A tale of an ex-marketer

It scares me a bit to think about what I could have done for the rest of my life and was fully prepared to accept as my fate. I wanted to get into marketing because in high school, a friend of mine convinced me to join DECA (if you don't know what DECA is, you probably were a popular kid). Anyway, to participate in DECA you were supposed to write fake marketing proposals and compete against other nerds who wrote proposals, and then a judge would decide who had a better idea. I did pretty well and even won first place in the State Competition one year and went to DisneyWorld to compete nationally (I didn't even place). I look back on all that and realize that I believed I wanted to do marketing only because I had joined a club my friend was in.

And so off to college I go, business major declared, fresh-faced and eager, ready to MARKET!

As soon as I got into the business school my junior year I realized something was terribly wrong. I hated all my business classes. I had no desire to go to any of them or even to pretend like I cared. However, I was also a huge chicken and didn't want to jeopardize my future by changing majors past the halfway mark. I stayed and graduated with a degree in Marketing, and then tried to get a job.

Nobody tells you that the only kind of job you can get after college if you got a degree in Marketing is a sales job. Not retail, but full-blown 8-hours-on-the-phone, pounding the pavement, monthly goals, cross-selling, up-selling madness. I worked at a call center selling domain names for $8.95 a pop. I talked on my phone headset all day and sat in a cubicle next to a 17-year-old high school dropout. It was horrible, I was miserable, and I lasted 2 months.

When I got my current job as an administrative assistant/receptionist/personal secretary at an advertising and PR agency, I quickly felt a connection with the graphic design gals who worked in the creative department. As I learned more about their roles in advertising, I knew it was what I wanted to do too. I had always been creative and had loved to draw since I could grip a pencil. Why was this career choice never obvious before?

And so onward I push, my story not yet complete, absorbing all I can about how to be a graphic designer, learning new techniques, tricks, and software. I may be a little late in figuring out my ideal career, but I'm a lot luckier than those who never find their true calling. I urge you to really analyze what you are doing and compare it to what you do in your free time. How close do they match up? Another thing I learned is that it is never too late to change your mind. Don't be a chicken like I was in college and think you're stuck!

So that's a little about me and my background. I want to thank all of those who continue to support me, and for image's sake I swear this will be the last sappy post I ever write ;)