Harriet, center, with fellow journalists and a kiwi bird in New Zealand.
Continued from Part 2 of When resigning is harder than getting the boot.
Shifting gears — and the Big Question plus the answer that directed her new career.
“After I finished the one big deadline project I had when I left the radio station, I sat down and thought: ‘If I didn’t have to work, what would I do?’ I did the fantasy thing.”
What she came up with was this:
“I would go to museums and do radio stories about things that museums never show you.
“I wrote a grant [to do this] and got it.” A grant to do 24 such stories. “It took me two years.”
What she did was give herself permission to pursue her wish list.
“And I’m very lucky. That thing about ‘follow your bliss’ worked for me.
These days, Baskas writes about airports as well as the museums.
“I sometimes think, when I don’t have enough work, that I should get a regular job.”
But she doesn’t let herself get stuck there. “It would be too life consuming and I’m more selfish about having my life now,” she says.
“You get so tied up in a job, you don’t do other things. A regular job can be incredibly limiting. I know it happened to me.
“I didn’t leave time for my family. My husband and I were both working all the time. We were both coming home complaining about the irritations of our work.”
Shortly after she left her job, her husband made a switch in his job.
“We both switched to things we liked doing better and had to find new things to talk about. More pleasant stories.”
Please continue to Part 4 of When resigning is harder than getting the boot.
