My last post talked about how I fell into my current career and the crazy, lazy road I took to get here. Today, you get the insane details. This is not the career path for the faint of heart.
- ’94-98 – US Air Force at Falcon AFS in Colorado Springs. I flew the satellites that help you find your way around town. I held four jobs in four years here.
- ’98 – Left the Air Force; turned down orders to Spain (Spain!) for a contract job at NASA.
- ’98-99 – Had the most boring job ever. I developed integration schedules for experiments to get on the International Space Station. Yeah, I don’t know what the hell that means, either.
- ’99-02 – Fell into a support position for the team that integrated the Canadian robotics hardware for the space station. Lame job, but great perks. I saw real space hardware in development and went to two space shuttle launches as a VIP.
- ’02- Nov. ’03 – Left NASA to work downtown at a law firm in marketing after I got my lame BA in Communication – hated it!
- Nov. ’03 – Dec. ’03 – Worked for another law firm in marketing for a whole month. Best job I ever left, but I couldn’t take the commute.
- ’03-05 – Took the first job I could find at NASA. I was an education and outreach coordinator. I taught kids and the public about NASA’s biological research until our budget was cut.
- ’05-08 – I actually taught astronauts. Yes, how I got this job is still a miracle to me, but I trained them on medical hardware for the space station.
- ’08-’10 – Landed my dream job in NASA Public Affairs as a contractor. I did so many fun things: traveled with astronauts, walked on the grass at Yankee Stadium, Camden Yards and that White Sox place. I wrote a lot, talked about space a lot, met all of the Apollo 11 astronauts and then some. I flew in the zero gravity plane and even landed the shuttle in the motion simulator that astronauts train in. But the politics, micromanagement and competitive nature of this office was too much for me to handle.
- Nov. ’10 – now – I’m at a large company who’s name I can’t mention because they are a little Big-Brothery with social media. The job is fine. It’s not much fun, but the pay is awesome and nobody micromanages me. There’s no chick drama here, either. So other than being boring, it’s not bad. But it’s temporary and I don’t know where I’ll go from here.
That about sums it up. I even left two jobs out for sake of time.
I’m optimistic about the future. I’ve got tons of irons in the fire and hope that just one of them burns hot soon. The space industry is going through some major changes and no one really knows what the future holds. But if my past job history is any indication, I’m sure my next job will have nothing to do with any of the others. And I can’t wait to see what it will be.
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