Note from Work Stew Editor Kate Gace Walton: Over on Facebook, I recently posted this message: “I’ve talked to many job changers. Now I’m on the lookout for people who have stayed with one employer for a long, long time. Anyone?”

I heard from quite a few people, and over the coming weeks, I plan to share the brief Q&A exchange I had with each of them. First up: Priscilla Emerling who has worked at Vermont’s Smugglers’ Notch resort for more than two decades. 

1. When you first joined the company you’re with now, how long did you intend to stay? 

Initially, I only planned to stay for a winter. I had just moved to Burlington, Vermont from Washington DC and was having trouble finding a job. At that point in my life, I had great plans to save the world working with troubled teens, but found it difficult to get my foot in anywhere, especially without a Masters. A friend was headed out to Smugglers’ to apply for a job, and I decided to tag along. I applied on a whim. I thought it would be fun to be a ski bum for a season. Little did I know that, 23 years later, I’d still be here!

 2. Why have you stayed as long as you have?

Laziness? I think a lot of it has to do with the atmosphere, especially early on. There’s nothing like working at a resort: you get to work, play, and live in a place where people spend oodles of money to spend their hard-earned vacation/family time. In a word, it’s fun! Plus, I was learning so much. Because line-level resort jobs are seasonal, you needed to be willing to do whatever is needed to stay employed during the slower shoulder seasons. For me, this meant brush cutting ski trails, painting facilities, building bridges on the cross-country trails, acid-washing pools, waxing slides… For a girl who didn’t know the difference between a wrench and pliers, these were all huge accomplishments. The other important factor is the people. There’s a longevity epidemic at Smugglers’ and the people you work with are more than just co-workers—the company as a whole is much like a large, dysfunctional family. We fight, we tease, we nag—but give us a crisis to get behind, or (god forbid) someone say something negative about us, watch out because we’re a force to behold. There’s one thing we all have in common: we love the mountain. It’s not just a job or a resort, it’s a family.

3. Was there ever a point where you considered leaving? Making a change? If so why? What made you decide to stay instead?

Many times. Mainly because I didn’t want to get stuck in the same job for 20 years and not be able to find another one. You can see how well that turned out. One of the downsides of working at a resort is that you’re asked to do many things outside what would be considered a normal job description. Jack of all trades, master of none. It’s difficult to figure out where you fit in the real world—or if you’d fit at all.  On paper, I’m the art director/graphic designer at a year-round resort…but that just doesn’t translate as well as it would if it were the same position but at an advertising agency, or a magazine—even though I direct our ad agency and produce a magazine. There are a lot of little things that keep me here, beyond not being able to (half-heartedly) find another job: flexibility being the most important. As long as I get my job done, I can work from anywhere. I can come and go as I please. For me, this has become more and more important with my father passing away and my mother getting older. Frankly, I’ve come to realize that working here for as long as I have has turned me into a spoiled brat. I work hard, and for the most part under the radar—but at the same time I have no filter. I will give you my opinion regardless of your position and apparently missed that day in school when they taught business correctness and how to suck up.

4. Why do you think changing jobs is so common? What are other people seeking that you have perhaps already found?

I think most people are more ambitious than I am. Plus, for the most part, my quality of life and where I live was much more important to me than making the big bucks. Ive never been one of those people who always had to trade in and up—I’m quite content and comfortable with what I have. THAT or it’s because I don’t like change. My father spent his entire career with J. Walter Thompson, so I suppose there’s something to be said for doing what you know.

5. Is there something, anything, that could—at least hypothetically—lure you elsewhere? If so, what is it?

Respect.

Brief note from Work Stew editor Kate Gace Walton: For the most part, I post essays and podcast  interviews, but I’ve also published a couple Q&A-style pieces: Christine de Brabander’s thoughts on business travel and Leland Dirk’s take on living off the grid. The Q&A format, in which I lob a few questions at an unsuspecting reader, turns out to be a good way to capture at least a slice of someone’s story—without asking them to do all the heavy lifting that an essay entails. For this piece, I turned the tables on career coach Marcy Porus-Gottleib: typically, Marcy likes to be the one asking people why they do what they do, but here she tackled that question herself.

