Creating Space

A creative sabbatical after 10 years in tech

Waking up Tuesday morning, reality set in. Coming off a trip out west with friends and a wedding, this wasn’t just another long weekend. I had no obligations waiting for me on my return—no calls, no memos to write, no team meetings, no design reviews. Simply the liberty of an open calendar and my days at my own disposal.

It’s been almost 10 years since I was in that muddy, uncertain, beautiful in-between time of excitement about the unknown in my career. After a month of off-boarding, wrapping up a few final projects, and helping with hiring a couple of designers to support the team after I left, last Friday was my final day of work.

I’m grateful to truly love my work as a designer. When I found experience design, I felt like I’d discovered the job I never knew I wanted. It brings together my creativity and practical problem-solving nature in a way that energizes me. I’ve always moved quickly into the next and new opportunities that have come into my life in the past years—excited to tackle new challenges and experience new environments.

In 2015, I started my first full-time job as a UX Designer at Saatchi & Saatchi. The London team had just come over to New York to start a digital practice, and they took a bet on a young, excited designer with very little experience to join the team. It was my first time working at an ad agency, and I got to see a new world of working and business—big brands, big events, and bigger budgets. Working on a Super Bowl commercial had never even crossed my mind before.

Getting to that first design job at Saatchi & Saatchi wasn’t a smooth or straight path. After high school, I took a gap year. I’d been teaching English and volunteering abroad and wasn’t sure what I wanted to do next. Going back to college didn’t feel like my top option. Quite out of the blue, I was offered a job in New York as a personal assistant. Imagine The Devil Wears Prada, but I lived with my boss, sharing a room with the nanny in her Upper East Side apartment. What was the worst thing that could happen? I said yes and moved to the city sight unseen.

My first experience with a New Yorker was my Russian cab driver who picked me up at the airport, toting my single suitcase. Throughout the entirety of the drive to the Upper East Side, he rambled on about his many cats and life out in Coney Island. He kindly gave me his number and said to call if I ever needed anything as I was getting settled in the city. New Yorkers aren’t characteristically “nice”—but as this very first interaction set the tone—they are kind.

I had zero desire to extend my contract as an assistant but had fallen hopelessly in love with New York City. As my end date came closer, I started looking for opportunities that would keep me in the city. Before heading home for the holidays, I found an unpaid internship at an up-and-coming startup founded by two Harvard Business School grads. The company’s product was ready-to-cook meals delivered to your doorstep. As the first intern at the company, I got my own taste of business school with an on-the-ground education in the chaos of an early-stage company. We went through a Techstars incubator, were featured on Shark Tank, and were eventually acquired by a large grocery chain. As a 19-year-old who grew up in Northern Michigan, these were spaces and places I had never been exposed to before.

The internship quickly turned into a full-time job offer. I was ecstatic to sign for my first real job, with a real salary and real stock options, as the “Design and Content Coordinator”—a title we made up for my role. I bounced around, meeting needs and filling gaps. As the startup grew, we hired specialists to take over the projects and tasks I’d been covering. Before coming to the city, I’d been exploring photography and started to shoot and style the weekly menus for the company. I designed ads for a Metro North campaign, created content for the company blog, helped deliver packages to the Bronx, and made last-minute runs for ingredients from Dean & DeLuca for the test kitchen.

I would try out an area—photography, content, marketing, design, operations—and then move on as I had a new interest or saw a need in the business. Optimistic, opportunistic, and not knowing any better, I loved the learning experience and exposure to new ideas.

After my exploratory dives into various parts of the business, I’d lined up a move into a position supporting our new Director of Marketing. I didn’t know much about marketing but was excited to learn. When the director was let go unexpectedly, there wasn’t a need for a 20-year-old with zero marketing experience. I wanted to stay at the company regardless and was devastated at the thought of leaving. In a tearful conversation with the founder, I even offered to work in customer service, answering phones and emails from angsty customers, just to stay at the company. He gave me some hard words of advice that have always stuck with me:

“Alivia, I think you need to go learn some new skills.” 

So I did.

I’d just signed my first big-girl lease in downtown New York City, and those four-digit rent payments were looming in my future. I can look back with a knowing smile now, but I remember the tears strewn over Bowery as I wondered what on earth I was going to do next.

I didn’t wonder for long. I immediately started a few freelance design gigs, applied for countless jobs, volunteered at the Centre for Social Innovation in exchange for co-working space and networking, and simply walked out my door into the energy and inevitable connections that happen in New York. I’d also been considering going back to college to finish my degree and began the application process for NYU, which was my backup plan if my non-traditional methods of figuring out my career path didn’t work out.

Spoiler alert: They did.

We’ll pause this story for now, and come back to today. I’m calling it a creative sabbatical. In some ways, I feel like I’m 20 again—looking for new skills and a new challenge. It’s tempting to jump directly into another design job; it would be the easy and safe path that I already know and love. It might be the path I circle back to; I love working in design! However, over the past month of transitioning out of my last company, I have felt more and more led to slow down and explore. To make the time and space for God to lead me into the next opportunity. I’ve had ideas on the back burner of my heart that I want to explore, and I’m praying for an unmistakably clear direction on where to pour my energy next.

I’m grateful to be in a proactive—not reactive—place this time around. I’ve been here before, but this time, I have a lot more experience, skills, and an amazing network of friends and colleagues. Even though it’s an intentional choice, it does feel a little scary. I’m realizing I’m more risk-averse than I knew all along.

As a designer for the past ten years, I’ve practiced the creative process countless times. You start big, explore possibilities, and do the research. It feels messy at first. It doesn’t feel classically productive. You don’t focus on the outcome or the solution too early, but you make space for exploration. The cool thing is, it always works.

I’m grateful to have the ability to take some time to explore, feeling content in the moment and excited for the future. I want to treat my time off like a creative process, which is why I’m calling it a creative sabbatical. It’s a time of intentional rest and exploration—not a facade of productivity.

I’ve set one concrete goal for myself during this time: to write for myself every day. Not for a set amount of time or words, but simply to write from my heart. I’ve got a long list of business ideas, stories I want to share, and topics I’m eager to explore and research.

One of the stories I’m excited to share is my own journey as lifelong learner, and how I found a career path without a traditional education. Maybe this will end with a full-circle moment of returning to what I know and love. Maybe I’ll find a new path entirely. We’re still in the early stages of the creative process, and I’m not jumping to solutions just yet.