Sales

Her husband’s job promotions led to multiple family moves from state to state. When their children were less dependent on mom staying home, she was free to make her own career choices.

FAMILY BACKGROUND

CM is one of 6 children, 4th in the ‘batting order’ and the first daughter born. Her father was a stockbroker, and her mother was a homemaker. Both parents emphasized to their children that each should attend – and graduate from – college, which should be out-of-town to supplement their education experience. 

CHILDHOOD THOUGHTS OF AN ADULT CAREER

CM has no recollection of picturing herself, during her elementary and high school days, working within an adult career. But CM always enjoyed being active so after-school and during summer vacations during high school and college years, she worked in childcare, as a dental assistant and as an assistant to the pharmacist in a drug store. 

CM notes that you don’t have to know, early in life, what you want to do for the rest of your life. 

SCHOOL DAYS

Though CM would eventually graduate from college and later obtain a Master’s Degree, she was a self-described ‘average’ student through elementary and high school grades. She can be competitive when she wants to be but since she assumed she was not the ‘smartest’ student, it was not worth the effort to be only #2 or #3. So, CM worked just hard enough to learn the basics of each course, including the ones for which she had no real interest, involving math and science. 

When CM brought home her school report cards for required parental review, her father read them carefully, then sighed and patiently said: “Well, if you’re doing your best and that’s all you can achieve, then I guess I can’t ask for more.” That made CM want to achieve more. 

(Editor’s note – If this academic pattern sounds like a path the reader is on, do not conclude that you will never be successful in an eventual, adult job – when you find a career path which is interesting and will provide sufficient earnings to support yourself.)

COLLEGE

Still not thinking about preparing herself for a specific adult career, CM applied to several colleges which were out-of-town but within one day’s car ride from home. Her mother accompanied her to one of her college campuses visits and when they both met there with a guidance counselor who asked what courses CM might like to focus on (i.e., ‘major in’), CM had no immediate response ready, so her mother said: “Well, she does like children!” CM concurred, in part because another traditional post college career for women – nursing – would require science courses. And at this point in her life, the general concept of ‘business’ held no interest. 

It turned out that with such minimal career guidance, CM had made the right decision; she was interested in and eager to learn her education related college courses, achieving well above average grades and GPA while earning her Bachelor’s degree. 

LIFE CIRCUMSTANCES AFFECT A CAREER PATH

Soon after graduation, CM chose to marry someone already committed to a military career, which would require him to be away from home for long stretches of time and potentially put himself in harm’s way. She loved him enough to accept those challenges, which would likely affect the type and timing of any career path she would choose.  

Soon after welcoming their first child, CM’s husband, an Army Ranger / paratrooper, was sent to Viet Nam. So, as the sole available parent, CM made the happy decision to stay home and postpone starting any career (Editor’s note – before the world-wide pandemic which commenced in early 2020, working from home was not a viable option for most people). 

FIRST CAREER – PRE-SCHOOL TEACHER

CAREER PATH OPENS WHEN LIFE CIRCUMSTANCES PERMIT

When CM’s husband transitioned from the military to a civilian career, they moved to a town where they expected to remain for a while, where their (now) three children were each enrolled in all-day schools. So, CM had ‘free time’ each morning (before the children would return from school in the afternoon) to consider finding a part-time job in her education field. A local pre-school program for 3- to 5-year-olds had an opening for a teaching assistant within its morning program – a perfect fit for CM’s interest, education background and available time. 

CAREER PATH ALTERS WITH ANOTHER FAMILY MOVE

While CM and the rest of the family were happy to remain in one town for several years, where everyone had made friends and the public school system was top-notch, the husband’s civilian career earned a promotion to greater responsibilities, which would require a family move to a different community. While the family was sad to leave their community behind, everyone also looked forward to their next opportunities. CM found a teaching position open at a different pre-school in their new community, which presented both a positive aspect (opportunity to enroll in a local Masters in Education program from which she graduated after successfully completing many evening courses while concurrently working in the pre-school) and a negative aspect (this pre-school focused on computer learning skills instead of social interaction and play, the latter of which CM believes is more appropriate for pre-school years.)

