Rhoneisms

Beatrix,

There are a lot of adults right now, especially those closest to you, telling you their stories about their path. How they did in high school, where they went to college (or didn’t), how they ended up doing what they do. What their major was and how it doesn’t even resemble what they actually do now (as it is for most college graduates).

I know this confuses, frustrates, and bores you to tears. I know both your Mom and (especially) I are the worst offenders of this.

I’m sorry. We can’t help ourselves.

You can mostly ignore all the details and tune out the stories. They won’t help you. That was our path. That was what worked for us. Where we are is a result of our choices (life is built by choices) to say yes or no to the opportunities placed before us. But those choices and opportunities were ours alone and unique to us. You will get your own.

But, don’t ignore the “why” behind we adults telling you this stuff. Some of it over and over again (because we’re old and repeat ourselves — likely a symptom of early onset dementia).

The “why” is this: There are many possible paths. Our path was our path paved with our opportunities and our choices. Your path is and always will be your path paved by your choices.

And, inside of all of these stories from all of these people are examples of how one small simple seemingly inconsequential choice or random chance encounter changed the trajectory of our entire lives.

When a friend asked me for a favor to help out a lady with her computer and I said yes and despite having a very bad case of the flu I showed up anyway and did the work and now, here you are on the edge of senior year the daughter of those two people brought together by a hard drive failure and a simple favor.

The point being that every “yes” matters and every “no” matters and that your path will be yours alone and your choices pave it and gosh you are already sick of reading this and “Dad, I get it already! Shut up!” but I only have about a year to tell you all of this and it does not seem like nearly enough time and your path is moving SO quickly now and seems out of control and I’m your parent damn-it I should be making sure you get all of the best things and go to the college you want and make sure your life is everything you want it to be but the world is changing and you are changing and it’s all out of control and happening so fast and…

I can’t. Your path is your path. Your choices guide you and only you.

You are too old for my shit or your Mom’s shit or anyone else’s shit. Time for us to shut up and let you do your own shit.

I had been working for four years as Front Desk Manager for a nationally franchised hotel chain when I saw the ad in the newspaper.

The headline was, Writer Needed.

I was a writer, for sure. I had been writing creatively for most of my life. My Mom sent me my first published work a few years back — it was on mimeograph paper from a school bulletin in 2nd grade.

That said, I was not a Writer. I had never really been a Writer. In other words, someone who does so professionally. For a job. For money.

My jobs until that point were delivering newspapers, bagging groceries, overnight stock work at a major chain, working in retail sales, working and managing video stores, and, of course, working front desk at a hotel. Hardly the qualifications for applying for a job as a Writer.

Did I let that stop me? No. Did I send in my resumé with a cover letter and, most importantly, a writing sample? Yes.

Did I get the job? Yes.

I got the job because no one ever said “No, you can’t do that.” The most important “no” I never heard was the voice in my head. I had decided I was a Writer. I had always wanted to be a Writer. Here was the universe sending me a sign — this was my chance — to become what I had long believed I was; a Writer.

And, that’s how I started my career as a Technical Consultant.

“What?”, you ask.

You see, the writing job was at a build-to order computer manufacturer, ZEOS International. They needed someone to join their small customer service letter writing team. You see, this was in the early days of the home PC revolution. Email, as we know it now, wasn’t really a thing. If someone had something they wanted to express more seriously than a phone call, they wrote a letter. The team I was going to be on were the ones who wrote the replies.

A couple of years after I got the job, the Tech Support managers came to me. They were looking to build an automated tech support system and needed someone to write the scripts. They had heard that I was a bit of a geek in writer’s clothing, had my own BTO PC at home that I tinkered with, so would be a good fit for the project.

Had I ever worked in tech support or done troubleshooting of any kind? Did I consider myself a geek? No.

Did I take the project on? Yes.

By doing so, not only did I do the job at hand but, though my research and conversations with the tech support staff — The Knowers of Such Things — I became a Knower too.

After the project was completed and the Tech Support Manager asked if I wanted a job in that department instead of Customer Service and offered me a higher tier position at nearly double the hourly pay, I said “yes”.

After a couple of years of that position I intuited there was a real need in the market for someone who could just go to people’s homes to troubleshoot and fix things and that it would be easier, faster, and frankly worth the cost to the user to have such a service, I decided I wanted to be a Technical Consultant and should begin learning everything I needed to know to do that well.

Did I have any idea what that looked like? Did I know what skills I would need to hone? Were there any examples to follow at the time? No.

