Where it all began

I followed the typical path — college, career, family. I was raised to work hard. I’m a computer programmer and every job I had I worked hard and received raises and promotions. You would think that would mean security in your job — WRONG!

Before I tell you more about my work experience, let me tell you a little about myself and my family.

When we decided to start a family, we had difficulties getting pregnant. We went to a specialist and after 10 years of trying different treatments I was finally pregnant — with TRIPLETS!

It was at this point we decided that one of us needed to stay home and take care of the kids. Since I had a college education, we decided I would work and my husband would be a stay at home Dad — think Mr. Mom (1980’s movie with Michael Keaton).

I’m not gonna lie, it wasn’t easy working full time and raising triplets. Trying to balance career and being a mom was challenging. Dealing with a colicky baby, ear infections, asthma, and other typical childhood experiences meant a lot of sleepless nights. But the joys of seeing your kids take their first step, playing and fighting with each other and the giggles — a baby’s laugh is contagious. All this joy I experienced — X3!

The job I had when the kids were born required me to be part of an on-call rotation — once a month I was on call for a week. There was one time when I got paged and I was in the middle of giving my son a treatment for his asthma. I didn’t get back to the person calling as quickly as they would have liked and they complained to my supervisor. That night I ended up taking my son to the emergency room because the at home treatments were not working. And after a couple hours of sleep, I went to work.

This was my life, it wasn’t easy but it was worth it. But my manager at the time was not very understanding. She informed me that I had to get my priorities straight — work came first. I’m sorry, but that didn’t work for me. I found another job that didn’t require me to be on-call and life got easier.

I few years go by and I am balancing a full time career and being a mom. The kids were in first grade and work was going great, or so I thought. At work we started hearing rumors that the company was going to file for bankruptcy, I was freaked out. My family depended on me.

It was a small office and everyone was talking about it, stopping in the halls, asking each other — “Did you see the newspaper? Do you think they will file for bankruptcy?” The owner heard the speculation and decided to call a meeting towards the end of the day. Everyone expected him to announce the bankruptcy. Instead he said they would not be filing for bankruptcy and that everything was going to be okay. I was sooo relieved!

The next morning when I got to work, people were stopping each other in the halls again, talking about an article in the newspaper. When I asked about it I was told that the company filed for bankruptcy the previous afternoon. I also found out that they laid off a number of people (including my supervisor) the day before. WHAT!?! The owner said everything would be fine! He stood in front of a room full of people and LIED to them! How can a person do that!

The company had to keep a skeleton staff to maintain the status quo until they sold the business. I was one of the lucky ones to keep my job, even though it was temporary. My supervisor at the time said do what you have to do to find another job.

We were living in Minnesota at the time and the job market was not good. I started looking in other areas, other states. There were times when I would sit in my car at work doing a telephone interview. I did what I could to find another job before my current one ended. That didn’t happen. I was unemployed with a family depending on me!

I eventually found another job — in Scottsdale Arizona. So the summer before my kids started second grade, we moved across the country — that was an adventure!

At this point in my career I had 15+ years of experience and I was starting over as an entry level programmer. I worked my way up to Lead programmer within 3 years. During this time I was juggling work and the kid’s activities — baseball, basketball, choir, orchestra — and health issues.

There were a lot of health issues to deal with — each of the kids had something different. I’ve been to soo many doctor’s offices over the years as doctor’s try to figure out why my daughter is in so much pain or skin diseases two of my kids have. And then there was the time I got a phone call at my second job (yes at one point I was working two jobs) from my husband who was at the emergency room — my daughter had blood clots in her lungs!

This is life — there are a lot of bumps in the road, but you do your best and keep going.

About this time the company I was working for started to lay off people. This happened just before the company’s fiscal year end. Every year after that, more people got laid off. I survived 3 years before it was my turn. Again I found myself looking for work, with my family counting on me.

I found another job and 9 months later I was out of work again — they closed the branch office where I was working.

It took almost 9 months to find another job. Most of the savings for the kid’s college was depleted. We had to sell our house (short sale) and move into a rental. My unemployment benefits ran out… but I finally found another job.

I was starting over again, entry level programmer. I had ideas about how to improve their system — they didn’t want to hear it. When I tried to help other programmers, they didn’t want me to do that. They just wanted a robot — they would tell me what to do and how to do it and wanted me to do it without question, even though my many years of experience screamed there is a better way.

I became depressed, I hated going to work. After years of hard work, I was reduced to this. After years of juggling work and home life I started to question if all the lost time with my kids was worth it.

I needed to make a change. I wanted control of my life. I was tired of being at the mercy of employers. So I started searching for other opportunities and that is when I discovered digital marketing. It changed my life! I wish I had found this years ago when my kids were little.

Don’t wait until you get to the point where I was. If you are not happy with your career, make a change — do something about it. Find your new life!

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