ANOTHER TOWN MOVE PRESENTS A POSSIBLE CAREER CHANGE 

As would be her pattern throughout her husband’s many job moves to increase his career satisfaction, CM continued to (gladly) accept the challenges of moving the family to a different town in a positive way: helping their children to focus on meeting new friends and finding an interesting job for herself. 

Looking back at her most recent experience in education, CM decided to shift her career path significantly by finding a line of work not involving parents whose education priorities didn’t match hers. 

SECOND CAREER – REAL ESTATE SALES

PERSPECTIVES OF A CAREER IN REAL ESTATE

CM had always been interested in all aspects of real estate: admiring differences in existing homes while pondering possible upgrades to improve livability plus how market value was affected by the quality of local schools and convenience to commerce. 

Wondering about home renovations and market values in the abstract is easily done within anyone’s personal schedule. However, working in real estate is close to a 24/7 commitment, preceded by required study of formal real estate issues (e.g., offers, escrow deposits, contracts, title insurance, home inspections, zoning, non-discrimination, financing, etc.) to pass the exam to achieve a real estate license. 

CM always enjoyed working with people of all ages, from preschoolers to adults. While she appreciated the opportunity to help sellers price their property realistically and stage it to enhance presentation, CM especially enjoyed working with first-time home buyers to help them through the process and share their enthusiasm for launching themselves into the joy of home ownership (before the first plumbing back-up when there would be no landlord to call….)

NEXT FAMILY MOVE PRESENTS NEW CAREER OPTIONS

CM’s husband’s next career promotion took the family several states away, thus presenting CM with several options for HER decision:

A. Continue the same career? Success in real estate is often based upon your personal circle of friends who may need your assistance during their ‘comings and goings.’ However, in a new city, CM would not have this advantage, at least for the first year during the ‘friends making’ process, without trying to actively solicit them to be business customers.

B. Shift to a new career? CM had already done this once, changing from education to real estate. There wasn’t a third career possibility which she had even begun to ponder while setting up a new home in a new community. 

C. Pause any career? This would be a reasonable option to avoid the pressure of being pulled in different directions while trying to get settled in a new home within a new neighborhood, introduce yourself to new friends, interact with family and be employed – all at the same time. Considering all her responsibilities, CM chose to postpone any personal career activities. 

As it turned out, CM’s husband decided within a year that his latest job change was not in his best career interest (the reasons are not important for CM’s story, other than to note she totally agreed when her husband explained the situation).  

By now, CM and her husband had developed great efficiency in packing their suitcases and household to move to husband’s new job in a new location. 

THIRD CAREER – STATE GOVERNMENT

A CAREER MAY PRESENT ITSELF WHEN NOT BEING SOUGHT

At the time of CM’s next ‘family’ move, their children had grown and were living independently elsewhere so while their new home could accommodate all three children when visiting from their distant residences, CM had essentially “free time” while her husband was working full time and they had completed the transitional move-in process. She used this time to become involved in several community volunteer, service organizations.

As noted, CM readily gets along well with people of all ages. While she appreciates that friends can have different opinions on any type of subject (on such wide-ranging topics as parenting and real estate transactions), she likes to stay up to date about current events and is willing to share her informed opinions, respectfully, on political issues. Apparently, this latter personality trait was observed by enough new friends, which led to an unexpected phone call from the local state legislator (“SL”) to CM, (which proceeded essentially as follows):

SL – “As you know, CM, I have been serving as a state legislator for the past 8 years but due to term limits, I can’t run again. Our local political committee is trying to identify someone who can well serve our legislative district and this year, we’ve decided it’s time to elect a woman. I’ve surveyed a great number of people and interestingly, your name is the top recommendation I keep receiving. So, on behalf of the committee, we hope you would consider running for election to be a representative to the state legislature from our district.”

