Month: October 2025

• Business Insider spoke to four Gen Xers who turned to unconventional jobs after struggling to find full-time work.
• One Gen Xer took on a two-month internship making $20 an hour alongside a high schooler.
• Some have monetized hobbies like ice hockey, and others have taken mission-driven roles.

Dionne Foster, 52, built a steady career as a business analyst contractor before losing her job in April 2024. A year later, she found herself taking on an eight-week summer internship at an IT company, where she made $20 an hour and worked alongside a high schooler.

“I haven’t made $20 an hour since I was in college,” Foster said.

Foster accepted the internship offer after roughly a year on the job market, where she cast a wide net of applications for both full-time and contract opportunities. She said she’s never struggled to find work prior.

“I’ve never been rejected like this before,” Foster said, adding that, in the past, when one contract ended, another one began shortly after.

For seasoned Gen X professionals like Foster, the job market is especially brutal. Many recount frustrating experiences with résumés screened by algorithms, routine ghosting, and the blow of being labeled “overqualified.”

In such a tough market, some Gen Xers are taking whatever unconventional roles they can find to stay afloat while they search for jobs in careers they spent decades building.

Monetizing hobbies

William Simon, 49, had always heard that his job in medical equipment sales would be safe. But after losing his position at a startup in April, he hasn’t been immune to the struggles other job seekers are facing.

“The hardest part of looking for a job in this economy is the competition,” Simon said, adding that he thinks “a lot of employers are looking to go the younger route” so that they can pay less and have a greater ability to mold their employees.

In addition to relying on his savings and unemployment insurance, Simon said he sold his boat and cut back on recreational activities to meet expenses.

He’s also turned his hobbies into jobs, officiating ice hockey games and picking up shifts at a friend’s indoor golf lounge whenever he can.

“What was a fun hobby that I fortunately got paid for, has now turned into a lifeline and helping me stay afloat,” Simon said.

Cathy Valentine, 60, has faced similar challenges. After losing her six-figure job in November 2023 as a coach who helped guide companies through change, she’s been searching for work. She had a two-month stint as a government contractor, but continues to look for a higher-paying job. In the meantime, she’s taken a job as a prep cook and pastry chef at the Garden Cafe at McKee Botanical Gardens in Vero Beach, Florida.

“I get to be creative in that job,” Valentine said. “That’s one of the reasons I love it.”

Valentine said she enjoys her coworkers and the garden walks before each shift, but the $15 hourly rate isn’t enough to get by. She said she is behind on rent, has sold off valuables, and misses seeing her grandchildren, whom she can’t afford to visit. While she’s had a few callbacks recently, the long hours at the café have clashed with interviews.

“I worked until 2 or 3 in the morning, got home at 4, and then had an interview at 9 that went terribly,” she said.

Waiting for the right opportunity

Julie Jordan-Wade also just marked two years of unemployment after working in meeting and event planning for over a decade. During that time, she’s turned down two offers, unwilling to settle for roles she doesn’t see as long-term careers.

While she continues her job search, Jordan-Wade, who is Gen X, has pieced together part-time work in communications at a church and, recently, as an outreach educator at the Dallas Holocaust & Human Rights Museum.

The museum job, she said, allowed her to make a little more money with a low time commitment. Plus, she said she values working with nonprofits.

“I don’t think we have to get all of our fulfillment out of what we do, but I think there needs to be something about it that we look forward to doing,” Jordan-Wade said.

• Kyle Ray turned his window-cleaning side hustle into a six-figure operation.
• As his client list has grown, so has his number of employees.
• He requires his sales reps and techs to read specific leadership and mindset books.

Kyle Ray turned his window-cleaning side hustle into a six-figure business, thanks to a unique pricing structure and providing what he calls “unreasonable hospitality.”

However, if you asked the business owner what he does, he wouldn’t mention windows or home services.

“We’re not a window cleaning company; we’re a training facility that develops people,” Ray told Business Insider. “My main goal is to make anybody who comes to work with us really successful.”

The career development process starts on day one.

Ray said he sits down with every new hire to discuss their goals and five-year plan: “I always ask them, ‘You don’t ever get into an Uber or get onto an airplane without knowing a destination or where you’re going, right? Why would you start a job where you don’t have some kind of plan?’

And, if I’m a stepping stone for them to go do something that they’re really passionate about, hopefully, I can teach them a lot of skills that will help in the long run.”

