But no, because of course, what both of these stories I think that we both just shared bring out for me is that there are wrong and right answers to that question when you’re a child and really asking a kid, what do you want to be when you grow up? What career do you want to have? What job do you want to have? presupposes that for them. A lot of the time, I think they’re wondering, what’s the right answer here. And they’re making choices, not on the basis of what they really want, but on the basis of what they think you want to hear. That’s not all kids, of course. But the reality is that most of us don’t really know what we want to be. But a better question might be something along the lines of what do you enjoy? Or what do you want to learn? Or what do you think you’re good at? Those are useful questions that I think promote self reflection, as opposed to promote kids looking at themselves and then slotting themselves into where they think they belong. Which, of course, over time, as you say, changes, I mean, now, not to say there’s anything wrong with wanting to become a teacher or a nurse or something. But the jobs on offer have changed significantly. And the expectations that we have of what, say young women or, you know, young people in general can achieve have have also changed enormously. And that in itself also puts a lot of pressure on because of course, there are young women who do want to become teachers and nurses, and we shouldn’t critique them for that choice, either.
Liz Sumner 8:02
Elizabeth Gilbert did a TED talk that I often think about, she spoke about there being two kinds of people. The first one, she calls jackhammers. They, they, she includes herself, they know from early childhood, exactly what they want to do with their lives. They have this burning passion. She always knew she’d be a writer, and she never veered from her original plan. Then the other type, she calls hummingbirds, and I’m this type. We go from flower to flower from interest to interest, trying this and trying that and never really stick with any one thing. But but let it lead us to the next idea. So I was never particularly career-focused. I first I followed in my father’s footsteps and studied advertising and did that for a while. And I got tired of that and went back to grad school for something entirely different. And throughout my life, I’ve basically chosen work based on where I wanted to live.
Annie Handmer 9:03
Yeah, well, of course, there’s also economic factors, you know, that are at play. I think it’s probably right, that some people are more the sorts of people who flip from thing to thing, and other people like to focus on one thing and really nail it. But there’s also economic structures at play in our society. And, I mean, I hate to invoke Marx at the 11 minute mark, but I’d be remiss not to as someone who’s studied a bunch of philosophy. And just the way that the way that we think about work, I think it’s important to note that it hasn’t always been this way, that historically, we’ve thought about the role that work plays in our lives in different ways depending on what time we lived, what society we lived in, what culture we lived in. What was going on at the time, whether there was war, whether there was peace, whether there was drought, whether, there was famine or plague or whatever the case is. So now, you know, talking about choices that we’re making, I think it’s worthwhile also making a point that for many of us, most of us, but the vast majority of us, we don’t really get a choice whether to work. And we don’t really get a choice, what work to do, we can make choices based on a subset. But as you say, there are things that influence it. So for example, where you live, but also where you grew up, what education, you’ve got, all of those various factors play into it. And then also the way that we think about the work for some of us, we have, I think it really is a privilege and a luxury to say, Well, I want to do work that I find personally fulfilling. And for other people work is something that allows you to live. And it’s necessary because we live in a you know, a capitalist society whereby the holders of capital, extract work from people in exchange for money, which allows them to live within the society. So if you take a broader view of things, it gets very depressing very fast. And I just wanted to brush over it before we move on to more fun topics. But I actually think that you can take a few things out of that. I mean, one is to get all depressed and say, “Well, you know, I’m stuck laboring away, and you know, some sort of Camus-inspired, well, we must imagine Sisyphus happy as you’re pushing your rock up the hill every day of the day after day after day.” The other way of looking at it is, “Well, I have to work because society means that I have to work to subsist because I need money. And if I have to work and I only get one shot at being alive, well, I may as well be a hummingbird, and flit from thing to thing and find something that I like, because, you know, as long as I’m making enough money to live on, then the surely the best option is to maximize pleasure, maximize the hedonistic enjoyment of life, while also being able to meet my needs.” And I think that could be summed up in the millennial view of things, which seems to be kind of like, Well, why would I slaved away at a desk for 15 years on the promise that maybe one day I’ll be able to afford a small apartment, when I could just rent and move around? And you know, working for six months there for six months? Go take a break and go surfing for six months? What are the incentives to slaving away in the hope that maybe it gets better in my 50s? Because does it really get better in my 50s? That’s a range of thoughts. But I think it is interesting, like the way that millennials in general I taking different approaches to work. And the way that I think the the baby boomer generation, your generation, some of you, present company excluded, are quite threatened by that and almost have a moral distaste to it as though, you know, this is the way that it must always be done, when in fact, the sort of work that baby boomers grew up expecting that they would do and doing is a very recent modern invention. Really? Do you agree? Is that like going too philosophical?
