Adulting: 20 Years of Self-Discovery

A few weeks ago, after having a lengthy discussion with a friend on facebook about forgiveness and reconciliation, I held my breath, scrunched my eyelids, and jumped into an abyss. I had no idea what to expect when I sent that initial message. But, I knew I had to. It was time.

When I finally got the courage to peek through narrow slits and a haze of eyelashes, I was greeted with a pleasant extended exchange with a person I thought I had lost forever. After several weeks of conversation, today, I was asked a relatively simple question. One that you would think would have been asked and answered during the first couple of minutes. They wanted to know what I had been doing with myself for the last 20 years!

I found it impossible to explain in brief and sitting here writing this now, I realize that I have spent much of my adult life telling close friends and loved ones about my childhood. To be honest, I still can't believe that I have lived more years since leaving Rocklin, CA in January of 1998 than when I was born in April of 1980. But, the numbers don't lie. After regurgitating my journey, I felt it was important to capture the story here. After all, at some point, I intend on writing a memoir, just like my grandmother did, and I need to keep some notes. Here is that accounting:

After I left Rocklin, I enrolled in Paradise Valley High School. When reviewing my transfer credits from Rocklin, it was decided that I would make up work for a Physics class by finishing my final project by mail. My earned points were too low for a History class, so I enrolled in a History course at the Paradise Community College as a college concurrent course (credits for both HS and college) and was also able to fit in Jazz Choir into my schedule. The Jazz Choir won semi-finals and was invited to a San Diego Jazz Choir competition. The school chartered a bus and reserved hotel rooms and after the competition the next day, we were all treated to a wonderful show at a local historical theater and after-hours event at SeaWorld.

Near graduation, I was awarded the President's Award for Educational Achievement where the presentation focused on Abraham Lincoln and how he persevered despite his many setbacks. After graduating from Paradise Valley High School, I enrolled in several Open Entry/Open Exit courses during the summer and participated in a work-study program in the Computer Lab where I mostly helped young and old operate the Windows 95/98 computers and reset the printer queues. lol

I continued for another couple of semesters there, but soon found myself not having yet made a career choice, so left to work full time at various computer retail stores. CompUSA, a local computer shop called Paradise Valley Computers & Sears in the computer department. However, after finding it difficult to progress in computer retail, found myself working at Robinson's May in the Home department. I quickly became one of their top performers. However, I must have not kept track of the security of my drawer one day, or something, and found myself being accused of stealing from the company and being fired. Hindsight 20/20, I should have insisted that they show me the proof. (they said they had security footage) . But, oh well.



At that point, I decided I needed to get out of retail sales, and ended up as a cashier for Home Depot. After the holidays, they laid me off, so I enrolled in the Work Information Network program through the Department of Economic Security and went back to school, this time at Maricopa Community College for an Associates Degree in Computer Science. Unfortunately, the state failed to inform me that they would only be paying for the first semester and I had to apply for federal aid to continue with the program. At which point, I also started working through several temp companies and found myself jumping around several Admin Assistant and Inbound Customer service positions in the Healthcare and Financial industries, finally ending up working as a technical support representative at 2Wire, an internet router/modem manufacturer. I started there when there were only 50 people at the center and watched it grow to over 300 agents, survived a buy-out by HSBC as the "Home Networking" division.



While working these "temp" jobs, I lost interest in the Associates Degree due to lack of quality instructional design and after taking a break for a while, after I started tech support at 2Wire, I decided to try a Technical College, finally deciding on an Art Design school that had a technical program, called Collins College out of Tempe, AZ. This time, I tried very hard to keep my work and school lives separate. But, when the Career Center got wind where I worked, they must have reached out to 2Wire, as they started attending career days at the school. Soon, I was surrounded by people that went to my school & my workplace. Needless to say, despite all the policy & procedure changes that took place at 2Wire, I had worked my way onto a specialized "fiber" Senior level team within 2 years. But, I hit a glass ceiling. They kept promising to send me to CA to do special work with the Engineering department, etc. Then, one day, my supervisor "wrote me up" for getting 0's on 5 out of 10 User Experience Reviews in the previous week. After two years of excellent service, this new manager decided to write me up for a bogus reason. Let me explain. They just implemented this policy to grade employees performance based on User Experience reviews. Being on level 2, most of my calls were escalated from the overseas call center in India. So, most people who gave bad scores to level 2 agents were actually marking for their experience with the level 1 dumb shit they first talked to. To top it off, they had me "selling" the surveys to the customers, encouraging us to beg for high scores at the end of the call.



So, I started looking for a different job. Through a different staffing agency, while I was at the Maricopa County Animal control, rescuing a 2 year old male Husky, I got a call from a Manager at Universal Technical Institute, an Automotive Educator, to come to work in their internal Help Desk. I gladly accepted the position and right before finishing my Bachelor's Degree in PC Networking Technology in 2006, was offered an entry-level development position on their in-house team. I continued to work for UTI for another 3 years, working on their internal Student Information System, embracing changes and improvements within the company and system. For most of my stay at UTI, I lived in Arizona City, which is a 70-minute drive south of Phoenix. And those first 2 years were the craziest, working full time, school full time (in an accelerated program, 3 years to complete the Bachelor's degree) and driving ~150 mi per day. I remember four nights a week, only getting 5 hrs of sleep at night. It was TOUGH. For years after, I would say: "I'll never do THAT again!"

