Career Steps and Mis-steps — October Memoir Challenge

This week’s theme for the October Memoir and Backstory Challenge hosted by Jane Ann McLachlan is Gratitude and Regrets. On Sunday, I imagined a more adventurous childhood while appreciating the conventional one I had: Childhood Abroad (Not) — October Memoir Challenge. Today, I’m thinking about my early career choices.

A Road Not Traveled — Helping Career

From the time I read Karen by Marie Killilea in the 7th grade, I wanted to be a physical therapist. Karen was a girl with cerebral palsy who, with the help of physical therapists and others, developed her capabilities to be highly functional. I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up but I was desperate to help people and PT seemed like a good way to do it. My fantasy was that I would connect with my patients on a deep emotional level. Plus, the equipment was cool — like gymnastics.

During my freshman year in college, I volunteered at a hospital in the Physical Therapy unit. While wearing a pink smock, I wheeled patients from their rooms to the department. I quickly discovered that my shyness made it impossible to develop relationships with patients in the time that a physical therapist had with them.

My shyness disappeared on my 40th birthday. I swear, it was like a birthday present. What would my career have been like if I’d found a path to confident interactions early enough in life to continue toward a physical therapy degree in college?

I recently watched a PT work with mother-in-law after knee surgery. If I had stayed on the path toward PT a few years longer, I would have discovered another reason that it wasn’t a good career choice for me: I’m not good with physical stuff. I would have found the kind of observation and motor control required to be a good physical therapist very difficult.

I might have worked my way toward a different helping career, though. They hadn’t invented the profession “life coach” yet when I graduated from college, but I think I could have been good at that, maybe starting off as a career counselor at a high school or on a college campus.

The Road Taken — Computer Science

Displaying the product on the exhibit floor at SIGGRAPH in 1988. You can’t tell from the scan, but the original photo is a hologram. I got to see lots of early technology in my years of work in the computer field.

My second choice, Computer Science, was designed to get me as far away from interpersonal interaction as possible. As a college major, Computer Science worked well for me because, at that level, it uses similar skills to solving pencil puzzles in one of those variety magazines, something I was pretty good at. In the workplace, though, I failed miserably. If you’ve heard about the combative managerial styles of Steve Jobs or Jeff Bezos, you’ll understand why. The small company I worked for gave lip service to collegiality but it rewarded arrogance over pleasantness. Miss Congeniality, here, was like raw meat to sharks. As ill-suited as I was, however, computer science gave me much to be grateful for:

• a salary that got me off to a good start in life and opened up other options early
• my husband (I was on the interview committee that hired him into the same company — that’s how we met)
• technology skills that supported every adventure since, including my library career

What careers might you have pursued under different circumstances?