Liz Sumner 13:15
No, no, definitely not. And I want to thank you for reminding me of how privileged I am I, I live in a bubble sometimes, and I often forget just how fortunate I am. And regarding the millennials, I’m reminded of my parents’ generation, and they’ve lived through the depression, and they didn’t understand their children’s attitudes to to a life and to work. It wasn’t the way they they had done it. And if there’s a backlash to millennials from my generation now, I bet it’s envy. I bet it’s that we worked hard and we slaved instead of having a good time. And, and we didn’t do what we wanted to do. So why should you get a chance to? That would be my guess as to what’s behind any negative feeling about millennials? Are you a millennial?
Annie Handmer 14:14
I just yeah, I sneak in. Yeah, I’m on the young end. But technically, yes.
Liz Sumner 14:21
I”m really ashamed to say that I don’t know very many people who aren’t just like me, and I rarely interact with millennials. So I’m basing this all on just my intuition.
Annie Handmer 14:32
I’d love to hear more about that. Is it a sense of envy as in I wish I was doing that now or is it a sense of I wish I’d had that opportunity to explore and live a more carefree life or is it about the breadth of work opportunities or you know, what is it when when you think about an a millennial that you envy, what is it about that life that you think Is, is a positive thing.
Liz Sumner 15:02
For me, it’s not exactly personal because I have lived a fairly carefree life. But I’m thinking about my sister who worked in a job that she hated for years in order to be financially secure. And I can imagine that– I’ve never heard her speak of being envious of millennials, but her desire to be financially secure was so strong that she, she did work that she really hated. And I can imagine somebody in that position being envious of of people who, who didn’t feel that they needed to do that, that kind of effort.
Annie Handmer 15:47
Interesting one, because I mean, of course, yeah, here I am saying, “Please speak on behalf of all baby boomers,” the same way that I will speak on behalf of all millennials, But I think it gets to a really interesting point, which I think is a very American thing, actually, but also pervades Western cultures, which is this idea that if you work hard, you’ll succeed. Therefore, you must work really hard, and then you can succeed. If you haven’t succeeded in whatever success means, then you must not have worked hard enough. And I think that there’s this bias. So maybe this thought that the reason that millennials aren’t buying homes and can’t access, financial security or whatever that is, must be because they are not working hard, like because they’re taking breaks to go surfing. Therefore, rather than looking at the economic modeling of the thing, there’s that moral thing that comes in there. And I’m reminded, we had a thing that happened to us a couple of years back, but there was an article in the paper that got a lot of debate on all sides, where someone was saying, Well, I’m sick of hearing millennials say that they can’t afford to buy a home when they’ll spend $15, buying smashed avocado on toast. Because of course, as Australians, like Australian millennials love getting brunch on a Sunday, and you get your smashed avo with a poached egg and your, you know, your soy latte, or whatever. And yeah, you could spend $20 on that. And then someone actually went and did the modeling and figured out how many years it would take of not having smashed avocado to be able to afford a house like a house deposit. And then published a counterpoint article, basically, in the opinion column being like this is financially absurd. And it really ignited this very real debate where we know, we know, based on modeling, we know based on economics and finance, that decisions about having smashed avocado on the weekend, do not play into whether or not you can pay off your college debt, if you’re an American, or whether you can pay off a, you know, home loan, that actually, the relative price of these things, the relative demand for property has gone up significantly. And that’s in part because a lot of the older generation, especially in Sydney, for example, have a lot of investment properties. So they’re just that they’re making the money from you renting, and then they’re holding on to say, you know, three or four properties and so on and so forth. So we know that that’s the case. But there is still a narrative from that generation that kind of disapproves of millennials living these carefree lives. And at the same time, I think as the millennial generation gets older, that I can see it shifting where it’s becoming less disapproving as you, as we talked about, but more kind of, well, this is just the way things are now. So it’s becoming the norm like it’s now normal that people will work flexibly, it’s now normal that you’ll sometimes work remotely, especially during COVID. It’s more normal that you’ll take career breaks and that people work part-time even if they don’t have children and men will work part time and that various different families situations will exist and people live in complex share houses and communal living arrangements and all of those different things as it becomes as as millennials become middle-aged. The society is being forced to reckon with that and actually change. It’s quite fascinating. I really wonder what the next generation coming up Zoomers will think about all of this. One of the things that someone said to me recently about not specifically Zoomers, but generally people around sort of my age and younger. So that would be your– I’m 26. But they were saying sort of more like 25 but I sort of sneak in anyway– is that there’s the more of a focus towards when you’re choosing work, or focus towards alignment in values and ethics rather than– So I suppose if you want to make really broad brushstrokes, like my parents would have been thinking about, okay, well, I need a job that is high status enough and pays enough that I can achieve what I want to achieve, which some people have described as kind of the Ariel from The Little Mermaid. And then, my generation is very much like, I want to feel self actualized, I want to feel like I’m really getting the most out of like, who I am authentically in this job, which you might describe as the kind of maybe like Elsa from Frozen approach to work.
