Degrees and Detours

After graduate study, IBM appeared to be the job of jobs. The company carried prestige and represented the future, but the work demanded technical abilities that were not my strengths. Wanting an opportunity to fit does not make it fit. Leaving was humbling, but it was also honest.^[1]

I worked in a men's clothing store and considered retailing more seriously. I entered real estate and learned the emotional and financial weight attached to property. Every position added another view of selling: not persuasion for its own sake, but the effort to understand what another person valued and whether the thing offered actually served that need.^[2]

I completed an MBA and accepted work with General Mills in the Carolinas. That position was later eliminated. A mobile-home sales opportunity followed. From the outside, the sequence might look unsettled. From inside it, I was gathering evidence about where I was useful and what sort of responsibility I could sustain.^[3]

Careers are often told backward, as though every early choice pointed toward the ending. Mine did not. The detours mattered because they taught me what I was not, gave me practice with people, and kept me moving until an unexpected opening in municipal finance brought the pieces together.^[4]