Stumbling Through Life: Career Life

My Career

This has been a huge source of anxiety, stress, jealousy, and many long nights in my young adult life. I am now 26 years old with no career company or career job.

First started off as a bagger for a grocery store and went up to the self-checkout machine clerk. Could have made another jump but their was no raise with added responsibilities so I decided not to make that one. It was a fun job for a high schooler and fresh college kid.

My second job during my first gap year of college was at the United States Postal Service. This job could have been my forever job honestly. It was fun, I was in the sun, I enjoyed the work. It was just difficult enough to really enjoy it. Unfortunately, it was a part-time role with no benefits and no time off. I should put heavy quotations on the part-time role because I would work 8-12 hours 6 to 7 days of the week. No paid time off, no concrete schedule, over 20 days in a row worked during the holiday season and no end in sight. My life was work, eat, sleep. Missed weddings, and all sorts of other activities. The reason why there was no end in sight because of how good the full-timers have. They would never leave until retirement which was a pension. They also were able to get paid 48 hours of work for 30 hours of work per week. It just depended on the size of the route, but my usual lady knew her route with ease and was able to work 7-1 most days other than the holiday season. I got paid by the hour, not the route. I was also good at my job and very efficient so I would finish my route and then go back to help others on their route. Which I loved to feel valuable but it didn’t take long until it was EXPECTED of me. When I was one of the last people to leave every day. This lasted about a year until I decided to go back to college. YEARS before my promotion and my schedule would even out.

I then moved down to Orlando and got the first job I found. A barista at a hotel. I lasted three days where I figured that wouldn’t be the job for me. I was able to meet a few people at that job just in that short time who were nice people but once you get out of someone’s orbit, you kind of lose track of them.

A few weeks later, I got hired at Universal Orlando Resort. I worked for the vault there where I would fix and empty/load ATM machines where the different cashiers at stands would drop their cash and get change for their drawer. It was a fun job. I liked most of the people I worked with. I would have some awesome days where I would get a good security guard where it felt like we were getting paid just to hang out. I met some good people there. Of all ages. I also met my girlfriend through Hinge but also worked at the same company. Getting this job changed my life. It was great, but I also had to wake up at 4 AM for work five days a week. Some of the management teams weren’t the greatest but overall, I think it was a fine job. A job I lasted almost two years at. Two good years.

I wanted more of a secure job, one that hit on more of what I did for college. After several rejections, including one from Universal, I landed a job. A stable 9-5 M-F Holidays off job. It is what I really wanted at that time. I never knew how many pounds on the midsection I would gain from going from physical jobs to office jobs. I miss all the perks like early entry to new things but because of my girlfriend I still get to keep some of the perks. I just had to lose a few of them. My poor Seaworld annual pass was an easy chop to get sleep again.

Now that my jobs are currently out of the way. Let me talk about the plan to turn job into a career.

This job does not have the most room for upward potential and I still don’t have a piece of paper to break into the specialized career field so right now I am in a state of limbo. A feeling I have had for eight years now. Regret that I never studied properly. Regret that I took a full ride scholarship for five years and after many gap years and F’s and W’s in school, after five years I had an associate degree and many program dropouts. I wanted to be a pharmacist first, and that lasted for a year or two, but too much school so I made the change to surgical first assistant, and then to physical therapist assistant. And then I took a writing class that I loved, and it was one of the few college classes I loved doing and even went above and beyond in that class. I decided I wanted the easiest path in college just to get a degree.

After my AA I was able to transfer to UCF for more education for Hospitality Management. I moved to Orlando to get closer to the college and to be in the heart of the hospitality industry of Florida. So many theme parks, so many hotels that I would love to work for. It got a bit more difficult and then I got so many negative reviews that I just gave up on college. Another year break after a few Withdrawals on my transcript.

No more Hospitality management and thank goodness no more health field.

I started to figure out what I liked more, what I felt happy to do, what I enjoyed listening to and wanted to go into the finance field. When I bought my car at 19 years old the car salesman told me to go into the finance field for a good job.  I developed relationships with engineers and got to see the desk job with Excel. It is a good and stable job that I felt like would be easy to grow old with. There were some instances with my last jobs where I would hurt my body playing basketball, or other activities and I wouldn’t be able to go to work the next day. After my marathon, I could barely walk some days, but I could work the next day easily.

I wouldn’t say I am overly passionate about finding costs of inventory for a large corporation but right now it pays the bills, it is flexible for my college classes, and I have access to insurances and HSA/401(k) contributions.

The next steps are to fight through the rest of my collegiate career and perhaps land an internship for a larger company that maybe I do a good enough job with to start into a full salaried position. While taking advantage of a tuition reimbursement program. Just to push myself to finish the degree.

I am hoping after that I can start the path to being a Certified Financial Planner. I could help others live full lives with money when they retire, but I would be honest and say that what I really want is to help YOUNG people with the hopes to retire. This demographic seems to be the place where I could help the most. Get them on the right path financially and away from all the debt traps that can show up from 18-30. Things like vehicles, weddings, vacations, credit cards, personal debts, and of course, student loan debt.  

A goal of running my own firm and maybe hopefully maybe deal with professional athletes money.

But, if I am able to get a great job at  a theme park company with good people surrounding me, with good pay, good hours, good work/life balance, and work content, I might want to just stay in the corporate world and try to teach personal finances to the younger generations without having all of those certifications and guidelines on what to post or not post.

I also became a travel agent as a side quest because I love the theme parks so much.

I feel pleased with my career path at the moment. I feel like I have a nice path to hit a goal and live happily ever after in my career. I think I might put in applications soon but with how good my job is with all my school affairs; and how good my boss is makes me not even want to even try.