Career Relaunch®
Joseph Liu
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Starting a New Chapter with Christine Snow
One of the hardest hit industries during the Covid-19 pandemic has been the airline industry. With global travel drastically reduced, many in the airline industry have had to make some tough choices about their careers. In this episode of Career Relaunch, flight attendant turned coder Christine Snow shares her story of stepping away from her 7-year career as a flight attendant to pursue other interests. We discuss how you can tell whether now is the right time to make a change in your career and also talk through some common hurdles, both emotional and practical, that stand in the way of starting something new. Afterwards, I address a listener question about the other parts of your life you may want to reevaluate when you’re rethinking your career. Key Career Insights Whether maintaining the current trajectory of your career makes sense. When a job isn’t fun anymore, your entire view of the industry can change. A crisis can force you to make the changes you’ve desired for so long One of the biggest hurdles in leaving your career behind is fearing that your current role is as “good as it gets” and you may ultimate just end up returning When you’re doing a job that brings you so much fulfillment, it enables you to feel like you are where you should be in your life. If you know deep down that your current job isn’t quite right for you, not knowing where you want to take your career instead can often leave you feeling stuck. Resources Mentioned Learn more about Zip Code Wilmington, the software development bootcamp Christine graduated from. I mentioned James Clear’s book Atomic Habits, a book I’m reading right now, which is really reshaping how I think about habit formation. Listener Challenge During this episode’s Mental Fuel segment, I talked about the importance of taking steps to create the path you want for your career and life. If you’re reevaluating what’s next for you in your career, think about the exact type of person you want to be. Take stock of how you’re spending your days, what actions you’re taking, where you’re directing your energy, and the people you are or are NOT prioritising. Then, ask yourself whether you’re behaving in a way that’s consistent with the person you want to be. If you’re not, find a way to change how you’re running things in your life or how you’re reacting to things in your life. Maybe it’s a habit or a work pattern you’ve fallen into that you know deep down isn’t sending you in the right direction or serving what’s really important to you in your life. Take the initiative to do something about it. Make that change. Do it now . . .before you become the kind of person you don’t admire when you look yourself in the mirror. Even if it’s small change, making that change is the first step toward becoming the kinda person you wanna be and the kinda person you can feel proud of. About Christine Snow, flight attendant turned coder Christine Snow spent 7 years as a flight attendant, but her career trajectory completely changed when the pandemic hit in early 2020. While she was at home on a 6 month leave from flying last summer, she started learning how to code, and it hooked her interest and creativity. She eventually applied for and was accepted into Zip Code, a competitive 12 week software development bootcamp in Wilmington, Delaware. Having graduated right before we recorded our conversation, she had just begun her job search and interview process with nothing guaranteed, but she told me that learning this new skill has given her the confidence and hope to start a brand new career for herself in the tech industry, and that she couldn’t be more excited. Did You Enjoy This Episode? Please Let Us Know! Tweet: If you enjoyed this episode and have a few seconds to spare, Tweet to let me and Christine know! Tweet a thank you! Review: I’d also love for you to leave a positive review and rating for the podcast on Apple Podcasts, which helps my show reach more people who want to relaunch their careers. Subscribe: Be sure to subscribe to Career Relaunch podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or Android so you can automatically get each new episode on your device. Full instructions. Stay in touch: Follow Career Relaunch on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow host Joseph on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Comments, Suggestions, or Questions? If you have any lingering thoughts, questions, or topics you would like covered on future episodes, record a voicemail for me right here. I LOVE hearing from listeners! Leave Joseph a Voicemail You can also leave a comment below. Thanks! Thanks to Audible for Supporting Career Relaunch Thanks to Audible for supporting this episode of Career Relaunch. Audible is the premier provider of digital audiobooks, offering over 180,000 audiobook titles for listening anytime and anywhere on your favorite device. Career Relaunch listeners can download a free audiobook download and get 30-day trial at audibletrial.com/careerrelaunch. Episode Interview Transcript Teaser (first ~15s): The pandemic forced my hand a little bit. It made me look at my career and say, ‘Look, you’ve desired something different for a while, but you haven’t done it. You haven’t had the push to do it yet, and here’s your push.’ Joseph: Hello, Christine. Thank you so much for joining me today on Career Relaunch. You are actually the very first guest I’ve had on the show in a while, since the pandemic hit last year. I really appreciate your time today. Christine: Thanks for having me. Joseph: Can you start by giving me a glimpse into what you have been focused on recently in your career and your life? Christine: I spent about the last eight years as a flight attendant in the US. Clearly, I was in the industry that was very heavily affected when the pandemic really hit last spring. I think in the US was when we first really noticed it in March. I spent most of the next six months at home in my apartment just rethinking my whole career and what this meant for the rest of my life. Did I want to try and stay in this career, if I was even able to industry-wise? During that time, I discovered this deep interest in tech and coding. You are catching me after I just completed this three-month coding bootcamp in Wilmington, Delaware, to become a Java developer. Joseph: Congratulations, first of all, on that. I know that things have actually evolved quite a bit since we’ve first connected last month. I want to get into your current situation in more detail when we get to the latter part of our conversation today. I know you mentioned that you haven’t always been a coder, and I would like to start by going back in time and want to talk about your time as a flight attendant. This is something that you did for seven years at the start of your career, and I’d love for you to just start by telling us how you got into that industry. Christine: I was in college in Atlanta, Georgia. I was graduating with my bachelor’s degree in English with a focus in Victorian-era poetry actually at the time. I was only 21. I didn’t know what I wanted to do at all. I’ve never been one of those people who is clear on what I wanted for the rest of my life. I thought at the time I really love analyzing poetry and any kind of literature, so may I’ll just go on and get my master’s in that. At the time, a friend of a friend, who was a flight attendant heard that I was graduating, and she told me, ‘Christine, you know, my company’s hiring. I could refer you.’ At the time, I was like, ‘Sure, why not? I might as well if they will hire me. I might as well put off more college for a degree I’m not even sure that I want to go have fun.’ That’s actually how I first got into it. Luckily, I was hired at the time, and I spent the next seven years flying. Joseph: Can you tell me a little bit about which carrier you worked for and what the nature of your role was? What exactly did you do on a day-to-day basis? Christine: I worked for Delta Airlines. When I was first hired, I was sent to the New York City base, and I spent most of the next seven years as a New York City base flight attendant. It was quite a big change in my life. Anyone who goes into the airline industry gets a big change schedule-wise. You are constantly traveling, especially when you’re new. You’re working a lot of back-to-back trips, so you’re not home very much. If you are excited to travel and meet new people, and you don’t need to be home every single night, it is the perfect job. It definitely was that for me for a while. Joseph: I guess all of us have cross paths if you’ve ever flown with a flight attendant, and that’s going to be your primary point of contact on a flight. It’s one of those vocations I’ve always found to be very fascinating. I’d love to hear a little bit about the good, bad, and ugly about being a flight attendant to kind of demystify the industry a bit. This is a question I’ve always wanted to ask a flight attendant but just never had the opportunity to do that. First of all, can you explain a little bit about what it takes to become a flight attendant? What’s involved with training? Christine: In the US, when you get hired to work for a major carrier, like Delta, they put you through about seven weeks of training, wherever their base headquarters are. This involves emergency training, mechanical emergency training on different aircraft types, and training you how to evacuate a plane in under a certain amount of time, all the different doors for all the different types of aircraft in the fleet. You have to be certified on those and how you would operate them both normally and in an emergency. You undergo a lot of training as well for medical emergencies. As everyone knows, anything can happen at any time. The only difference in flight is yo
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