A realistic Career path

What motivates me FORWARD in my Career? Boredom? Desire for recognition, money, prestige? Probably not.

When I last left you, I had decided what motivated me to do WELL, but hadn’t figured out what moved me FORWARD. I think to figure that out, I will have to go back a bit.

I have never had a clear vision in my mind of “what I wanted to do when I grow up”, or what I really wanted my life to look like. When I graduated High School and went to college, I didn’t put a ton of thought into whether I would go to college. I just would. It was decided. I never considered taking a year off, or a trade school, or anything else. Just College. I had lived in the same house all my life, so I wanted to go away. A friend of a friend went to College of Charleston in South Carolina. It looked beautiful. I applied and accepted without ever having been there. When I arrived for orientation, I thought I had made the right decision. The campus was beautiful, and the class sizes were small, so I was still able to connect with my professors. Freshman year I learned that I was interested in History, which I had never considered an interest. I had an engaging professor that treated history more like a story, rather than just a timeline of related events. Charleston was a nice small city that felt safe and manageable. I liked the way I felt walking around on my own. I felt independent. I had gone without anyone I knew. No one from my graduating class went to that school. It was all mine.

As I entered my second year, I realized I had made some acquaintances, but had not really connected with anyone as a real friend. I had been spoiled back home. To this day, my friends from high school are still who I consider my best friends. I don’t see them as much as I’d like. Or even talk to them as much as I’d like. But as soon as we are together again it is as if no time has passed. Ooops, I am getting off track. Mid-way through sophomore year I realized that while the experience of living so far away was valuable for me a person, the expense I was incurring and the friends I wasn’t making lead me to the decision to move back to Ohio. Two of my best friends had also made this same decision. They had also gone away, but realized how good we had it back home, so I got to make that transition back with two of my favorite people.

Having missed out on Freshmen year at Ohio State though, the three of us came to the school as outsiders. For me, I ended up making some friends at my new job at a comedy club- a super fun, and profitable job, I would recommend if you have the chance. Even if the tips are bad, you will laugh at work. Not many people get to do that. I had an incredible boss, and in short order I went from being the newest server, to the training supervisor. I spent more time with co-workers than fellow students, so my transition from student to working adult began before graduation.

Once I graduated though, I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to travel, so I eventually got a job on a Cruise Ship. While it sounded glamorous, and it was an interesting experience – glamorous it was not. I completed one contract and returned home in search of a steadier career path. After a few weeks at a time share sales company (I was terrible at that) my mom found an ad for Flight Attendant. I thought I was too short, but I went to the open call interview anyway. I was hired on the spot and thus began my illustrious career with Mesa Airlines.

As I mentioned, I have never had a clear picture in my mind where I would go with my career. When I began as a Flight Attendant, I thought it would be a good opportunity to travel – which it was – but I didn’t stop to think about career advancement. Opportunities did present themselves though. After a year or so, I joined the Recruitment team. It was an interesting change, and I felt I got to be a bit more involved in the hiring and development of my future co-workers. I developed more professional skills, like writing the want ads, conducting presentations and interviews and working with a team.  After a while though, I grew bored of that as well, and decided to go back “online” as an In-Flight Supervisor. The In-Flight Supervisor is certified to train the new crew members in the field. That experience was…. painful. I think it is well known that one of the most prevalent fears in adults is public speaking. As a Flight Attendant one major responsibility is to make those pesky announcements that no one listens to. Regardless of whether anyone is listening, it is important that the flight attendants sound confident, especially for those fliers who are a little nervous. If someone can’t remember the instructions during routine boarding, will they be any help in an emergency? Flight attendants also need to have a certain amount of self-assurance and be at least a little bit assertive. They can’t be easily bullied by the unruly passenger. Many of my students were so young, they lacked confidence, self-assurance and in some frightening cases proficient reading ability. In many cases, I was happy to support and develop some new Flight Attendants that had glimmerings of potential. In other cases, it was obvious they didn’t have the ‘right stuff’, as they say, and I feared they would just be unhappy in this role. Struggling on a daily basis does not a happy life make.

