In first or second grade, I found a book in the school library of rhymes and old wives' tales about weather predictions. It was things like "Red sky at night, sailor's delight.”
I was hooked. From that point on, I wanted to study the weather. In second grade, I begged my teacher to let me do the weather report for the classroom at least once a week. I was obsessed with a book about how to conserve water. I studied maps, and went to Lake Ontario with Dad to look for waterspouts (I'm embarrassed to say that despite the fact I've spent most of my life on the Great Lakes, I still haven't seen one.)
In 4th grade, the dad of one of my classmates worked in the control tower of our airport. This was pre-2001, so he arranged a tour for the class. We got to see some pretty cool things and overheard pilots talking. This drew me in, and by the time I watched a special about the Hartsfield-Jackson airport in Atlanta with my dad, I was so sure I would work at an airport.
In 7th grade, a family friend of ours graduated high school and went to SUNY Oswego to study meteorology. And I said to myself "Ok, that's where I'll go." Everything I did from that point on was to succeed at math and science and get into the party school of SUNY Oswego.
My timeline gets a little fuzzy here, but I remember two things that should have been red flags, I just don't remember when they happened chronologically. I spent a day shadowing this family friend at his job as an on-air meteorologist, and I hated it. He spent his whole day at the computer putting together his weather forecast, and then had some minor banter with the news anchors when he filmed his like, noon slot or whatever it was. I was bored. I was shocked at the lack of human interaction. I felt like I was panicking, but maybe it wasn't always like this. Then, in February of my senior year of high school, I toured Oswego and I hated it. I lied and said I loved it and couldn't wait to get there, but UGH. It was awful. It was dreary and covered in slush and so so so windy. But I had only ever wanted to go here, so rather than disappoint everyone (which was definitely what was going to happen in my 18 year old mind), I said it was great.
About 3 weeks into Oswego, I did have a great time until I graduated. I don't regret going there. But my small-town brain broke at the people I met and the opportunities out there. I got involved in a lot of leadership and social events. I did well in my classes, but if I’m honest, that was not what was motivating me.
During my Senior year, I remember a bit of a breakdown. I loved being an RA but didn’t realize that could be a career. I was struggling in my upper level courses for meteorology. I had looked into or applied for internships and was not accepted. My professors didn’t seem to understand that although I needed to maintain my 3.0 GPA for my academic scholarship, I had also taken on the RA role as a way to pay for college after my mom was diagnosed with cancer. I was dealing with that stress and also making sure I didn’t lose my scholarship or my RA position.
In October of that year, I realized meteorology was not for me. But it was too late to change my major (registration for my final semester was likely already in October), and I didn’t know what I wanted to do. My RA boss, a Hall Director, convinced me to look into Hall Director roles so I could have a place to live while I sorted it out. I got hired at UB as a part-time non-traditional Assistant Hall Director.
Not wanting my degree to be a total waste, I decided I could teach science. It took longer than expected to finish my Masters because I somehow needed to take MORE science classes, and I couldn’t work and student teach.
If I’m honest, this is where my plan fully broke down. There wasn’t room for me to move home after I graduated, so I found any job I could get to pay for rent since I now lived off-campus. Then my mom passed my last semester of grad school. I got hired last minute at UB to be a full time hall director, met Tony that first year, was a truly terrible boss, but got an amazing job in South Carolina using all of my skills. I didn’t jive with my boss and 6 months later, Tony and I were back in Buffalo.
I gathered a new plan. I would work at GEICO and move into management. Turns out I wasn’t one of the darlings there, so I changed departments until I found a home in tech and project management. I had great bosses and moved into “leadership light” pretty quickly. I made friends with my snarky sense of humor and hung out with them and visited them, and got really drunk with them when they foolishly sent us all to DC.
Unfortunately, my department was hit with a couple of rounds of layoffs during companywide “restructuring,” and I jumped ship. Another insurance company. Another tech team. Another good boss. Another group of snarky coworkers that became friends. I saw myself moving up in this company. As a millennial, I had no grand illusions of retiring from Independent Health, or maybe at all, but I liked it enough to stay and move up.
On a Tuesday morning last August, I was laid off without notice. Blindsided. I took a week to be sad, and then got my shit together. I had an Excel that tracked every work search thing I did. Networking. Job applications. Interviews. Meeting with my unemployment counselor. And it still took 5 months and 100+ job applications to make it to the final round of 2 jobs at the same time.
I deliberated. I talked to everyone I knew. Take the paycut for a job not likely to be eliminated by AI and help build up this small company? Or take the good paying tech job?
Well, I worked for the small company. I tried. Hard. My ADHD was laid bare, ADHD I didn’t even know I had. I learned an industry. I learned social media techniques. I worked late and attended events.
But in the end, this wasn’t the job for me. Yesterday, I resigned so they didn’t have to fire me. I had been considering resigning anyway. I don’t know how to tell people all that, so I’ve just been saying “I lost my job.” It doesn’t feel like a lie since it was mutual, even if the method left us all feeling disappointed.
So when I tell people I am going back to school for Baking and Pastry Arts, they ask if we can afford it. What do job prospects look like after school? Do you want to work a job that will be physically hard on you?
Do you have a plan?
No. I really don’t. Not this time.
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