You can never really answer how something occurred until after it occurs. You can plan, you can project, you predict, but if it hasn’t occurred, then you can’t answer how yet. So, now, I’ll answer “How I ended up in a career I’ve spent 30+ years in.”
If you’ve followed my blog up to this point, you probably know that I didn’t get to this point in my career because of some grand plan from when I was young. I actually took a pretty circuitous route, going down paths that looked really interesting and compelling only to discover that things didn’t turn out as I expected, for lots of reasons.
So, it was the mid-1980s and unemployment hovered between 7% and 10%. Inflation was just starting to settle down from the double digits of the late 1970s, so there weren’t many jobs available. Businesses weren’t hiring. Necessity ruled the day — you had to do what you had to do.
The personal computer had just been invented in the late 1970s so they were not very common yet. Mainframes and large computers were how accounting and financial processing got done. Therefore, as more companies were using mainframe or large computers more, computer programmer jobs were becoming plentiful. And I, with my liberal arts degree in hand, didn’t really have a professional skill — I didn’t know how to do anything, professionally speaking, of course.
So, I decided that I wanted to become a computer programmer, not really even knowing what that meant. So, I re-enrolled in school to pursue a computer science education and degree — in the evenings and weekends while still working a full-time job. I went for computer science rather than management information systems for a really “good” reason — I didn’t want to take any accounting courses, but I didn’t mind calculus and physics. (Remember this for later. Something funny / ironic is coming!)
It took me almost 2 years to finish my computer science degree and I discovered that I really did enjoy programming computers, both personal computers using BASIC and Pascal as well as mainframe computers using Fortran, COBOL, and, yes, Assembler language.
While working on programming assignments in the campus computer lab (this is back in the day when no one had their own computers, personal or otherwise), one of my former instructors asked me if I was interested in an entry level computer programming job. What sarcastically came into my head was, “Why no, I’ve been working full-time, going to night classes 2 nights a week for 4 hours each night and then 5 hours on Saturdays for the past 2 years because I was bored!” But, more wisely, what I said was, “Absolutely!” So he ripped a corner piece from a discarded mainframe green-bar printout, wrote 2 names (MIS Director and Programming Manager) and a phone number on it. He said these guys are looking for some good programmers and tell them I recommended you. I still have this piece of paper today, this many years later!
Well, a dozen phones calls later to get an interview (these guys were in the midst of a major conversion project working days and nights), I got an interview. Afterwards, I waited patiently — for 30 days! Well, I actually called and spoke with the Programming Manager a couple of times. And, I got the job offer! And, the rest as they say, is history — my history, anyway!
I was extremely fortunate to have stumbled into a fantastic opportunity with a company that was going to create / refine / define a retail market. I was afforded the opportunity, and time, to learn new things, to use those new things, and then to take on as much additional responsibility as I wanted. The irony of ironies for me was that my first programming assignment was to work on accounting software, a custom accounts payable package, more specifically. Fate was telling me that I really should have taken the accounting courses. But, yet again, I was extremely fortunate to work with the accounting management, from the CFO and Controller to Accounting department managers and Accounting Clerks. They were patient and most helpful as I learned just enough Accounting to successfully complete my programming assignments. Little did I know that this type would be so beneficial as I grew professionally and continued to learn more and more about overall business operations.
While, there were many opportunities and open doors to go somewhere else, the path I was on was one of great opportunities, learning, making a difference, rewards, and growth. I was promoted several times over the years into positions of greater responsibilities, increased impacts, and challenging opportunities. The steps, mile markers, corners, turn arounds, and progress will be further shared in future posts as I begin this journey of sharing and discussing not only how I took the path, or more accurately, paths, that I did but also many of the things I learned along the way.
I don’t expect everyone to gain insights, inspiration, and information from this journey but, hopefully someone can benefit and gain some encouragement.
Share your thoughts and comments below. Let’s begin a dialogue. I’d love to hear and learn from your stories and your path. Who did you learn from? What did you learn?
Until next time!
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