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Hi, it's Veronika here!

As you may know, I'm a maths tutor. I consider my job vegan-friendly, as it's not directly involved with anything that would be against my cruelty-free lifestyle.

But is it as easy as it looks like? Is my job (as well as many other I'm going to elaborate on further here) really vegan-friendly?

Let's look at my job first:
I sometimes get gifts from my students (apparently I'm a quite good teacher =) for Christmas etc. which may not be vegan should my students not know, or simply forget. I usually tell them as this topic is inevitable once I'm offered tea, which in England means black tea with milk. At this point, my clients find out I'm vegan as this is when I explain that I don't drink milk and black tea is too bitter for me. I'm happy to drink water, often there is a herbal option too. So when I do rarely receive a non-vegan gift box of chocolates or something similar, I thank them for being thoughtful and later donate these non-vegan treats to the food bank.
I don't agree with wasting food, but I also don't want to encourage my family, who are not-vegan, by giving them these. I may have done this before, but not anymore. Food banks seem a good choice.
As far as I can remember, that's the closest I can get to a vegan ethical problem when doing my job.
There is also the extra benefit of me being a role model for my students, they are mostly curious about my lifestyle choices and are interested to hear about why I am vegan.
They may not necessarily go vegan and that's not my goal either, but it's good to spread awareness and explain within reasonable means how things are in reality. Some of my students believed, for example, that animals get anaesthetics before being slaughtered. How could I not tell them that this is simply not true (although without going into
detail, as that's not necessary)?

To be more vegan oriented when working I also run my beach home decor eshop Magicful Home which is selling our own, as well as promoting other brand's, vegan products and recently became certified cruelty-free =) Plus I create vegan statement designs on T-shirts and mugs that I sell on Etsy. Both of my extracurricular activities are focused on raising funds for marine conservation, animal charities and shelters. So, I'm pretty happy with what I do for a living.

But I was thinking, not everyone is lucky enough to do a job which would be corresponding to their vegan lifestyle.

Changing jobs seems like the first option, yet I understand that's not always easy to do, sometimes it may feel almost impossible.
In such a situation it's key to focus on the good or how can you make the best of it.

For example, I've often thought - one of the most common jobs and surely relatively easy to get is in hospitality - pubs, bars, restaurants - either cooking meals, serving,
cleaning dishes...
Unless it's a vegan cafe/restaurant, there will be non-vegan meals and drinks around you all the time. How to handle this?
I've been asking many vegans about their jobs and of course, I spoke to many working in hospitality.
From vegan chefs to staff in well-known (not at all vegan) fast food chains. Those involved in non-vegan restaurants and pubs said that although it's not pleasant, to serve
meat and dairy, they feel good when they can be useful to those customers looking for vegan options and alternatives.

On this topic, someone recently mentioned to me that even when you work in a restaurant and have to handle meat etc, they try to make the best out of it - he tries to be
very helpful when recommending meals to vegans and vegetarians and also he was trying to be as efficient as possible with animal products, so nothing went to waste (therefore less demand to buy more).

This applies to people that work in other shops and services where they may sell non-vegan products, places such as grocery stores, health food shops, gyms, hairdressers,
beauty salons, and the list goes on. You can still advise on vegan products, speak to management (should you not be a part of it directly) about including more vegan options - here you can do a lot by researching better and perhaps cheaper options that your customers will love and your consciousness would love too as it won't be harmful to animals or the environment like other products may be.

Let's move to another industry:

Medicine. For both humans and animals. Doctors, nurses and also veterinarians. And pharmacists. And laboratorians.
All of these professions have something very non-vegan in common - medicine. This is not an inclusive list of problems related to these professions, but I see it as one of the
biggest ones.
Drugs, pills, tablets, all types of cures... as far as I know, all of them(?) are animal-tested. And plenty of them contain lactose, gelatine and other animal by-products. It's
sad, but at this stage of our society, inevitable. I look for alternatives, should I need any medicine, but that's not always possible. So if working in the medical profession
was always your dream, don't give up on it just because it's not completely vegan-friendly. The research always goes forward and the more people become aware of animal
mistreatment and environmental issues linked to animal overpopulation (caused by humans using animals in meat and dairy and related industries), the more likely we'll see
medical research turn vegan-friendly and benefit from more cruelty-free medication.

Another big group, this time quite a safe bet, are office jobs: accountants, IT, marketing, consultations, HR, real estate, banking, lawyers and various services (like my maths tutoring). Of course, this can mean working for a not-very-vegan company and then we're right back to the initial problem of being in a non-vegan job, but once you are a specialist you can choose to move on. Vegan-friendly companies need good specialists too!
Another option is to start on your own and become self-employed, like I did. Again, I'm a maths tutor, and for a while, I was also working in a school, but although I do maths I sometimes ended up in food-related classes where cooking vegan was only happening when someone wanted to surprise me. Which is nice, but other times I was supposed to handle eggs and meat when helping students cook in a cooking class and that was not so exciting for me (another problem might have been dissecting animals in science classes). So I'm better off working for myself and only needing to refuse tea with milk at my client's homes.
So teachers may have a quite easy vegan profession, but it depends on their specialisation and the school where they work.

