child of the sixties enters reagan/thatcher era
Being a child of the sixties, I was, and am not, much into the concept of a career. This is something of a cop-out on my part. Having performed the same job (tech writing) since August of 1982, I don't know that it's wholly truthful for me to say I don't have a career, so I won't push the point.
While a goodly number of my contemporaries pursued jobs and careers upon college graduation, an also large number did not. In fact, from my biased perspective, it seemed that a majority of my co-workers, from the mid-70s through the early 80s, had tried different jobs before settling on a career-type job. This might have been an artifact of a pre-globalization, less competitive economy.
At some point, in the mid 80s, when I was at Xerox, I became conscious of an increasing number of young people who 1) took vocation-oriented college studies and 2) moved directly into career-type jobs upon graduation. At first I was sort of bemused and maybe even a little patronizing toward these people (as if greater drug usage bequeathed one privileged insights). Then, as careerism became the norm--as it is in spades now--it dawned on me that these people were no less a product of their time than I.
But back to my checkered non-career...
After an inglorious quarter at Univ. of Santa Clara (where we had mandatory ROTC, getting to march around with rifles [unloaded, thank God] at 7 AM each Fri), I dropped out and was, for a time, a pot-and-pan man at O'Connor Hospital in San Jose.
As you started your shift in the pot/pan area at O'Connor, the wall of greasy pots and pans loomed to a point two feet above your head. It was easy to get overwhelmed. And so I was, at the beginning; so slow that my bosses were seriously considering canning me. But, over a few days, I developed a system that allowed me to stay ahead of the never-ceasing influx of dirty kitchen implements. I ended up being a bad-ass pot-and-pan man. (I note that, as of the date of this entry, there are openings in the O'Connor kitchen. Can one ever relive the magic of one's early success?)
Inspired by my hospital kitchen experience, I went on a long bike ride, alone. I rode north to Grants Pass, Oregon, riding up the central valley, going over Mt. Lassen and on to Oregon. On my return to the Bay Area, I took the coastal route. It was a nice ride, but I didn't like sleeping in the woods alone. Too many middle-of-the-night noises, so I didn't sleep too well.
After the bike ride, I hoed weeds in an avocado orchard in Fallbrook, CA. Got a nice tan, leathery hands, and was probably in the best shape of my life.
After that I dipped my toe in modern history.
It was spring 1968. The North Vietnamese were gearing up for the Tet Offensive. Having long concluded my studies at Santa Clara, my 2S deferment had become 1A eligibility. After a flirtation with the local Army recruiter and near-career as a weatherman (Meteorological Observation School, Fort Dix, NJ), I did a last-minute switch and volunteered for the draft, gambling on avoiding Nam. I won (very narrowly) and spent a year and a half in Germany, first in Giessen, then in Hanau.
On getting out of the Army, I worked and went to community colleges (Foothill and Canada, here in the SF Bay Area). I got a job as a nursing assistant in the psych admitting ward at the VA Hospital in Menlo Park.
After a couple of years, I matriculated to Chico State, where I was an English major and a beneficiary of the GI Bill. Following graduation, I moved to Seattle (before it was groovy to do so) and worked at the VA Hospital on Beacon Hill. While in Seattle, the US Congress had the wisdom to extend the GI Bill benefits such that my benefits, exhausted upon Chico graduation, now had two more years. I don't know whether school is more fun than work, or vice-versa. I think it tends to be that the activity that one is not doing at the moment seems more fun. On that principle, I attended the University of Washington, studying for a Master's in Creative Writing.
That handful of human beings who have read my work (even my wife!) agree: I am laughably bad at creative writing. I recall that the prof then in charge of the UW writing department was really reluctant to let me in. Getting out was worse: it took my sister, who still lives in Seattle, years of lobbying (this after I'd left town) to persuade the department to award the degree.
My first post-Masters job--and first job as a married man--was, I think, a classic: mailman, or, more accurately and gender-sensitively, letter carrier. After two years of carrying mail in West Seattle and driving night collections in Ballard, my wife and I moved to Pacific Grove, where I carried mail for two more years. After that it was the tech writing breakthrough at Digital Research.
Interesting to look at the wages of my early-work-history jobs, in today's dollars. As a nursing assistant in Menlo Park (this was before the oil shocks of the mid-70s), I recall making something like $3.85/hour, on the order of $8,000/year. That translates to about $41,500/year in today's dollars. On the VA web site, I find a salary range for nursing assistants of $28,405-$41,313.
In my last year as a mailman, I was making money at the rate of about $22,500/year, including overtime. In today's dollars, that's $49,005/year. At Digital Research, Alan Cooper, the hiring manager, was reluctant to splurge on a mailman. I took a cut to $20,000, or $43,560 in today's dollars. I note here that a letter carrier today with the experience I had would make about $43,000/year.
Financially, and otherwise, tech writing has been good to me.
