A Half Decade
I can still remember, with impregnable clarity, January 12, 1998. I got my job.
My degree is actually in Accounting. I originally wanted to study Economics but because my university did not offer Economics as a degree I chose the most practical thing I could think of in business. I was also interested in Applied Mathematics but the school didn't offer that either. So I thought of the most practical thing I could think of and chose it as my major.
In fact, here, dear reader, is a secret I haven't really shared with anyone: I graduated (barely) with honors but the only 'B' grades I received were in my Accounting classes. I should have been smarter, I should have quit, I should have ...
Half way through the program I had misgivings and sought career counselling. I really wanted to switch to Computer Science but was advised against it; I was too socially apt to seek the back rooms of office basements and write code.
I worked at a CPA firm for 6 months after graduating. Many of my friends are accountants so I will be carefull how I say this but essentially the job sucked. It reminded me of grade school: a lot of adding and subtracting, using pencils and rulers to mark things up and a lot of filing and unfiling papers. I'm well aware that the junior auditor's lot in life is such gruntwork that their superiors don't want but I did observe a profession that was obtained with two primary goals:
1. Anal Retentiveness
2. Doing things *exactly* the way they were done before
So I sent resumes everywhere, looking for a job in the (at the time) exponentially booming computer field. I knew nothing more than how to steal HTML and a bit of javascript from other people's sites. Every position I applied for required n years of job experience where n was a number greater than the number of years a particular field had existed. For example, I'd see ads like this in 1997:
Ecommerce specialist needed, at least 8 years experience required.
I was so desperate that I attached my resume to an email post in the classifieds on my local campus network (Bubbs). It took a while to get a response - I had even forgotten that I had sent my resume (or who it was through for that matter) when I got a call requesting an interview. In the interview it came rather quickly to light that I was a greenhorn, so my interviewer proposed the following: I was among three candidates for the position - whichever of us passed a Microsoft exam first would get the job. He offered no sample tests, no guidance on where to look for materials, he just offered a chance. A glimpse of hope outside my pathetic life as an auditor.
I failed my first exam by a hair. By that time I was so fired up that it didn't daunt me; I took it again a week later and passed. My only concern was that someone else had passed the exam before me.
I remember so well making a phone call to say I'd passed. I was auditing the Los Angeles County & Recreation District at the time in the most dilapidated and depressing building downtown. It was a depressing place. Imagine having to work at the DMV - such was that place. That day, rather than drinking a lot of coffee and being annoyed during my secretarial work I sat with an idiot grin thinking I was through with the life of an accountant and I would have a job in technology with the following goals:
1. Be as innovative as possible
2. Meritocracy
I remember the last thing one of the partners at the CPA firm told me. I was photocopying and binding an annual report for one of our clients (they didn't trust Kinkos to get it right) and he walked by making the remark:
I bet one day you're going to wish you stayed in public accounting.
My response came back faster than expected with the kind of sarcasm that eliminated all possibility of me coming back there to work:
You mean stay here binding and photocopying things?
So here I find myself, 5 years after the fact contemplating all those lofty expectations I had and my professional path of advancement. There is never a day that I do not regret not having the guts to change my major and pursue something that I just liked rather than trying to think of being practical. This is America, study what you like and you'll find your way, someone should have told me.
I still like my work as well. The travel has worn me down considerably but I still like my work. I like being creative, designing applications and trying to stay as far ahead on the curve of technology as I can. I've grown and my company has grown. When I first started we all had to report to the office. We all were victims of internal dispute and low wages. Now I rarely go into the office for anything. I have no boss. I am secure, despite the economy, for the forseeable future and I can still play with technology for a living.
I wonder where I'll be the next five?
4:54:02 PM 
|
