Lane Changer - Jennifer, crossing lanes from Phuket to pup-minder
Dog lovin’ lane changers unite!
Funny how you make friends. After Jack died, I was draining all my income on doggie day care. Having someone come to give my girls a midday pee-break seemed a better idea and Jennifer became that person. For the first year, ours was a text-based relationship. With the switcheroo to working from home in March 2020, however, I kept her on so Bidi and Molly didn’t get too attached to just me. The drop-off and pick-up chats in my backyard were separated by six feet but joined by a need for social contact. We got to know and like each other, and despite being pet-less now for over two years, I still consider Jenn a friend. But I learned a whole lot more when we sat down for an interview.
Growing up in Mississauga, Jennifer attended an all-girl day-school in Oakville and then went further afield for her final year boarding at newly co-ed Trinity College School in Port Hope. First lane change. (Fun fact - TCS began in 1865 as a boys school in Weston and for a time was at the northwest corner of Rosemount and King, just a block from my house. But I digress.)
TCS led to Bishops in Lennoxville, Quebec and then Western University in London, Ontario, where Jenn graduated with a degree in psychology. Her first job was as a flight attendant for a small French Canadian airline which took her mostly to France. Not long into that, however, she set in motion a change of career lanes by studying Public Relations at Toronto’s Humber College. This readied her for marketing jobs at Blacks Photography and then Hunter Douglas.
Then came her first really big lane change: Jennifer was engaged by then, and she and her intended moved to Vancouver where she worked briefly at an all-girls school and then settled into event planning at McCarthy’s, a large Canadian law firm.
In 2008, however, her marriage had taken a toll on her and she fled solo to South East Asia. Yup, that’s a lane change, for sure! Her plan to stay three months turned into two years, much of it working for the largest large-scale event company in the world, in Phuket, Thailand. While she recovered her physical health there, badly eroded by the stress of her relationship, the expat life was not for her. She sought somewhere English speaking again but a return to Ontario was not in the cards; she needed to be near water so she could continue to explore her then-passion for diving.
Los Angeles was the choice. She was very focussed on her career for the six+ years she lived there, first working at a boutique travel company and then a travel marketing agency. While she loved her team, the work was high-pressure and she suffered depression and anxiety from imposter syndrome. So much so that her father flew down from Mississauga to be with her and accompanied her to a private psychiatric facility to explore out-patient care. She ended up being admitted against her wishes. She was kept for three days - at her expense no less! It’s like something from a very dark movie. Her father brought her back home, where she resumed living with her family for the first time in about 15 years. That was eight years ago.
Jennifer reports being ‘out of it,’ anxious, for the first four months after her return. She knew she couldn’t go back to the kind of work she’d been doing. With her own dogs her constant companions over the years, she tried out dog-walking, first with an agency and now with her own word-of-mouth business. She keeps her service area close to her parents’ home where she sleeps when she’s not doing overnight pet care for clients. The flexibility of the work is good for her, especially now as she’s caring for an ill family member too. Jenn’s love for the dogs and ease even with the big ones (like my Bidi was) is so clear. Our interview was made all the more interesting - and at times chaotic - by two French Bulldogs and a Brussels Griffin, none of which fazed her. Or me for that matter!
When I asked Jennifer to reflect on what her family has thought about where her life has taken her geographically and career-wise, she noted it’s not always been in their comfort zone, but that they’ve been supportive because they’ve known she will always land on her feet. And they’ve been right. With others, it’s been tougher - friendships are hard to maintain when you move as far as she has. She hasn’t been able to pick up with too many people from her past now she’s back in Ontario either as life moves on - it’s like she’s exploring the city for the first time again.
Does Jenn have regrets about how she’s spent the first 52 years of her life? Not really. Even the marriage - failed though it was - was good at first.
And what about more lane changes in the future? Nothing’s planned, she says. She’s given up scaling the corporate ladder, that much she knows. Working on her own suits her well too - she can do her own thing, without compromise! I suppose she has the odd debate with a Labradoodle about which sidewalk to take or dispute with a wayward Boxer. That’s a lane I might like too.
Missed previous Lane Changer profiles?
Peter Chandler, how it all began for me
Cathy Crowe, her lane is the street
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