Three Years of Quilting

For anyone who has gone on a job interview in basically forever, there seems to be this bizarre hang up on “employment gaps”, the existence of which is somehow an indicator of your unsuitability for the workforce. Apparently if you have any time off between jobs, you must be some kind of slacker or ne’er-do-well upon whom the employer could not possibly take a chance. Since when is doing the same thing over and over with no “gaps” an indicator of greatness? It seems to me that it’s more likely that person is just really unmotivated to ever do anything different. I guess consistency is the key, even if the overall outcome is utter mediocrity.

I once took three years off from working to quilt. Yes, you read that right. I quilted – for three years. When I ran out of money and fabric and had to go get a “real job” again, it was a real problem. Telling a would-be employer that you just “took some time off” was literally employment poison. Interviewers could not hang up on me fast enough. Let’s take a look at what I really learned from quilting for three years:

• Budgeting - Without a “real job” there was no money to buy fabric. I had to decide how to use the limited fabric resources I had. How many times at work have you been asked to pull resources out of thin air?
• Persistence – Three years is a long time to be so singularly focused on one thing. The fact that I didn’t go nuts proves I can do your boring old job for years on end!
• Working independently – There was no one else in that basement with me cutting out one billion half square triangles. I probably did the work of three people.
• Flexibility - I had to make do with what I had, which means changing the design to fit the amount of fabric I had available.

If finesse with budgeting, persistence, flexibility and independence are not admirable traits, then you, Mr. Employer, just cannot be made happy.

In the end, I did get a job similar to those I had held before. I simply referred to my three years quilting as “consulting”. I was then able to buy all the fabric I wanted. If you are ever faced with an “employment gap”, whether it be intentional or not, I suggest you do the same!

Blog post by Jen Lopez.

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