But the the younger generation coming up are way more interested in saying, Well, I don’t really mind what I do. And I don’t really mind who I do it for. And I don’t really mind how much I get paid or what the conditions are, where I’m doing it. But I want to feel that my personal value set is aligned with what they’re doing, and what that company’s values are. And that I think, will have a really big impact on the way that we all think about work. And the way we think about value as well. So value not being so much as in how much can I get paid to do this thing? Or how high status is it? Like, are my neighbors gonna think that what I’m doing is respectable, but more in terms of what sort of moral and ethical sense of doing good? Do I get out of this thing? Is that something that you’ve encountered much in your research and in and in interviewing people?
Liz Sumner 21:54
I have not, I think it’s an an excellent direction to go in. But it makes me wonder, because I can’t remember, when I started being aware of what my values were, I certainly don’t think it was in my early 20s. I don’t remember asking myself that question until I was doing like, personal growth trainings when in my 30s. So that makes me hopeful for the world that, that young people are thinking about that and and articulating their their personal values for themselves. I don’t have any more experience about what I’ve seen, other than than just taking it personally.
Annie Handmer 22:40
Yeah, I think it’s something to keep an eye out for maybe as well, like, as it as it sort of influences other things you said, Actually, I’ve noticed it in advertising. So one of the factors is that it’s now considered socially unacceptable in a lot of younger people’s circles to work, for example, for a mining company, or a company that has bad climate policy or is unsustainable in some way. Whereas for, say, my parents generation, or older generations, it may have been unacceptable for someone to come out as being LGBTQI. So this idea of, of shifting, what is it that gets people morally worked up? shifting from identity to activity. So now, for younger people, you can be whatever you want. And this is a very broad comment. Obviously, there are some sectors of society where this is not appropriate and not accepted and all of those things still, but broadly speaking, the idea of identity is something that rests with the individual, but the idea of activity is something that affects the world affects other people. And that’s where the moral issue comes in, in terms of what what work you do, and I’ve noticed that particularly energy companies have started rebranding away from being say a coal company to being “a sustainable energy provider for the future.” And and in the advertising and so on, they really moving towards trying to bring people in, and I was reading something recently about sinfluencers or influencers online who get hired, that the term is Sinfluencer. Like, like as soon stock, you know, like, like a, like an oil company would be a sin stock to own. So a sinfluencer answer is an influencer, who posts on Instagram or something who’s hired by that company to make a post about how they filled up with gas at this petrol station when they were going to look at a forest and isn’t it great that they were able to do that and like be in the great outdoors or something? So try to reframe how younger people say these things. That, for me is just astonishing. It’s like the next level of brainwashing for the next generation. But it also gives me hope that our children are making more informed and more community- minded decisions.
Liz Sumner 25:19
Yeah, I, I am hopeful that the companies will listen and change their behavior, their policies and their actions rather than just their marketing. And I’m remembering as you’re describing that, that I marched against the Vietnam War, and I fought for women’s rights in the early 70s. So I guess I was morally aware from for what was possible and front of mind, for my generation. But I the idea of taking action, besides just the fighting and being marching on Washington and stuff that it I don’t recall whether we cared about company’s activities, it could be just my bad memory. Probably there were activists who, who were thinking about those things, and I just wasn’t one of them.
