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Posted by Dave on July 22, 2006 at 8:15:43 am EDT
In reply to Climbing + Career posted by Carl on July 22, 2006 at 12:02:37 am EDT

Great topic.

Work/life balance is a tough thing, but you're at a great point in your life to experiment and find out what's right for you. (It doesn't get any easier with a family and a mortgage.)

It sounds like you're considering two distinctly different paths:

1) Work in the outdoor industry doing what you love. You'll be outside a lot and you'll be working with other people who share your passions. On the downside, the pay isn't great and, depending on where you guide, the majority of your time may be leading clients up the same few routes over and over (and over). And if you're not a people person, forget it.

2) Work in engineering, preferably in a job that lets you get out to climb often. As a recent grad, you're probably not in a real good position to be negotiating flex time and extra vacation days from most employers. It sounds like you have a real committment to the environment, so the key is to seek out companies that share your values, both in terms of the environment and being flexible with vacation time.

Both of those -- and lots of options in between -- can and do work for lots of people. Part of it is figuring out how important your climbing and career goals are relative to each other, then finding the work situation that can fulfill both. Maybe it's being a full-time dirtbag. Maybe it's a part-time or contract engineering gig combined with guiding and a couple big trips a year. Maybe it's full-time engineering in a location where you can sneak in a couple pitches before or after work. Work/life balance is entirely individual.

(For me, that meant starting my own business at 25 so that I could have the flexibility to get out and climb/hike/bike/travel whenever I wanted. Of course I work more hours now than I ever did for anyone else, and there are all sorts of other stresses involved, but overall it's still pretty liberating.)

So start with your goals:

What do you want to accomplish with your climbing? Are you going to be putting together big alpine expeditions? Or working challenging sport routes close to home? Or something in between? Those mesh with work in very different ways.

How about work? Do you want to make a lot of money? Or work just enough to pay the bills? Create one great product that will change the world? Work on lots of different projects? Again, these can imply different styles of work and different kinds of companies for which you can succesfully work.

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