Life of a /Slashie/
Recently, I read watched an interesting video on youtube and was drawn to this term known as ‘slashie’. Before I get into this, I should define what a slashie is.
Slashies’ are a new generation worker: defined as — a group of people who have had multiple “slashes” in their title and multiple career projects/skills. — Mondo Search
At the first glance, I think this term resonates me with a lot because I have embarked on many interesting activities that allows me to build small portfolios. I do feel like I am gravitating towards that kind of lifestyle. In my day job, I am a data analyst, performing analytical work and data processing tasks. On the side, I am an educator who imparts coding and data knowledge to beginners. I also graduated from a Life Coaching Course recently too and I may embark on providing life coaching services. With the accumulation of these experiences, it allows me to establish slashes in my job titles such as analyst/educator/coach. If I were to make use of my previous accounting knowledge, maybe I can add that another slash to my current status.
Wide range of perspectives
One of the benefits of being a slashie is that you will have a broader view of things. When you are specialized in a particular skill set, you tend to look at issues from that particular perspective. It can be very specific and narrow at times. However, by possessing another job skill set, you are able to look at things from another point of view, thereby enhancing and adding more value to your perspectives.
Coming from personal experience, I know that data engineers are only concerned about the data pipeline set up, its efficiency and performance load whereas as a data analyst I am more concerned about the business value and whether it fits to my project requirements. Another example was a data scientist wanted to build a dashboard for fraud detection system but does not know the concept of credit and debit. Because I had a huge appetite in learning different areas, I was able to bridge the understanding across as I am able to speak in their terminologies.
You will get a bigger and clearer picture of things
This experience relates more closely to projects that I had been involved before. When you are too focused on a particular area, you don’t really understand why we need to do a certain task. By having other perspectives, you are able to get a bigger picture of why certain processes are necessary. You are also able to empathize and understand the underlying issues much easily.
Potential opportunities to move across industries
This may not be applicable to everyone but to me I always want to feel like I will have more options assuming if one of my career does not turn out well. I am always keen to expand my knowledge on a broad and deeper level. This way, I feel that I am more adaptable in different working environments. Moreover, I can easily pick up a new skill in the quickest time possible.
Cons of being a slashie
I guess the main concern would be that you are all over the place and others will not be able to understand what’s your brand or identity. There could be a general impression that you are the ‘Jack of all trades’ but master of none. If you are applying for full time roles, the recruiters may not know what are your exact strengths and abilities. This may cause some confusion for some people and it may not work to your advantage.
Long journey to becoming a full-time slashie
The reason I am saying this is because I am still holding a full time job currently while juggling with side hustles. I believe that a true slashie would have multiple jobs and projects on his or her plate so they will be juggling between jobs throughout their day. There should be a lot of flexibility in arrangements and you have more control over your time. I am still bounded to my 9–6 day job and only have the time to do my hobbies and hustles after that.
At this point of time, I am still focusing on building my skills and network. Hopefully there will be more projects that I can sustained myself with and I can take this leap of faith to be come a true slashie.
If you are interested in understanding more of this trend, you can click on the link as below!
Regardless, this is a lifestyle that I am hoping to have in the future because I do prefer to have more freedom and control over my time. Till then, I hope this post may interest you to find out more about being a slashie and may inspire you to become one too.
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