What Do You Want to Be?

When I was about 9 years old I was sure I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. this one time, in the backyard, I had successfully mediated an argument between two friends. This meant, of course, that I should be…a psychologist! Me, the semi-robotic, whose in-laws still struggle to get me after nearly a decade. I was going to solve other people’s emotional issues. Obviously I didn’t really know anything about being a psychologist, what 9-year-old does? Regardless, for years I would answer that “What do you want to be?” question that way.

Then I got to high school. By high school my family was living in Wichita, KS. It’s actually an okay town, and the American great plains can be stunning, just make sure you keep an eye out for tornadoes. Anyway, something your may not know, a lot of aircraft are built in Wichita. In fact, a number of aircraft companies got started in Wichita, including Boeing, Cessna, LearJet, and Beechcraft. The men who lend their names to these companies were not from Wichita, but the went there to test their brand new airplanes because the wind is constant and predictable (flat plains with no trees) and the geography was favorable (see previous parenthetical). Today, those same companies manufacture their planes in the same city (yes, Boeing is headquartered in Washington, but they have a plant in Wichita. Well it’s actually owned by Spirit because…well it doesn’t matter, they make Boeing planes and plane parts and used to be Boeing, I worked there for 6 months even, see below. Boy this parenthetical is long and useless). And we’re back. The whole point of this is that, by the time I was in high school, I had decided I wanted to work in aviation maintenance as an Airframe and Powerplant Technician. An airplane mechanic.

In high school, I had enrolled in welding and metal shop, and absolutely loved it. And I was good at it. So that made me decided I needed a job working with hands rather than working in an office. So when I was still a senior in high school, my grades were good enough that I was able to spend only half a day in high school, and the other half I would go to the aviation vocational school and get a jump-start on my post-secondary education. So after English class, I drove to the airport and took the General Aviation courses required by the FAA to be an A&P Mechanic. Parts of it were very cool, such as learning about aircraft, and how they fly, why they fly, what the control surfaces do, all that stuff. Some parts were really boring, like the math, learning how to calculate an airplanes center-of-gravity (highly critical to make sure people don’t die, but god-awful boring), and studying Federal Aviation Regulations. But I stuck it out, took the FAA  tests at the end, and passed my General exam. All I needed now was two more years of school, and to pass the Airframe and Powerplant exams.

I graduated high school in 1994, spent the summer working and hanging out, then enrolled in the Airframe program at the beginning if the next year. Airframe was awesome. I loved almost all of it. We got to learn everything there is to know about airplanes. We had a hanger and got to do hands-on work almost every day, taking planes apart, fixing them, putting them back together, crawling all around, under, and through them. It was incredible. When school ended, I decided to wait and take my Airframe exam along side my Powerplant exam the following year, knock out both tests at once (they are expensive and not part of the actual education. They are conducted by FAA certified examiners, can take anywhere from 5 to 10 hours, and include both written, oral, and practical portions). That summer, though, I decided that I needed to “take a year off” from school. I talked myself into taking a break, convinced I would go back the following year.

I didn’t go back. Partly because I got a job working at Boeing in the Military Modifications division where they were taking brand new 767 aircraft and turning them into military radar planes. It was amazing, dream-come-true work. At first. I found out that they actually only hired some of us guys fresh out of school because they were behind on their current project, and were using us to get them caught up. Once that was done, they shipped all us new guys off to the Major Paint Facility where we hung small airplane parts on wire racks so somebody else could paint them. All day..hanging small parts on wire racks. All…..day…

So I quit after only 6 months, and that 6 months remains the total amount of time I’ve spent in the aviation industry I was so sure I wanted to be part of. When I quit Boeing, I moved to Indiana and got a job as a tool and die maker (specialized machinist). This job I really liked as well. But when I moved to Arizona in 2002, nobody was hiring toolmakers. You see, a journeyman toolmaker at the time could demand $25/hr or more. It’s a skilled trade, but today most shops only employ one or two journeyman. The rest of the shop is filled with much cheaper laborers that can put parts into a computerized mill and press start. No real skill required. So after 4 months unemployed, my mom got a job at the bank, and that’s where I finally found what I wanted to be when I grow up.

I had not written any kind of computer programming language since the mid-80’s when my brother and I copied BASIC commands from magazines into a very early version of a portable home computer. But at the bank I got recruited into being a database analyst and learned how to write SQL. And man, I was hooked. In 2015 I got my Bachelor’s in IT with a concentration on database management, and to this day work in data analytics.

My point to all this is that, if you’re young, maybe only young-ish, and you don’t know what you want to do with your life, or maybe only thought you did, that’s okay. I don’t know why we put so much pressure onto 18-year-olds to go to college immediately, choosing right then what they are supposed to spend their life doing. Some people can. I have a cousin that’s an award-winning engineer and she just this year earned her Masters. She’s known since before high-school that she wanted to do this. For her, that’s amazing and lucky. For most regular people, they can only guess. So my advice is, if you have no clue, to go do some living, hold some jobs, try things out, then make a decision.

To date, I’ve had the following jobs:

• Grocery store clerk (2 years)
• Home-Depot-style-store clerk (6 months)
• Silk Screen operator (2 years)
• Aviation Technician (6 months)
• Newspaper-rack refurbishment (3 months, worst job I’ve ever had)
• Tool and Die Maker/Designer (6 years)
• Home Equity Loan Processor/Underwriter/Compliance Analyst (6 years)
• Data Analyst (8 years and counting)

It took me 17 years of actually working to find my passion. I don’t expect an 18 year-old to know what they want to do just because they finished high school.

Just make sure you find it eventually.