Ray, who started Geek Window Cleaning in 2007 while bartending and waiting tables, now services hundreds of members in Houston and Austin. His two main hires are sales reps and technicians.

Each new hire starts at “Tier 1” and has the opportunity to work their way up to “Tier 4.”

“As you progress up this ladder, it affects how much money you make,” said Ray. “You’re paid more as you gain skill, and our goal is to get you to Tier 4 as fast as possible.”

In addition to gaining specific skills before jumping tiers, Ray shared the books each employee has to read before getting promoted. The book list is different for sales reps and technicians.

Technician Tier 1: “Eat What You Kill” by Sam Taggart

The first book Ray has his technicians read is actually a sales book. The author, Sam Taggart, started his career as a door-to-door salesman selling solar and alarm systems before building his own sales training business.

“Just because you’re a tech and you’re cleaning windows does not mean that you shouldn’t know how to sell,” said Ray. “They’re still at a customer’s house, there are still opportunities for them to add services if the customer needs it, and earn commissions on that, so we want them to know how to sell.”

Technician Tier 2: “Raving Fans” by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles

Ray believes in providing “unreasonable hospitality,” and trains his technicians to go above and beyond when interacting with customers.

“Raving Fans” is meant to further instill that core value into his employees, he said.

“It helps you understand how to create customers that are so satisfied and so happy with the service that they want to refer you to everybody.”

Technician Tier 3: “Extreme Ownership” by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin

Another core value at Geek is ownership, said Ray: “When you’re on the job site, it’s your job site, and you’re the one responsible for doing a good job.”

With “Extreme Ownership,” which is written by two Navy SEAL officers, Ray hopes to empower his Tier 3 techs to take responsibility and lead by example.

Technician Tier 4: “The Culture Code” by Daniel Coyle

The last book Ray requires his technicians to read analyzes some of the world’s most successful organizations and reveals how they build and sustain culture.

“We hire for culture fit and core value alignment, and we want people who are Tier 4 and higher up to help and mentor anyone who’s a Tier 1,” said Ray, adding: “If they get through all the tiers and they decide to go somewhere else, reading this book is really going to give them a leg up on whatever positions they go to in the future.”

Sales Tier 1: “Inner Excellence” by Jim Murphy

“Their first book is a mindset book, because door-to-door sales is a tough job,” said Ray, who knows from experience. “You can be wildly successful, but it’s all a mindset game.”

Sales Tier 2: “Eat What You Kill” by Sam Taggart

The one book that makes an appearance on both lists is Sam Taggart’s guide to closing deals.

Sales Tier 3: “The Illusion of Money” by Kyle Cease

“We’re trying to not only change their mindset and show them that they can do hard things by knocking doors, but change their mindset around money,” said Ray. “You can make a ton of money selling door to door, and we pay our sales reps very well, but ‘The Illusion of Money’ really helps with the idea of purpose, instead of just chasing money.”

Sales Tier 4: “Dare to Lead” by Brené Brown

Tier 4 sales reps, who work their way up to managing their own team of reps, read Brené Brown’s bestseller on what it really means to lead and how to be an effective leader.

Ray says his list is constantly evolving. For example, he’s reading “Unreasonable Hospitality” by Will Guidara for the first time and may replace an existing book with Guidara’s if he thinks it’s a better fit.

He reads at least one book a month, and considers it a key to entrepreneurial success: “Every business owner should be reading as often and as much as possible.”

• Amber Kissell, 45, experienced several symptoms of colon cancer in her mid-30s.
• After being dismissed by multiple doctors, she was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer.
• She is now in remission, but said she never stops worrying about it coming back.

Right before Amber Kissell had her second child, she noticed some troubling changes. At 35, she’d alternate between constipation and diarrhea — symptoms she chalked up to pregnancy.

After giving birth, she found blood in her stool, one of the most common signs of colon cancer. She immediately started booking doctors’ appointments. A primary care physician told her she just had a fissure, even though she’d lost 10 pounds with no explanation. Then she saw a colorectal surgeon, who gave her a similar answer after a physical exam: she had hemorrhoids.

“In the back of my head, I was thinking ‘something isn’t right,'” Kissell, 45, told Business Insider. She went back to him two more times, explicitly asking if she might have colon cancer. He reassured her that she was “too young” and that her insurance wouldn’t cover a colonoscopy because she was under the recommended screening age (then 50, now 45).

