Yeah. Somebody asked me if I was ready to retaaaaar today [again]. I’ve been getting asked this since well before I was even close to the “traditional” retaaaarment age.

First, my career trajectory was, well it was MY career trajectory. A couple low-paying jobs before and during college. Then. Music degree? What do I do now? This is NOT to discourage anyone from getting a creative degree. For one thing, there are more resources available to flute performance majors today than there were back then. Also those creative degrees may not translate into a high-paying job right out of college but I strongly believe creative areas of study are an important tool in our society’s efforts to move forward in many areas. Including technology…

So I did not know what to really do with myself but I fell into what I now call my Childhood Career as an entry level IT person. And when I say entry level, I

ALERT ALERT ALERT! Somebody is sliding my back screen door back and forth! Are they trying to get in? Oh. It’s just a shirrel cirker shriek squirrel. All clear. Was NOT able to get a pic. Damn.

mean I was taking printouts off the Data 100 printer and handing them out to the people who had printed them. Boring? Yes. But I worked my way up just a weeee bit and during a particularly boring period, I taught myself Old Skool FORTRAN and then I worked my way up a weeee bit more and it was a good place to work while raising babies because my boss Byron let me cut back to part time.

Around the time the kids went to school and all the mothers were going back to work, I did the opposite and became a SAHM. Fast forward through a bunch of fun years doing PTO treasury work and middle school science fair organization and youth theatre guild administration. Those were all fun things for me because spreadsheets and later on websites.

And then I went back to [community] college to put formal training around my web skills. It was not easy but I aced it, and one day I got assigned to an internship with a big online banking company and, well, here I am 14 (!) years later.

I could retaaaar any time I want but I love my job. I will note as I always do that I work for an at-will corporation and although we are all treated very well, it could end at any time. I will feel very sad if that happens but I will not have to look for a new job.

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