Annie Handmer 26:22 But that’s a good reminder, Liz, that, that this isn’t, hasn’t come out of nowhere, this kind of activism. I mean, it’s, it’s a different form, in that it’s very individualized and, and it’s about, if I’m going to sell my labor– let’s go back to Marx, if I’m going to sell my labor, to the holders of capital, then I’m going to make a statement with that. And I’m going to choose who I sell it to, because my choice to sell my labor is a choice, again, rather than something that I simply do in order to get money to then do what I want to do. But that actually, as you say, comes out of a broader history of all baby boomers really campaigning and pushing against what they saw as the issues and what we use, or is the issues of your time, which were issues, and really being activists in the way that you were. So maybe, maybe this is actually rather hopeful that you’re, rather than being a huge generational division between boomers and millennials say in the terms of the way that we’re thinking about work, and whether, you know, people are working hard enough or taking seriously enough or whatever else. Actually, perhaps baby boomers should take heart in the fact that millennials are taking on those lessons and actually incorporating them more broadly into our lives in a way that we hope might lead to more just and sustainable outcomes for the issues that we see as being really difficult ones to tackle for our generation. And that couldn’t have happened without the activism that your generation didn’t and continues to do.
Liz Sumner 28:03
And my parents’ generation as well. And I’m sure it goes back even further. And I think you’re right about the the individual choice to sell my labor. Yes, it’s it’s just one person making one choice. But if millions of individuals make that, that choice, so whatever, whatever I do, to stand up for my own values, and try to make the world a better place, each individual choice about who we sell our labor to, and what what we are willing to tolerate and what we need to speak up about makes us a better world.
Annie Handmer 28:41
I think you put it beautifully.
Liz Sumner 28:43
Thank you. So let’s wind back again, to how you got to the choice of doing what you’re doing right now. And what you might imagine yourself doing next.
Annie Handmer 29:00
Absolutely. Well, at the moment, I’ll describe my working situation, because it’s kind of complicated. So at the moment, I’m finishing a PhD. And I’m also working part time. So I work for my state government. And I work in a team doing future insights. So I basically my job is to try and predict the future and come up with better policy based on what we call Foresight Intelligence. So, personally, I think that aligns very well with my values. And it’s about trying to make better decisions for people to live better lives and exist in a nicer place. So that’s what I’m doing there. And then also, I’m teaching at the university. So I’m teaching some science ethics. I’m teaching some sociology of science, and I’m teaching Space Law, as well through Hong Kong University. So that’s a bit random but that’s happening online. And I’m also doing the sort of the usual sort of space volunteer work that I do. So volunteering on a number of committees working with international, lots of young people internationally on projects like this, the new Space Ethics Library that just launched, you can Google it, which a group from the space generation Advisory Council, which is a group of young people under 35, who advise the United Nations on how we think we want space used and treated and what things we think ought to and should not be happening in space. Because this is a group that’s a working group that exists to inform that advice that goes to the UN every year. So we’ve been working on a thing called a space ethics library, which is really a great resource, and something that I think is very awesome. So a lot of volunteer kind of work as well. And when I was thinking about how I want to set up my personal working life, as I get to the end of my PhD, it was really a question of, how can I maintain the flexibility to keep doing work that I think has value, even though it doesn’t provide me with monetary value? So that volunteer work. How can I balance that with work that I get paid for, but also find meaningfu? So that would be teaching, with work that I get paid for and is reliable and regular. And that I also believe in, which would be the sort of more government-y work that I do. And structuring my week around those things, in a really balanced way, that, I suppose is quite different to the way that that other generations previously, other people would think about work. And it’s true, most people do think about a job is something you do full time. And if you work part time, it’s because you’ve got kids, whereas I’m saying, Well, no, I’m making a choice in my mid 20s, that I’m going to work part time. And my intention is to keep working part time in a secure kind of job and spend the rest of my time doing things that I think are useful and valuable, and bring me meaning, in addition to all of my random martial arts, hobbies, and various other things, which I’m sure you remember me talking about it like, so that’s, that’s what I’m up to. And I was, I was talking to a friend, actually, because what do you said you wanted to talk about work and finding meaning and work and future, how we work and those sorts of things. I was talking to a friend who is very thoughtful about these sorts of things. And she told me about the concept of Ikigai, which is a Japanese term, which is spelt IKIGAI And that’s really this Japanese concept of finding a sense of meaning and purpose and direction in life, quite separate from the idea of necessarily just being your work. But the idea that you do what you do, because it brings you meaning, and you define that meaning in a way that works for yourself. So, I think, and I haven’t done a lot of reading into it. But I think that would be a really interesting place for people to look that for me, I definitely feel a sense of, I’m keen to find purpose, find meaning and find joy in what I’m doing. More so than I am keen to have a salary and just take home a paycheck. But that, obviously, that that’s a choice that I’ve made. And if I worked full time, I’d be far less economically stressed and financially stressed at this point. But, you know, that said, I’ve just spent four years doing a PhD, which is the quickest way to become poor, that anyone ever invented. So it’s really a case of like anything from here is up in terms of money through the door as well. So yeah, if you try to challenge your sense of what what is meaningful, and try to try to challenge yourself in terms of finding different ways to think about money, think about work and think about purpose in life and do a PhD. It really puts a lot of things in perspective.