By this point in my career, I was looking for other work. I thought maybe advertising, marketing, communications etc. I would do halfhearted searches and send in resumes but never heard back. I was coasting. I did my job, I did it well and I earn a meager paycheck, it was enough, but I didn’t really feel good about myself and what I was doing. I wasn’t proud of my accomplishments – I didn’t feel I had any.

Then I met my husband. That was that, enough was enough. I didn’t want to be away from him, and I had lost any interest in my job. So, I quit. I think I was even mid-trip. I went to my supervisor’s office and told her I didn’t want to do it anymore. She (bless her heart!) told me to go home, it would be the last time I would be able to jump-seat, then call her, or email her to tell her I quit. I left her my manual and did just that.

That very night, at home in Clarksville with my love, I started looking for a job. I needed something ASAP. I had waitressed before so I thought I would start there. I saw an ad for servers at a Country Club, but the ad mentioned that you needed to have your alcohol serving permit. What was that?! You didn’t need that in Ohio! So, I researched– there was a class with an opening the next morning at 9:00 AM. I signed up. The next morning, I got up, I dressed up and I went to the class. It was over by noon and I hit the streets with resumes in hand. I walked into Clarksville Country Club and completed the application and left my resume. I continued over to the Black Horse tavern. As I was filling out that application at the bar, my cell phone rang. It was the country club. They wanted me to come back.

The General Manager of the club had seen me come in and reviewed my resume. He noticed that I had experience in Customer service, and as a recruiter and trainer. He told me, you’re not a server. I need a Catering Manager. Are you interested? I had never done anything in catering or events, but it sounded great and he was willing to teach me. I was in! It paid $28,000 plus a percentage of group gratuities. Sounded perfect. I started that Monday.

As I went through my training, my new boss would say things like “When I’m not here….” I assumed he meant times during evening events when he was not in the office. It turns out, that is not what he meant. The board of directors at the club were not pleased with his management and had decided to relieve him of his duties and transfer the management of the club to the Troon Golf Management company. I had to say goodbye to my mentor but will forever be grateful to Mr. Joseph Cici for bringing me into the world of events. I not only got to stay on with Troon, but I got a new title and a little raise. This little occurrence set off a funny standard to which my next three jobs aligned.

Shortly after that transition my now husband was offered a promotion and relocation to Indianapolis, IN. It was closer to home, and I had a cousin there! It was an exciting move. We found a brand-new house, it was too big for us, but it was so pretty! I was excited for the move and the possibilities I held with my new job experience and title (Director of Catering- DIRECTOR!!!)

Then I was unemployed for 3 months. Ugh! It was the worst! I put together our dresser that we bought at Ikea. That was a proud accomplishment, we still have it, still in great shape too, by the way. I finally caved and got a serving job at Logan’s Roadhouse. It was not great. I was promoted to opener within 2 weeks. It sounds nice because it means the boss trusts you to be reliable and responsible, but really opener is just someone who does more work than everyone else without any real return. I only had to stay there for a few weeks though because I finally got a call back at a golf club on the north side of town. In this case, I was made aware during the interview process that the club was for sale and there were on-going negotiations with new owners. Low and behold, I was hired. The woman who hired me, and a colleague who helped to train me were let go, and I was given more responsibilities than what I was hired for. I felt bad. I felt like I had inadvertently stolen someone’s job – but it was a job I needed and quitting in protest would help no one.

I liked my new boss – Doc. I participated in leadership meetings and made real contributions regarding how we did things. I learned a lot in that role, but of course, my incredible husband just kept excelling in his career and his company asked that he continue to kill it back in Nashville. So, we were moving again.

