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Seventeen and Counting
Jun. 13th, 2011 07:27 amToday marks my seventeenth anniversary at work. This one is fun in a sense that it hits on the exact day of the week when I started. It seems so long ago, yet it doesn't.
Geez... I can't believe I'm posting this...
I thought about it a lot yesterday. Seventeen years ago yesterday, I had moved into my one-bedroom apartment with nothing more than a bed I'd just purchased, boxes of my stuff and a small, 13-inch color TV with no cable. I had a seven-year old Pontiac 6000LE that I'd bought earlier that week in the parking lot. The ink on my bachelor's degree was almost dry. I was 21 years old. To say I had just started my adult life would be an understatement, definitely humble beginnings.
My first professional job as a chemist started the next day. I was apprehensive, having no idea what I was in for and getting very little sound advice from my parents. I had already picked out the clothes I was planning on wearing, jeans and a button-up, which I had observed the chemists in the lab wearing during my interview. I had bought groceries, mostly junk food, and ordered a pizza for dinner I think. I popped myself down to watch whatever TV my antenna would pick up and found nothing on but news report after news report about a stupid white-Bronco chase on the west coast. Yeah, OJ had covered the airwaves all day and would continue all night. I turned the TV off.
I went to bed early that night, curling up on my bed in my living room, my alarm clock sitting on a couple of boxes within arm's reach. I had trouble falling asleep because of my nervousness, but eventually conked out. The next day I'd walk the tightrope without the safety net of school beneath me. While the next day was a comedic day of errors, I got through it, starting what has turned into a very fruitful career.
If you would have told me then what I would go through the next 17 years, I'd have not believed you -- leaving the lab, moving to Kansas City and back, traveling overseas by myself, teaching computer courses, coming out of the closet. I've done a lot of growing up in those years. I'm happy to have a house of my own, a car that I bought new (my first), and four televisions about the house with cable. I still have that bed I bought back then, it's in my spare room and is still very comfortable.
Who knows what will come next...
Geez... I can't believe I'm posting this...
I thought about it a lot yesterday. Seventeen years ago yesterday, I had moved into my one-bedroom apartment with nothing more than a bed I'd just purchased, boxes of my stuff and a small, 13-inch color TV with no cable. I had a seven-year old Pontiac 6000LE that I'd bought earlier that week in the parking lot. The ink on my bachelor's degree was almost dry. I was 21 years old. To say I had just started my adult life would be an understatement, definitely humble beginnings.
My first professional job as a chemist started the next day. I was apprehensive, having no idea what I was in for and getting very little sound advice from my parents. I had already picked out the clothes I was planning on wearing, jeans and a button-up, which I had observed the chemists in the lab wearing during my interview. I had bought groceries, mostly junk food, and ordered a pizza for dinner I think. I popped myself down to watch whatever TV my antenna would pick up and found nothing on but news report after news report about a stupid white-Bronco chase on the west coast. Yeah, OJ had covered the airwaves all day and would continue all night. I turned the TV off.
I went to bed early that night, curling up on my bed in my living room, my alarm clock sitting on a couple of boxes within arm's reach. I had trouble falling asleep because of my nervousness, but eventually conked out. The next day I'd walk the tightrope without the safety net of school beneath me. While the next day was a comedic day of errors, I got through it, starting what has turned into a very fruitful career.
If you would have told me then what I would go through the next 17 years, I'd have not believed you -- leaving the lab, moving to Kansas City and back, traveling overseas by myself, teaching computer courses, coming out of the closet. I've done a lot of growing up in those years. I'm happy to have a house of my own, a car that I bought new (my first), and four televisions about the house with cable. I still have that bed I bought back then, it's in my spare room and is still very comfortable.
Who knows what will come next...