Shortly after, Kissell started feeling lightheaded every time she stood up. “I started to wake up in the morning and feel like I had the flu,” she said. She relied more on her husband to take care of their 1-year-old because she would wake up exhausted.

After a particularly bad dizzy spell, Kissell was on her way to the ER when she called her colorectal doctor. He advised her to go home, wait a few days, and come in for a colonoscopy instead.

She still remembers the hallway she stood in when she got the call about her lab results and learned she had stage 4 colon cancer. The cancer had spread from her colon to her liver and lymph nodes.

“My children were 8 and 16 months,” she said. “Your whole life flashes before your eyes.”

Kissell began treatment immediately and asked not to know details of her timeline because she didn’t want to “dwell” on it. Then, a surprising turn of events: her chemotherapy completely shrank her tumors. Kissell has now been in remission for close to a decade.

Seeking other opinions

When she was first diagnosed, Kissell sought out multiple opinions for treatment.

The first doctor she met with was warm and told her he’d treat her like family: he suggested starting with aggressive chemotherapy before performing any surgery on her colon or liver. The second one wanted to begin with surgery and “cut as much out as possible.” She claims a third looked at her and flatly asked why she wasn’t crying. “You know you’re going to die, right?” she remembers him saying.

Kissell chose the first doctor because he seemed the most compassionate.

Because her cancer was so advanced, Kissell was put on palliative care, which was focused on shrinking her tumors with the goal of improving her quality of life rather than curing her cancer. The plan was to perform six rounds of chemotherapy, followed by surgery on her colon and liver, then finish with another six rounds of chemo.

Kissell’s main concern was her family. “When you tell a mom she has stage 4 cancer, the only thing she worries about is her children,” she said. Not knowing how soon things might progress, she filled two buckets with gifts, journals, and blankets for her kids.

Striving for normality

As Kissell underwent treatment, she sought to “keep life as normal as possible” for her family — something she felt was easier given her young age.

She continued to work as a hospital nurse, bringing her chemo pump bag with her and occasionally taking breaks in her car when nausea set in. “I wouldn’t say it was the easiest thing in the world,” she said, but she preferred it to being alone with her thoughts.

After work, she and her husband would try to stay active with their kids. “We would ride bikes and take walks, we’d do everything we could,” she said.

Kissell, who lives in the Indiana town she grew up in, had a strong community of friends and family to help her focus on her well-being. “When I was first diagnosed, I was scared out of my mind about bills,” she said. She was worried about losing their house or cars, or that she’d eventually be unable to afford treatment.

Everyone stepped in. A local nonprofit organization held a concert to fundraise for Kissell and coworkers started a GoFundMe for her. Friends brought dinners.

“I will never be able to repay everyone who was so kind,” Kissell said.

Rare, encouraging results

After her fourth round of chemo, Kissell’s scans revealed unexpected results: all seven small tumors in her liver were gone, as were the ones in her lymph nodes. The primary tumor in her colon also shrank significantly.

Her doctor adjusted her treatment plan: she’d now finish all her rounds of chemotherapy before surgery on her colon. After that, all signs of cancer disappeared.

Dr. Pashtoon Kasi, the Medical Director of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology at City of Hope in Irvine, California, told Business Insider that neoadjuvant chemotherapy — chemotherapy before any surgery to kill off any cancer cells that have spread — can sometimes effectively lead to remission. While Kasi didn’t treat Kissell, he said that if even a small tumor is near an important blood vessel, surgery can be more successful if the tumor can shrink first.

Full remission after neoadjuvant chemotherapy is still rare. In Kasi’s experience, performing all chemotherapy before other treatments only “really pushed the envelope” for about a third of eligible colorectal cancer patients. Kissell said even her doctor was surprised by her results, telling her that she was his first patient to respond like this.

Almost nine years later, Kissell is still in remission and has just reached the point where she only needs an annual checkup from her oncologist.

Still, she said it was difficult to adjust to life after treatment.

“It was so bad at the beginning — my finger could hurt and I was calling my oncologist,” she said. “It took forever to get over that.”

The experience taught her to embrace time with her family. While she used to hate taking photos, that changed with cancer.

“Thankfully, I’ve been able to create lots of memories over the past eight years,” she said. “I pray I get many more.”