【Workplace Life】There Are Always Some Detours in Career

I wonder how many college students today still feel lost about what to do after graduation?

I still remember that in one of my university classes, the professor once asked us: "What kind of job do you want to do after you graduate?"

Back then, my answer was simple: "Just some general administrative work."

Looking back now, I think that answer really suited who I was at the time. The major I studied wasn’t exactly one known for strong job prospects. Rather than having a clear career goal when I entered university, I was more like someone just going to experience college life and see if I could find some interests or direction along the way. Although in hindsight I did learn some things during those years, from a purely employment perspective, my major didn’t really provide a clear career path. In fact, I’ve hardly heard of anyone who continued working in a related field after graduation.

So in the first few years after graduating, I really did take on several admin-related jobs. But later I realized that “administration” is actually a very broad concept—any role involving paperwork, data organization, or document processing could fall under administrative work. At the time, I didn’t think there was anything wrong with that. Finding a job first and then slowly figuring out what suited me seemed like a valid choice.

But after working for a few years, my life circumstances began to change. Especially after switching jobs twice in one year, my mom once asked me: "Why do you insist on finding production control roles? Can’t you just look for admin jobs?"

I thought for a moment before answering: "Because the salary for admin work these days is no longer something someone my age with a mortgage can simply consider."

This wasn’t meant to dismiss administrative work. It was just that I had started to understand I was no longer in the same position as when I first entered the workforce.

When I first graduated, I only needed to consider whether I liked the job, whether it would be too exhausting, or whether my colleagues were easy to get along with. But now I have a mortgage and living expenses, and I’ve also begun to care about long-term career development. I can no longer choose a path based solely on “having a job is good enough.”

More importantly, during the years I’ve spent in production control, I finally found a real sense of professional fulfillment. I enjoy taking a pile of seemingly chaotic orders, materials, capacity, and delivery deadlines and organizing them—breaking them down, arranging them, and figuring out how to make everything connect smoothly. Of course, the job is genuinely tiring, sometimes so much that I even question why I’m doing it. Yet even so, there are moments when I feel, “I think I actually did this well.”

That feeling of “being capable of solving problems” is something I rarely experienced in my previous roles. So now, I’m increasingly certain that production control isn’t a job I’m completely unsuited for.

What I really need to find is the right production control role for me. If someone decides they’re not suited for an entire profession just because they had a miserable time at one company, it’s easy to mistake “the environment wasn’t right” for “I’m not capable.”

I’ve had those doubts myself. Especially after going through high-pressure, chaotic work environments, I once wondered if I simply wasn’t cut out for production control—if others could do it but I couldn’t. But after leaving and interviewing at other companies, I gradually realized that my experience does have value, that some people do recognize the skills I’ve built, and that by changing environments, I can start over.

Now at thirty, if the professor asked me again, “What do you want to do after graduation?” I still might not be able to give a very precise answer. I can’t say I’ll do production control for the rest of my life. But at least I now know what I like and don’t like, what kind of work environment allows me to perform well, and what kind of work style would slowly make me lose myself.

Perhaps a career doesn’t have to be figured out at twenty. Some people know exactly where they’re going right after graduation, while others only piece together their direction after wandering for a few years, changing jobs, and walking down paths that didn’t suit them. What I believe now is that life doesn’t require finding the answer very early—it’s possible to get closer to it through each choice we make.

I once thought all I needed was a regular admin job. Only later did I realize I actually care more about finding a sense of value in my work, and I hope my experience can accumulate over time instead of resetting to zero with every new job.

So even now, I’m still looking—not for the “best” production control job, but for a place where I can keep doing this work well. Because I’ve always believed that it’s not that production control is bad, nor that I’m necessarily unsuited for it. It’s just that only in the right position can its value be fully realized.