CM – “I am honored to be asked and would appreciate a few days to discuss this opportunity with my husband since we’ve always made significant decisions on a joint basis.”

SL – “I understand and hope to hear your favorable decision within the next 48 hours. In the meantime, call me with any questions.”

(Editor’s note – CM’s path into ‘Politics’ is unusual but not unprecedented – the Editor knows someone who majored in Russian studies in college, decided to go to law school, enjoyed trial work and one day while at lunch, was asked if he would agree to be a political party’s nominee for trial judge; the usual path to serving as a judge is for someone aspiring to elected political office, to serve on a local political committee, help others to be elected and then try to earn your political party’s endorsement to be your party’s nominated candidate in the general election. This process can take several years, involving shaking many hands, raising money to fund advertising, speaking to community groups, and planting multiple lawn signs.)

Long story, short version: CM took many trips to the state capitol to observe the legislature in progress, attend committee meetings, political party caucus meetings and meet with members of the state governing body. She then ran in an opposed election, was elected and commenced her (salaried), first two-year term of government service as 1 of 151 State Representatives. 

Objective job description – House of Representatives members serve a two-year term. The first year meets January to June and the second year from January to May. The daily schedule is set by the Speaker of the (State) House. Representatives are assigned by their political party’s leaders to serve on several legislative committees. Due to CM’s teaching experience and education degree (Masters), she secured a seat on the State Education Committee. She was also asked to serve on the Budget Committee but declined to focus her attention on the education issues for which she had deep understanding and believed she could be most helpful. 

Subjective job description – If your political party is in the political minority within (any) legislature, you can just make noisy objections to the majority’s proposals or you can seek to work with the majority toward finding common, bi-partisan reasons to achieve agreement on passing legislation helpful to the public, including your local constituents. 

When CM first joined the legislature, she met two younger representatives who told her she could do nothing to just get along without creating any problems or she could “tell it like it is” and still try to find common ground to work with political opponents. CM chose the latter option, which she was able to implement after deciding to avoid commuting 3 hours daily from her residence to the state capital, by staying in a motel where representatives from both political parties coincidentally were also staying when the legislature was in session; the politicians – from each political party – all assembled each morning for motel breakfast, which gave them the opportunity to privately and calmly discuss ‘common ground’ to reach agreement on some ‘hot potato’ issues without having to pretend to yell at each other in public in order to satisfy some of their single-issue focus constituents.

POLITICAL CAREER CHALLENGES

Among the multiple challenges facing every politician, CM found several to be most significant:

A. voting your values despite opposition from your supporters 

B. voting with your party to simply oppose a great idea because it would give credit to the opposition party – for example: a minority party representative proposed a “bill” (the first step to become a law) to restrict the sale of certain addictive drugs; the majority leaders declined to bring the bill to a vote, until the following year when the same bill was introduced by the majority party and adopted so the majority party could take full credit for its passage into law, thus permitting the potentially deadly drug to be available to the public for an unnecessary year! 

POLITICAL CAREER SATISFACTION

While CM’s government service kept her away from home when the legislature was in session, she was glad to be able to promote her own ideas to improve education throughout the entire state and work to achieve bipartisan support so her ideas could be implemented to aid thousands of current students within the state’s education system plus the thousands to follow in their path. 

CM’S OBSERVATIONS AFTER HER THREE DIFFERENT CAREERS

There is nothing wrong with changing your career – if it’s your personal decision. 

You don’t have to like all aspects of your job but whatever you do should overall, be both interesting and valuable, hopefully to at least a few others and perhaps to many among society. 

Before a legislator casts a vote, they should think of how they would explain their reason(s) to children.

Speak your mind when appropriate but listen respectfully to others; you might learn something!