But, after finishing the program, something changed.

Looking back now, I realize that I crave doing more, being more than just one thing.

Once all I had to live for was my work, I focused hardcore on the UTI "family" and "culture", the messaging and maybe I got too altruistic and saw too much behind the curtain. I was definitely discovering my true independence and after leaving a relationship in 2008, everything just came crashing down on me. I had been staying at my Grandma's, getting ready to move into an apartment, alone, for the first time, ever and it hit me out of the blue, a full-on, holy shit, Panic Attack. Went to the hospital, convinced I was having a heart attack, to be rushed into the Xray machine and EKG and everything, only to be handed a Xanax and after feeling a thousand times better, chalked it up to "stress"

But, I kept having them and the symptoms were always different. Sometimes mild, sometimes like lighting striking my skull.

So, naturally, I went to the doctor, who in turn diagnosed me with Generalized Anxiety Disorder and was prescribed anti-anxiety medication.

I even started going to a counselor again.

But, nothing was working, I was losing focus at work, my performance was suffering. One day my boss pulled me into his office, convinced I was going to be canned, I started to cry. Now, this guy was awesome. He was sensitive and loved having women on his team, so knew how to deal. We decided I would take a leave of absence for 3 weeks.

so, at the end of October 2008, I took a trip around AZ. And I started blogging. Here are some blogs for that trip: http://norahaura.blogspot.com/search/label/operation%20recuperation

After returning to work, I was able to handle the corporate environment much better, like some sort of competitive sport and soon found myself getting approached by the Quality Assurance group for a new position they were creating and wanted to fill with a mid-level programmer analyst. I would be working as a liaison between the dev and QA groups and helping to enhance the new software automation regression testing suites they were starting to implement as part of a proactive strategy initiative, blah, blah, blah



Of course, I was excited about the opportunity. However, I was asked to keep it secret. I should have known then that something was wrong. About a month later, I emailed in sick. Midday, I got a surprise knock at my door from my boss, worried because he hadn't heard from me. I found the email had gotten stuck in my drafts, and sent it, thinking nothing more about it. However, the next day, I was called into the director's office and fired. I was devastated. I remember having to fight for my Unemployment benefits, going through an Audit process with a phoned-in hearing, where they were found to not have sufficient evidence to support a "justified" firing.

So, there I was, unemployed again... Just a few days before, I had met a new romantic interest, even had him over at my apartment the day that I got fired. Thankfully, he was there to catch me. Needless to say, we fell deeply in love, moved in together at a new apartment near his mother's house in Mesa, AZ and that is when my "real" journey started.

Well, I guess, you can say, my "adulting" journey, anyway.

I registered a trade name & started back at school, this time at Western International University for an MBA. While going to school, I started to develop my brand and figure out exactly what I wanted to do. It was very challenging. I had no idea where to put the focus. I knew a little about a lot, or at least I felt that way, at the time. So, I just advertised as a Jane-of-all-technology. And of course, that failed, so I got another job, working for University of Phoenix, another private educator as a technical support representative. Again, I had aspirations of starting at the bottom and working my way up. After all, that corporate ladder worked at least part-way before. So, I spent another 3 years working for one of the biggest corporate educators on the planet. And again, I was pretty good at climbing, ending up in the Internal Tech Support group, getting on specialized projects and teams. At this point, I embraced change, I thrived on it. I was even named a "change agent" within the company, always getting picked to work on the next initiative, training new employees, and when a big change came, when they decided to outsource the Internal Help Desk, I was right there, Designing interactive workflows in Adobe Photoshop, doing training seminars with the Indian reps.



And I even accepted going back to the External Technical Support group, continuing to advance under that umbrella, enrolling in the Remote team program, a new group where agents worked primarily from home.

But, like before, I started to see the seeds of change were turning against me, so I revitalized the idea of restarting my business, went back to school for a Masters of Science in Innovation & Entrepreneurship from Full Sail University, based out of Florida. It was an online program, so I was able to work and school again, but at an easy pace, only having to write a few things each week and participate in discussions. Then, I landed a big contract in 2013 with a friend/partner for a plastic bag manufacturer out of California. And when the project started rolling, and I UOP was starting to drive me bonkers, I quit UOP and went full-time with my business.

So, for over 5 years now, I have been operating my own software development business.

I have had many clients since that first one and have learned A LOT. I still have some challenges to overcome, some of which were harder to crack due to other circumstances. But, especially since moving here to Nebraska, I have really been able to hone in on my mission and vision and have a new product I am working on launching, hopefully, this year.

So, there you go. (Congratulations if you made it this far, btw!) There are a lot of details not covered here and you can read about them here on my blog. But, really, this was more a review of my professional journey, with a few personal bits mixed in.

If you have made it this far, I am interested to know more about you too! How many of you have been adulting longer than you were a child? Do you feel old? I'm not sure I do, at least yet. Also, do you plan on writing or have you written an autobiography?