Staying Employable In Your Job

When I was involved in the cartoon biz (all of two years and ten months ago), one of the ongoing complaints from veteran artists was ...

"I've worked for thirty years straight with hardly any layoffs. But now I'm fifty-five and I get laid off all the time, and my unemployment is usually two or three months long. The last one was four months! What the hell is going on?"

What's going on is age bias and support networks withering away. It's falling behnd the skills curve. Lack of employment is less an issue during boom times (i.e., now), but it's a problem when shows end or the industry slows down. Believe it or not, slowdowns do happen from time to time). But the problem isn't industry specific. It's a national problem:

... A recent study by the Urban Institute and Propublica found that over half of workers over the age of 50 will at some point be jettisoned from their jobs (fired outright) or forced to resign (jumping before they’re pushed). Only 10% will ever again be compensated at the level of the jobs they left. ...

Given what the trends are, and that the older you get the harder it is to stay fully employed, what can you do to remain relevant and fully in the game?

1) Continually upgrade your skills. If you don't know the latest software, if you don't know what technology is coming down the pike, strive to find out ... and learn it. If you're, for instance, a board artist who mostly does "cartoony" shows, develop chops that encompass super heroes as well. The more styles you can handle, the more employable you'll be. (Final thought, slightly off topic: if you work at a computer all day -- and many do -- protect yourself ergonomically. Have a supportive chair, take breaks, rest your eyes, wear protective lenses. Stretch. You can't work, after all, if you're on disability. Note the video above.)

2) Learn to navigate studio politics. If your boss is an ignorant, surly toad, learn how to finesse the obnoxiousness. This doesn't mean accept abuse and harassment, but it does mean you'll need to figure out what work issues you want to do battle over. (If your boss makes a bad artistic choice, you need to figure out how energetically you want to argue about it.) An old-timer told me long ago: "When you're at work, go for the popularity contest. And be nice to the people you meet on your way up. Because you'll meet them again on the way down. And they might offer you a job."

3) Cultivate networks. When artists come into animation in their early to mid-twenties, they often develop long-term professional relationships with men and women in their thirties, artists who are a bit further up the studio ladder, experience-wise. This will work great for decades, but when you hit your mid-fifties it won't. Because your good old reliable network of supporters will now be in their sixties and likely retired, so remember to be helpful and supportive to people coming up behind you, because one day you'll need them.

4) Live below your means. In the go-go nineties (now twenty-plus years behind us) a lot of artists made a lot of money. And a lot of artists spent a lot of money, under the supposition that the good times would last forever. Sadly, the good times didn't, and a lot of animation employees had to endure unemployment, salary reductions, even different careers. The business changed and many retrained. Many found new jobs in animation but some ended up running cash registers at Trader Joe's. Stuff happens.

So it's always good to tuck money away. Have an emergency fund with six to twelve months living expenses. Fund IRAs, 401(k)s, and Roth-IRA accounts. Drive that old car a year longer. Housing in L.A. is pricey, so you either rent until you can buy on a market dip (the last one ran from 2009 to 2012) or search for something affordable in an outlying area that's near mass transit.

The information above might take exertion and focus to put in place, but it's useful to keep in mind when building a career.