Liz Sumner 34:18
I’m reminded that people who are listening to this might not have learned from our previous conversation about your, your earlier life in the financial industry that the dramatic shift that you have made. So can you say a few words about where you’ve come from?
Annie Handmer 34:36
Yeah, absolutely. So yes. So I wasn’t always a millennial layabout. I started, so when I finished university, I got a job working in investment banking, and I was working in corporate finance in private equity, mostly, doing industrials. So, mergers and acquisitions and all sorts of fun, sort of fun financial stuff. And it really gave me an appreciation of how little sleep one can exist on. You know, the, the longer I’m out of that sort of world, the more I think how bizarre it was, in a way, and of course, we all work. But that really is an extreme, I think that and being a junior doctor, and maybe being a junior lawyer, would be the things where you work, basically, all the time. And if you’re not working, you’re asleep, and you never get enough sleep. So that kind of situation, for me really cemented in my mind that this isn’t for me, and that life has a bit more purpose. And it wasn’t that I’m lazy, or didn’t want to work hard, it was more that I felt that I could do other stuff with my time. And, and that’s something that I valued. And other people could do that job better than I could. And wouldn’t miss the sleep as much as I did. So, you know, I’m really glad that I did it. But if you look at someone’s CV, and you look at, you know how they did this, they did that, and they flitted from job to job, they, their perception might be that they can’t stick to anything. I think for me, it was more a case of going in learning a huge amount, contributing a lot. And then identifying that this was not a long term option. And in the same way, as I don’t know, if you’re dating or something, you know, you go on a few dates. And the first time someone asks you on a date, you’re so flattered that you say yes. And then you, you go out a few dates, and you realize what it is that you like, and you don’t like and you realize what you value and so on. And then you kind of find relationships or a relationship that works for you at that particular time and so on. For me work is a bit like that. And investment banking was a very intense fling. That was fantastic. And something that I have very fond memories of but something I don’t need to do again, necessarily. Yeah, I hope that helps. Some, there’s a there’s a story, I mean, you can go back and listen to the episode where I tell the story of the certified dramatic exit. And there was sort of a, it was a near death experience that I had this revelation that it was like, Oh, my God, I need to leave and do a PhD about space, which I’m still not entirely sure why my brain touched that up me at that moment. But I’m really glad it did. And I’m really pleased with the decisions that I’ve made. But I maintain, I remained really good friends with a lot of the people that I worked with in banking, who’ve stayed in banking, and it’s quite nice actually, being able to kind of have been involved in that industry and seeing it from the inside. And now being able to be on the outside and understand it without having to be doing it all the time. It’s, it’s a really good thing. So you know, if a lot of the time we talk ourselves out of things, because we think maybe this isn’t going to be what I want forever. But when it comes to a job, it doesn’t have to be what you want forever. It’s like with a relationship, maybe you don’t get to marry the person and have like a children with them and retire to the Scottish Highlands. But maybe you can have like a great six month or a great one year a great 18 month adventure with them in Prague. I mean, why not?
Liz Sumner 38:31
I love it. I love it.
Annie and I continued the conversation and we talked about how we might adjust the school system to accommodate some of these ideas and some other topics. And those parts of the conversation are available for Patreon subscribers. Here are some more of Annie’s thoughts about young people today.
Annie Handmer 38:50
The reality is that our society sets incredibly difficult and unrealistic and, and just unreachable expectations for children and young people. And it always has done and it will continue to do so for every generation. And that coming to that with a moralistic stance or a kind of what is always going to be an outdated approach to “this is how you ought to navigate the world you live in” may be more harmful than it is helpful. And so when I was thinking about this question, I thought actually, how can we ask questions that encourage young people to think about these things, without asking them to identify answers? Or to give back the answers we think we want to hear. So instead of saying, you know, what do you want to be or what sort of career path do you want to have? What do you want to study? Maybe instead asking what is it that you value? What things bring you happiness? When do you feel that you’re doing good work and accepting that work is becoming a more, a more collaborative and more online a more creative kind of thing as well. So, you know, if someone’s sitting in the basement, on their computer all day, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re, they’re wasting their potential just because you know, we think it does, because we look at it and we don’t understand it, they actually might be doing amazing things.
Liz: Thank you Annie.
Annie: Thanks so much Liz