1. You’re a career coach. How did you find your way to that role?

It has been quite a journey! I’ve had a variety of work experiences: during high school and college summers, I was in fast food—ice cream scooper at Baskin-Robbins and drive-thru queen at Burger King. And I learned a lot: how to wow customers, solve problems, and be pleasant at the same time! After graduating, I worked for ten years in the retail industry (people manager, buyer, product developer), spent another seven as the VP of People and Operations at an outdoor travel company, and another few as the Director of Alumni Relations at the Haas School at UC Berkeley. For the last ten years, I’ve focused on career coaching—helping clients to identify their passions, define themselves, and move toward meaningful work. My own career path is a crooked one, to say the least! But there’s a unifying theme: all the work I’ve done has centered on helping people get or do what they desire. I like to say that I see people so that they can see themselves—and I’m honored to do it!

2. If you could go back in time and counsel your younger self at various junctures (maybe graduating from college or when you were poised to make a change), what would you advise?

This is what I’d say: “Relax. Clear away the critical voices of your parents or society. Set aside the “shoulds” and just listen to what comes up for you. Trust yourself. Congratulate yourself on what you’ve accomplished thus far. Look inside: what do you care about, what are you uniquely good at, and what do you feel good doing? Then move toward that.”

Here’s the truth: we show ourselves to ourselves at a pretty young age. A few years back, I was going through old journals from my teens and twenties. I talked a lot about what I thought I might be interested in and how I might want to shape my career. Sure enough, I saw words that describe elements of exactly what I’m doing now!

3. Is there any one thing that you find yourself saying to almost all your clients, i.e. is there some “nugget” you’ve hit upon that seems to help in almost every instance?

The question many of my clients—no matter who they are or how much experience they have—commonly need to answer is this: how do I know what my best and most energizing skills are, the ones I want to use going forward? (The thought is that if you can identify your distinct strengths, then you can move toward work that employs those strengths.) One way I guide clients toward these answers is to ask them to identify moments in their personal or professional lives when they were feeling really on their game—when they felt proud of, and energized by, what they did (this could be anything from “planned out and tiled my bathroom shower” to “project managed a gnarly job, on-time and on-budget” to “wrote a novel”).

Now, let’s shoot back to 4^th grade math—remember factoring? When you took 24 and broke it down as 6X4 (or 8X3), and then as 2X3X2X2? In order to really hit on what you have to offer, you gotta break it down. So you liked the way you managed that tough assignment—but let’s look deeper. What specific tasks did that involve? How did you handle, motivate, and communicate with the team? Juggle the timeline? Troubleshoot problems? Report to stakeholders? Manage the budget? After breaking it down, the task is to identify what parts you loved, what parts you hated, what parts came to you easily, and which were like slogging through mud. It’s this process—examining the “factors” of different experiences—that create clarity and pave the way to fulfilling work.

And the second nugget? To some it’s obvious, to others less so: I tell clients to sniff out the work that sits where their talents and passions intersect with a genuine need. That’s the sweet spot, and once there, it feels really good.

4. Can you describe a moment in your coaching work that served to reinforce your sense that career development is the right fit for you?

That moment happens every time I see a light go on in a client’s eyes—when they discover what makes them tick or they reconnect with their values. It sends a chill right up my spine.

Having been completely lost myself at different times in my career, I used to think I’d be the absolute WRONG person to be doing what I do. Now I feel that having had to find my own way is a big part of why I can help others.

5. If you weren’t focused on career development, what would you be doing? Is there any other path that you could envision for yourself? 

If I weren’t doing what I do, I’d love to be a professional interviewer. I used to pine for Katie Couric’s Today Show job. I’m crazy about asking questions, poking around in someone’s head to find out why they think or feel or act the way they do. And I’m very direct, so I’d love to lob the hardball–or curveball—questions and see what ensues!

Otherwise, I’d run a bakery/coffee spot in a small town. Next door would be a small but extremely well-curated bookstore. That would be my husband’s domain.

Marcy Porus-Gottlieb is a professional coach and a consultant on career transitions and development. Based in Seattle, she can be contacted via LinkedIn and Facebook.

Would you be interested in fielding some questions about your work life? If so, please email me (kate@workstew.com) or drop me a message via Facebook. Other Work Stew contributors have found it helpful to capture their thoughts in writing—and the final decision on whether or not to publish will always rest with you.