Once upon a time, on a cattle farm not so far away, a little girl received her very first Barbie doll: Business Barbie.
I loved Business Barbie. I played office all the time. In fact, when I was 8 I received an actual typewriter for Christmas. Not some toy one purchased from Sears, an actual (manual) typewriter that my mom purchased secondhand from an office supply store. Not a big-box store, the old fashioned kind of office supply store on Main St. But I digress.
Unfortunately for me, Business Barbie did not come with a "check the box" career guide. And I feel her success at her generic business job may have led me astray. See, in old fashioned therapy you are supposed to blame everything on your parents. So I can blame them for not buying me Doctor Barbie, or I can blame Business Barbie. I feel blaming Business Barbie may be healthier. And this approach ensures I don't get cut out of the will.
Anyhoo, after years of playing generic office and being told by society that making good grades would get me far in life, the cruel, harsh world declared, "It's time to pick a major for college!" Um, what? I'm 18 years old and you want me to decide WHAT I WANT TO BE WHEN I GROW UP?!?...What I want to do FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE?!? I actually remember being in the Bryan Public Library and looking at some book and frantically trying to pick a career that a "smart girl" should. Even in my memory, my fear and panic are palpable. I don't know why they paid the guidance counselor at our college-preparatory school, but they weren't paying him to help us career plan that is for sure. So, since my friends had chosen "smart" fields, I picked Engineering...it seemed like the thing the Salutatorian should do. After all, they had the medical fields covered. In a terrible succession of events, I ended up in Biological Engineering my first semester at MSU. I just shuddered at the memory. And having left high school with the highest average in calculus did not shield me from a bad professor and the subsequent withdrawal from college calculus. I had failed. The smart girl had gone to college and failed. I hated the major, and I had no idea where to turn.
Luckily, in my second semester, I took a computer class through the Ag Ed department. The professor told me about a brand new degree program - in case you don't realize it, that would appeal to a Type A student. Here I am floundering around unsure of a career path, and he is telling me I could be the FIRST PERSON to enroll in this new major. And since it was in agriculture, I knew I would have a greater chance of increased scholarships because of my dad being in the same field. [As a side note, that strategy literally paid off to the tune of $5500 in agriculture-specific scholarships on top of my ACT scholarship money and the MTAG money.] I met a fantastic friend in this major, Patrick, and we took most of the rest of our classes together. In turn, I ended up getting him a student job on campus. Like all my friends, he figured out what he wanted to do and is very successful today. I miss him terribly.
For awhile there I (at least thought) knew what I wanted to do. I was working on a minor in public relations and wanted to work a PR job in the agricultural field. But instead of seeking an applicable internship, I made a game changing move:
I stayed at MSU and did my internship. You know that fork in the road? That was it for me. I even realized it then.
I was already working in hell by this time and was quite successful as as student worker. Right around the time I graduated with my bachelor's degree, a full-time professional job came open there. And since I had no idea how to parlay my 3.97 GPA into a job I wanted, I took the job I was offered. I turned down a graduate assistantship in another department because the full-time salary was security. And what I wanted most was to have a baby. So I stayed. Smack! Second fork in the road.
So next it was expected that I would work on my master's degree. The thing was, I was even more unsure about which field to pursue a master's in...that is, anymore. I had previously dreamed, and it may have been just a pie-in-the-sky dream, to go to the University of FL and get a master's degree in Ag Communication. That would have carried right along with my agriculture PR job dream. But I got pressure from Doug and his family to stay. And I wasn't brave enough to go.
So I stayed. And I will never forget the day my best friend signed her first offer letter. She literally was going to make 3x what I was making, to the penny. And I knew I had chosen the wrong card from the deck.
So I picked a master's in educational technology, and I hated and resented nearly every minute of it. What I wanted was to have a baby and that couldn't happen. I wanted to know exactly what I wanted to do like my friends did, but I was clueless. At least the degree was paid for. It took me three years to complete it, and it was like pulling teeth the entire time. When I was done, I got the standard $1000/year raise. And all I could think was that was in no way compensation for three years of my life.
For a short while I had a little spark of passion in me to work in the educational technology field. I considered a couple of options in theory, one being in distance education. But sometime around the end of my degree, my supervisor announced plans to retire...
What I didn't mention earlier was that I had been approached at work about being groomed to take over for that individual a year or two earlier. But when it came time, I completely panicked. There were things she did that she had never shared with me, and suddenly all I could think is, "This is not what I want to do. And now it's too late." Keep in mind I was only in my mid-20s, and yet I felt like I had passed the point of no return. We ended up coming to an agreement to split the position, and I took the half I wanted. Trip! The third fork. Suddenly I was making $11,000 more. And yet compared to someone living in Jackson and working in private industry, this amount was pretty much a starting salary.
The new position sped up my unhappiness. But soon our personal happiness would come. What I didn't count on was hating my job even more once Elliott came along. Leaving him was hard enough, but leaving him to go to a job I now hated? Wow, talk about causing you to rethink your priorities in life. I had been job searching on campus for quite awhile, but it was hard to find jobs that my degrees and skill sets lined up with on paper. I knew that my skills were analogous and marketable, but I couldn't find jobs that matched up.
The thing I loved about my job was dealing with our partners all over the southern region and the nation. Every year during my evaluation I would declare that the "customer service" part of my job was what I relished. And I was stinking good at it. But dang, what am I? A glorified call center operator with two degrees?
In 2007 a former co-worker and friend contacted me to come to Jackson and interview with a big name PR agency there. He said I got the call because the primary client was an ag client. HOLD THE PHONES. Five years later, here was proof that my 22-year-old self knew what I wanted. Validation! But my 27-year-old self wasn't convinced that I could go back, and once again I wasn't brave enough to relocate. For just a little while, I let myself believe I could do it. In the end, I really believed that the 2007 Emily just didn't fit into that round hole. I had become a square peg somewhere along the way.
That opportunity did not prove to be fruitless, though. Not long after, I found the listing for my current job. I made the interview list out of nearly 30 applicants. When they called me for the interview, I went and bought a new suit. I intended to do this interview 100%. Balls out. And I had never considered myself a good interviewee. But this time, I walked in there with a new confidence. Being offered a job at that level in Jackson, I suddenly had a little sparkle back. Watch out, MSU, I can leave if I want to. I can do this job. And they have since told me that I knocked their socks off that Friday morning at 8 am. And suddenly, I was working in distance education, validation that my master's degree was not for naught. And that "customer service" stuff I had been so good at in my former job? Now I am working with students all over the country and the world. So those years in hell weren't all negative.
You know what it cost me, though? It cost me a $7000 pay cut to make that move. Just today someone used me as an example of how being brave enough to take the loss meant all the difference in the world to my mental and emotional stability. And it is so true. But I still struggle with the perception that I am not successful. I struggle because I didn't check the box for a clearly-defined career. I struggle because academia doesn't pay well. I struggle that my title is Coordinator, and that I still live in WP and work at MSU. And I struggle in the shadows of my friends.
Next up, I draw the black-balled card...
