The perils of choosing a career based on summers “off’ and cute coworkers
Ah, graduation season. A time of endings and beginnings. Brings back the wistful nostalgia of my graduation years ago. I remember I had it all figured out.
A college graduate. She probably has a better idea of her future than I did. Photo by Alex Alvarado on Unsplash
The Engineering Dream
I wanted to be a patent attorney. That requires an engineering degree. My undergraduate major: Mechanical Engineering.
Did not even know what mechanical engineers did. (Do they build like motors or bridges or something? I still don’t know.)
This looks like it. Maybe. Anyone know? Photo by ThisisEngineering on Unsplash
The Chemistry Nightmare
Then I took chemistry. Chemistry, how I hate you. You and your mole row and balancing of equations (I had to look up how to spell “mole” today.) The bane of my freshman year.
Yeah, maybe it was a class of 500 hundred that didn’t take role, and I had you across campus after lunch. And maybe naps and Andy Griffith reruns took me away from you some days. But still, did I deserve a “D?”
Well ... maybe.
Jumping Ship
So, with the horrid reality of retaking chemistry and then organic chemistry staring me in the face, I did the sensible thing:
I jumped ship to education. I mean, I loved sports and coaching. I loved summers off. How hard could teaching be?
Turns out, pretty damn hard.
In-School Suspension
I graduated, so proud, and I took a job where I’d been volunteer coaching. They didn’t have a history position. But they hired me to be the In-School Suspension Coordinator. “Great,” my stupid self thought. “No lesson plans.”
It sounded like a dream. Sit in a room, watch some kids, play on your computer. Cake. Walk in the park.
Maybe.
But only if the park’s a minefield. And the cake’s attached to giant rat traps that pop your nose every day. Middle school kids can be … difficult.
Chocolate is my favorite. Let me take a bite. OUCH. :) Image created by Author on Gemini.
The Lunchroom
And then it got worse. The new English teacher was floating between classrooms and wanted my cubicle-filled room for herself. Suddenly, I found myself relegated to the lunchroom. I forgave her this thievery (but only because she was cute and I was young).
Not the teacher thief, but a pretty good facsimile. Photo by ThisisEngineering on Unsplash
I now had no cubicles and four exits. You can’t block four exits. Physically impossible.
So now I was herding cats. Hormonal cats. One horrible day, a kid made a break for it. He just bolted, leaving me to decide whether chase him or stay with the other inmates. I was their one-day warden.
I walkied the office. (I had a walkie like a real cop. They didn’t give me a gun, though.)
They sent the custodian after the escapee. They left me on the front line. (English majors — was that mixing metaphors? If not, what did I do there?)
The Teachers' Lounge Takeover
It got so bad that at Christmas, I actually threatened to quit if they didn’t do something. Yes, I was going to quit my first real job.
The administration sympathized with my plight and provided a solution. That solution? The teachers' lounge. That’s right, they took away the one sanctuary teachers had.
I didn’t win this. Ever. Image created by Author on Gemini.
Year Two — Teaching History
But I persevered, thinking that maybe teaching history at another school would be my saving grace.
Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.
I had kids sleeping, staring at the ceiling, gazing longingly out the window — all while I poured my heart into lesson plans, lectures, hands-on history. Even documentaries that made me weep put them to sleep. It would have been easier to teach a brick wall. A brick wall doesn’t have attitude problems.
Or, let’s be honest. I was just a terrible teacher.
And I hated it.
The Realization
That's when it hit me. I liked sports, not kids. Still not sure how I missed that crucial detail. (I do like my own kids, but they came much later.)
I finished out the year, pride bruised, and slunk back to school to pursue my original dream of being a lawyer.
But not a patent one — "Damn you chemistry and laziness!" Shaking a fist in the air.
Lessons Learned
So for all the graduates out there, look before you leap. Do your due diligence before committing to a major. Shadow professionals, ask hard questions, and self-analyze what you really want to do.
Don’t be like me, jumping from engineering to education without a clue as to what I was getting into.
And to anyone else in a job you hate. Remember, it’s never too late to change course. You may have to swallow your pride and admit you didn’t have it all figured out at 18, or 22, or even 40.
But who does?
I’m still figuring things out. I expect I always will be. And looking back, that teaching experience was also a learning one. I’m not sad now that I chased coaching dreamfor a few years, but it certainly hard at the time.
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