Did I start down that path anyway? Yes.

Tier 2 PC Tech Support at ZEOS to Tech Support for a printer manufacturer to Tech Support for a networking company to QA for a Software Company to being an Independent Technical Consultant.

I said Yes.

So, what is the point of all of this. The point (and the one I’m trying to impart to my Daughter) is that I’ve been able to do what I’ve done in my life by saying Yes to the opportunities that intrigued and presented themselves to me. I did not dwell on my own shortcomings or limitations. Most importantly, I did not tell myself “no”. My policy was “yes”. Sure, some of the opportunities were luck. But luck often happens to those always ready to accept it.

When your opportunities come, say yes. Make it your personal policy.

Education is free, learning is expensive | Seth’s Blog

Because learning is hard. It creates tension. It takes time. Most of all, it requires a commitment to becoming someone else, a bet we’re making that might not turn out the way we hope.

This is part of the discussion’s we’re having right now in our household around college.

Growing up, I was a voracious reader. I especially loved non-fiction. I loved learning. It didn’t matter the subject. Give me a set of encyclopedias for one birthday and I’d have read through everything that caught my eye by the next. Luckily, my Mother and Grandmother — the two women who raised me — gave me plenty of access to books both at home and at libraries (both public and college). One was a full time college student, the other a university professor with a doctorate.

My educational journey was chaotic. I went to seven different elementary schools and three different high schools. I therefore encountered an equal number of different pedagogies, educational methods, and systems. Montessori, Core, Open, etc. Public, private, and parochial.

By the time I got to the final years of high school, I really didn’t know how to be a student anymore — at least not one in any top down educational setting. I felt not only did I know way more than any of my class mates but most of my teachers as well. Most of what was in the text books I’d read and learned in my own childhood independent study. I was kind of… done. Done with the idea of school at least.

Yet, college was expected. Five generations of my family had advanced college degrees. I was expected to be part of the sixth. So, out of that obligation and expectation, I went to Dillard University — the school where those five generations had done their undergraduate work. Where my Grandmother even sat on the Board of Trusties at that time. I didn’t even have to apply… I just got an acceptance in the mail and orientation packet shortly before arrival.

I lasted a year. Did not attend many classes. New Orleans is a very easy place to get lost in. I got lost and I didn’t go back.

All of this is to say that, despite poor grades in High School (turns out, if you don’t attend classes or do homework that is the result) and only one abysmal year in college (same), none of it mattered for my long term success. Here’s why (and the thing I’ve told Beatrix and we should be discussing more with kids these days).

No one cares.

That’s right. The only people that care about your high school grades and activities are college admission departments. They are the only one’s that care about if you went to class or not and what clubs and teams you are on. Your GPA only really matters to them. Once you actually get into college, no one will care about where you went to high school, what you did there, or how well you did it. No one will ever ask again.

And, here’s another sad truth. Once you leave college and get your first job, no one will care where you went, what your grades were, or even if you graduated at all. Put a college down on your resumé. Pick any one you like. No one will question it or bother to check. No one will really care. It’s kind of mind-blowing but true.

On my resumé under Education, I simply put “Dillard University”. Not one person or employer has ever questioned if I graduated, what my major was, what my grades were, or if I was accepted and attended more than a handful of classes before I decided my best education was found off campus. They only care if I know how to do the job or can be easily and quickly trained in on how to do so.

Four years into my IT career I was managing the people getting hired who had Computer Science Degrees. I was their boss. They had spent four years learning about the work. I had spent four years doing it.

The world cares about what you know. Not where you know it from.

And, that’s a hard truth to swallow. All of the time and in many cases hundreds of thousands of dollars a person pours into these institutions only to have it ultimately be met with indifference. What’s the point?

Your experience — education, jobs, teams, activities, path — shows the world that you are a Knower of Things™. Not just of any specific thing… but that too. A Knower of many things and someone who wants to know things by whatever means they can access. That the Knowing is a life long quest to you and that you want be a part of this school/college/job/position/membership/team to be a Knower of More Things. Having gone to school and then to college and then to work and all the things you did there and beyond show each person along the way that you’re one of the Knowers — regardless of where you know it from. You want to be with The Knowers, where The Knowers are, doing the Knowing.

And this is my main wish for Beatrix. That she is and continues to be a Knower of Things™ and chooses whatever path is best for her to be a Knower of More Things. Because there are OH SO MANY things to know and the barriers to knowing them become more porous by the day. Where she learns them and how she learns them matters less than Knowing.