This time, I had interviews lined up immediately. I had two in one day. After the first interview, I worried that I would have to make a difficult decision. Then I went to my interview at Cheekwood Botanic Garden & Museum of Art. It wasn’t a difficult decision at all. My new boss and I hit it off immediately. He was experienced in events from New York. He had just taken over the events department and was giving it a total overhaul. I was excited to be a part of it, and in case you didn’t know, Cheekwood is BEAUTIFUL. My new boss had some extremely specific ideas. His bosses didn’t always agree, and in just a few months, he chose to depart. *Remember that trend I told you about? Leadership asked my other colleague and myself if we felt prepared and supported enough to proceed without him. I remember being surprised and delighted at my colleague’s response “Helen has got this. If anything, she will be able to really spread her wings now and show you what she is capable of. I am not worried at all”. I love Bruce Pittman to this day because of that statement (He is a wonderful Wedding Planner, btw, let me know if you are planning a wedding and I will connect you – he is outstanding). That was in March of 2014. In April 2014, I got to marry the man of my dreams. When I returned from my Honeymoon, Bruce informed me that he had decided to strike out on his own and start his own business. So that was it, I was now the only member of Events, and the department lead.

My time at Cheekwood was awesome. I loved my boss Beth and got to work with an incredible team. I learned so much and got to be part of some amazing events. I think you all know what is going to happen though… my incredible husband was once again given an awesome opportunity. A competing company made him an offer he couldn’t refuse, so we were off to Columbus. I cried when I told Beth, but I knew it would be for the best and another opportunity for me would come along. It did rather quickly in fact this time, I got the job before I even made the move. I started at Hyatt Regency Columbus as an Event Planning Manager. I was hired by a lovely woman named Nicole. Don’t get attached, you know my record and you can guess what happened next. Thanks to a little office drama that I was privileged not to be a part of, Nicole took her leave and was replaced by the magnificent Maxine.

Maxine was from Jamaica. She was strong, intelligent, and very thoughtful in everything she did. She had started as a purchasing manager and worked her way up the ranks to be a very respected and well-known Director of Events. She liked me. I liked her. She made specific efforts to connect to her staff and had weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly check ins with each of us to discuss our development, our goals, and our advancement. This was my first foray into the hotel industry, so I didn’t know what my goals were, or what opportunities may present themselves further down the road, but Maxine did. She counseled me on issues I was having with current clients, but she also counseled me on where I might go from here. It wasn’t long before she was trying to gently push me out of the nest. The next step in that path was an associate director, but our hotel did not offer that because we were a smaller property. There were Associate Director roles available in other hotels, but they were in Atlanta, Miami, New York. I had no interest in cities like that. I like my small towns and mid-western sensibilities.  Her encouragement though did lead me to seek opportunities to advance and that is when I stumbled upon the Senior Event Manager role at Opryland. It sounded like a dream. They flew me down and I stayed at the hotel in a room overlooking the waterfalls. How could I say no? My husband had been promoted (again, yeah, I know!) to the point that he was a regional manager now and could live wherever we wanted. So, it was a no brainer, we were going back to Nashville.

So here we are. I already brought you up to speed on how I went from Senior Event Manager to Realtor, so now it is time to re-examine the catalysts for my forward trajectory. It kind of looks like luck, doesn’t it? Is destiny appropriate? Have I gotten this far simply because I was open to it? Or was it because I had little guardian angels propping me up, and handing me opportunities? I think I need to give credit where credit is due. I am here because of the support I have received from my husband who encourages me to do more and be better; from bosses and mentors that take the time from their lives to coach and guide me along my way; from Colleagues that have shared their experiences and allowed me to learn hard lessons through them; and from friends and acquaintances who cheer me on as I jump from branch to branch.  I remember my Uncle Mike telling me that he knew I would be successful, but it wouldn’t be a traditional path. He told me that one thing would lead me to another thing, and it may not be a straight line, but it would be mine and it would be great. Boy was he right!

This was a lot. Thank you for reading the whole thing – and Thank you for being on this journey with me.