Generally, a big difference in any job is the environment you work in and the colleagues you work with. If you manage a smooth inclusion into a circle of non-vegan colleagues, it may be helpful no matter what your job is.

Should I ever go back to job where I'd be spending time in a staff kitchen with my colleagues during lunch break, and for all of you currently this situation, I've made this
vegan statement office mug =) Recommended for busy offices and even busy households where not everyone is vegan. But the key still is good relationships and inclusion to be happy in your more or less vegan-friendly job.

Ok, now vegan heaven: The ultimate vegan jobs!

Working in a (no-kill) animal sanctuary or shelter. My big aspiration. One day I would like to have my own - one day... I'm donating to them for now - from my own pocket as well as from profits from both of my vegan enterprises - Veronika Honestly: vegan statement T-shirts and mugs, and Magicful Home: certified cruelty-free beach home decor.
There may be a struggle if you have non-vegan colleagues who are not supportive, like in any profession where you have colleagues. Besides that, everyone I spoke to that work in sanctuaries love their jobs. And it's totally understandable.

Maybe you can try to find a local one and at least volunteer, to "make up" for your less-vegan friendly job if that's the case...?

Another good option: Working in a vegan cafe or a vegan shop. That's a no-brainer. That's why I created Magicful Home. It's vegan and above all, it's mine, so I know it will never change, never sell down, wool, leather or fur. Or anything else that's non-vegan.
To the vegan-cafe part - I've heard from some vegan chefs and bakers that there may be a problematic way to become one in term of training. If you go for general cooking classes, you will be expected to cook and taste all the dishes you create. Luckily, there are vegan-friendly cooking classes out there. Just look for them in your area, there will be surely more and more coming.
There are plenty of beauty brands which are vegan and use direct selling. It's not the easiest way of making money, but selling was always number one in my family, so I definitely know that there are plenty of advantages when one becomes a salesperson (or a dealer, ambassador etc...)

If you are or want to be selling anything handmade, I found Etsy to be a really good (and cheap) platform to start with (or to move to should you want to cut back on expenses as I did). There are also purely vegan selling platforms such as eVical (currently UK only) and of course it's a great experience to visit/participate at the local vegan market should you have any nearby. Or you can try to host one in your area. All it takes at the beginning is good networking - I still find Facebook and it's groups a great source for vegan businesses.

Finally, you can check out vegan jobs directories like VeganJobs, and there is plenty of inspiration if you need it amongst Facebook groups. I'm a member of many which are focused on vegan businesses. You can gather some inspiration for your possible future job or for pro-vegan changes in your current job. Unless you're lucky enough to work in a vegan heaven already =) Then lucky you, and please share your story in the comments to inspire others!

P.S. My partner is a dog walker. When I met him I was thinking - what a cool vegan way of making money =) It surely is great to work with animals directly, especially when you're also involved with animal shelters and charities, however, the basics of the job also involve handling pet food, which often is full of meat or using leather leads and collars as that's what the owners may buy for their lovely doggos. But again, you make your living the way it suits you and makes you happy. My partner knows he's providing the necessary exercise to dogs who'd be otherwise waiting all day indoors until their owners would come back from work. He makes dogs happy, that's the main thing to focus on =)
And just like me, he's also exploring other vegan enterprises to satisfy our vegan souls - his brand The Primary Consumer is in the final stages of launching right now, but you can already watch the results of making vegan cashew blue cheese on his channel! =)

Hi, it's Veronika, your vegan friend and content creator of Veronika Honestly (no, not my surname).
I'm mathemagician (making money as maths tutor! ?), a bit of an artist (well, trying to get back to art) and also animal and adventure lover.
Get to know me on my About page and make sure you sign up for my newsletter to get my free printable greeting cards for vegans I made for everyone to use and spread the vegan word!

See you around and on my social media - stay in touch!

Thank you for reading this whole article =) I have a few things to mention here:

Firstly, if not already mentioned in the article, I would like you to know about my Honest Language Disclaimer (no, it's not about profanity) - in case you were wondering why my English is so weird and not Oxford-dictionary perfect (whose English is, anyway...)

Secondly, my post may contain affiliate links. Namely Etsy and Amazon links. If you click through and buy anything there, I will get a small commission, so you are basically helping me to reach the goals, to raise funds for animals sanctuaries. All of that at no extra cost to you or the seller. It's a win-win =)

Now, in the end, I have a tiny request: If you liked this post, could you please share this?
Sharing helps to keep my costs down so more can go towards animal charities and perhaps you'll make one's day by showing them something from this blog they will like to read! A share from you would seriously help a lot with the growth of this blog that focuses on spreading the vegan word and kindness - just the things you also care about =)

You may like to pin some graphics from here, you may want to share it to your blog (do you have a vegan-themed blog? Let me know, let's collaborate!) or to your favourite Facebook group... there are plenty of choices!

Thank you for your support!

And... what now?

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