Career Changes.

I had a very interesting conversation with my French teacher today during my lesson. I was being introduced to speaking in the past tense, which I have to be honest, seems to be much easier than speaking in the present tense. Then again it all seems relatively easy at first until my mind draws a blank the size of a highway billboard. Anyway, back to the past tense, I was describing some major milestones in my life from my birth (which is obviously huge, because everyone I know was blessed with ME that day, hahaha) through graduating high school and moving to Vermont for college and then moving South again to Massachusetts – it was at this point things became interesting. As I made a pretty big career change leaving behind the days of Miss.Caisse and lesson plans and delightful bundles of germy joy trying to cut my hair to the offices of Alstom, where I was no longer Miss.Caisse but seemed to be surrounded by bigger bundles of germy joys, luckily these ones refrained from the hair cutting and we could enjoy the occasional beer at lunch together. Now I am on a roll at this point – Je suis arrivé Chez Alstom dans 2007 …. FULL STOP because now my teacher is looking at me like I have cinq têtes (5 heads) or something. Switching to English – which is RARE in my lessons, she starts firing off questions about whether or not I have a diploma and if I did how could I just go from being an institutrice (teacher) to working at Alstom. At first I was completely thrown off and wondering well why couldn’t I do that, until she explained that here in France that is almost impossible to make that kind of career change. She went on to describe that once you have chosen your field or career you are almost stuck in that box and unless you go back to school to obtain another degree in another field then you are what you chose to be at the time you went to school….. now I was the one looking at her like she had cinq têtes because that would just not fly in the US. Then I began to think about having to really chose exactly what I want to be when I grow up (ask me now and I still can’t answer you) and then being stuck with it!!?!?!?!?!??! How many people do you know that have changed career paths, once, twice or maybe even three or four times?? I can name a few including about half of my graduating college class. My career change has turned out to be one of the best choices I have made in my 27 years, not that I didn’t enjoy teaching, but it just wasn’t the right time or place for me to be focusing my energy. Maybe someday I will go back to it but until then I plan on sticking around and doing what I am doing for quite sometime*.







*DISCLAIMER – Unless I win BIG in the lottery and in that case, the above entry cannot be held against me. Same goes for any of my friends that win BIG in the lottery and want to share the wealth or need an awesome Personal Assistant: )