It all began when I realized I was miserable. I hated my job, my apartment, my life. The company I’d spent 6 years at, helping them to develop and refine their Quality Assurance Department, reorganized my position. They hired someone who thought my job could be done by just anyone. My workload tripled as others in the department realized no one was actually doing their jobs any longer – at least that’s how it looked from my perspective.
At home one night, I stumbled onto an email from this person who claimed to be able to help me find out what it was I wanted to do with my life. The program is titled the No Regrets Career Academy. I was intrigued because its premise did not say, “Work from home, make millions!” but “Find the career you’ve always known, deep down, you should be doing or better, just change careers to something you’ll like more.” Ok, so those weren’t the exact words or phrases, but it’s what I heard.
I looked at my budget and sacrificed a few extras (the newspaper, high-end cable) and signed up. That was just over three years ago. I plowed through the weekly assignments, slowly realizing that I’ve known what I truly want to do since I was 19 – I was just afraid of admitting it to myself for fear of disappointing someone. I also realized that I was the one who was being disappointed by my choices, as an adult, I was my own responsibility. Sure there were obstacles, not insurmountable, but I’d let those little things – like having to fund my own education – get in the way of accepting the truth about what I wanted to do with my life.
Here’s what else I learned – I love to edit (writing is second, editing is my passion); more specifically, I love to edit technical stuff. The longer I stayed in the course the further I drilled down. While I was taking the class, a friend of mine emailed me a job posting – Technical Writer at the local university. I applied and waited. Two months later, I had a new job aimed closer to my goal of being an editor. I finished the course. (I revisit my notes regularly for inspiration and to prod myself into looking deeper). I left the hated job that was helping to make me miserable.
The new job had promise. I attended a really cool conference a few months after I started, then I began to accept that this job, while a wonderful break and learning experience was not the niche I wanted to be in – too much writing. I love to edit. A fellow from the Society for Technical Communication emailed me another job opening. This one was 600 miles from my home town.
After revisiting my notes and “drilling down” again, I understood that I needed to go back to school and get my Master’s degree so I could teach Technical Writing to all the students studying Science Technology Engineering and Math. That understanding along with the knowledge that I am an editor at heart, really felt right – it was an epiphany. I applied for Graduate School. And I applied for the new job 600 miles away. Heck, the door was open, I was walking through it.
I was accepted to Graduate School and, in turn, accepted that offer.
I also was offered the job 600 miles away.
Decision time. What a tough decision that was to make. Begin on the path to the goal of teaching or move 600 miles for my dream editing job. In hindsight, making the decision was agonizing, but I decided to take a chance on the job 600 miles away. I closed the door on Graduate School for the moment.
Today, I am getting ready (looking for some courage) to approach my boss(es) about the possibility of relocating to the Company’s Denver office. The reason: the University of Colorado – Denver has the exact Master’s degree program I am looking for. The hope: I can keep the dream job and go to school for the other half of the dream.
TechWriterABQNMBlog 