What jobs have you had?
In the beginning…
As a teenager, my mother was a proponent of “focus on school” and didn’t really support the idea of working at a young age. That didn’t stop me though and after I turned 16, I applied for my first job at JoAnn Fabric Stores. I completed an interview and showed up for my first day of work. I was excited to start my first job! The lady was kind, even if she seemed a little put off. She showed me around the store and taught me how to use the register. It was a rather pleasant experience from my vantage point.
However, at the end of the day she took me aside and asked me not to return the next day. Saying that I was the kind of person that might make their customers uncomfortable.
I was confused and crushed.
It was the early 2000’s and at 16 I was what you might consider a little eccentric. Wildly colored hair (pinks and purples) and my face was pierced; combine that with my heavy make up and black outfits, and I can understand now why she said I might make their customers uncomfortable. But it still hurt and left me with an ever-filling hole inside: Was I a bad person? These and other experiences that continued to happen had created a well inside me that continued to fill with “you’re not good enough” and “you’ll never be successful”.
After that experience, I waited to venture into the working world again until after I finished high school to attempt a job again. My senior year of high school was wrought with a terrible experience that kept me distracted from doing much of anything with my life.
But this time around I found a job in a more condusive environment. Spending that summer after high school as a glorified security guard at rock concerts was one of the most exciting job experiences of my life. It had been a really challenging year for me and this provided the perfect outlet that I thought I needed at the time. I was getting paid to stand around listening to bands I loved at the time and pat down people before they entered the stadium. It was an amazing summer!
Then adulthood happened…
Fast forward another year and I was quite lost in what I wanted to do with myself. I was almost 19 with no job and on the verge of spiraling into a drug-filled existence when I met an intriguing man online that wanted to hang out while he was in town. This could have turned out like a lot of cheesy horror movies do, but it isn’t that kind of story. We hit it off, realizing immediately that there was a very strong connection between the two of us and decided to move in together the next month. Now I was in a real situation of needing a steady job.
Moving in with him and taking on an apartment rent was going to be a huge change for me. I had never lived on my own and wasn’t entirely sure of what to do with myself. Thankfully, a friend of mine from high school was working at an office answering customer service calls and she put in a good word for me. They called me right away and set up an interview. I had gotten my first office job!
I started as a CSR (Customer Service Representative) answering calls from customers that wanted to set up appointments to have a technician come out and check out problems with their pool equipment. It was a relatively easy job even if the hours were terrible. I felt like I was working all the time and my paycheck was barely making ends meet back at home for us. But over the years I stuck with it and that job transformed into promotion after promotion. I continued to develop new skills and improve myself by taking on new tasks and resposnsibilities whenever the opportunity arose. I ended up spending 15 years of service to this one company and it was the best experience I could have asked for.
Finding your calling…
As time goes on and priorities in your life change (we had three kids by this time), I realized that it was time to move on from that experience. I had learned everything I was going to learn there and I felt the calling to seek out something new.
It was a really scary month for us when I left that job secruity behind and began the search for my next life adventure. There were no guarantees that I would find something to support us and our family, but I had the skills and an idea of what I wanted to be doing. So I searched and searched. It just so happened that I “accidentally” found this amazing company that was looking for the exact position I was interested in doing. After a few stressful weeks of interviewing it happened. I found the role I was looking for.
I’m in a role now where I can use all the skills I’ve picked up along my journey and take me in the direction I was meant to go. I spend my days providing analytic support, report building and process mangement in a capacity where I can watch a company grow and come into what it’s meant to be. Much like my own career experience.
A job is a job is a job and there’s always people that need work; some people find their calling while others are always chasing it. I believe that my own experiences with employers prepared me to find what I really love doing. My very first experience at JoAnn’s could have ruined me for a lifetime of work thinking that I couldn’t fit in anywhere or that I wasn’t good enough, but I never let that bad experience put me down in the long run.
Looking for book recs…
Adventures in Literature 
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