About Me
In sixth grade I was the accountant for the snack shop at Young AmeriTowne, a little “town” that helps elementary school students learn a bit about money and business. It was my second time at Young AmeriTowne (usually the participants are fifth graders, but I was in the first 5th/6th split class at my school), and I had no idea what job I wanted. My teacher suggested the snack shop accountant and, since I had always liked playing with money and pretending to do office paperwork, I agreed. That day I decided I wanted to become an accountant. A CPA and tax accountant to be exact. I’m not sure how I made the leap from snack shop accountant to tax accountant, but I did. And making that happen was my focus for the rest of my school years.
After college I immediately began taking review courses to sit for the CPA exam. During that summer, though, a close friend almost died and, after spending the previous seven years working full time and working on my degree with very little time for friends, family or myself, I decided that becoming a CPA and tax accountant was no longer important to me. In fact, I don’t think it had been that important to me for quite a while. Instead of reassessing my interests and goals, though, I had stuck with the decision I had made in sixth grade. Crazy, I know!
At this point I was a bit lost. I had focused on one thing for so long that I wasn’t sure what else I wanted to do, or even could do, with my career. I still had my degree in Accounting, though, so I wasn’t completely without options. A friend was working in the Accounts Payable department at an oil and gas company at the time, and she helped me get hired on in the same department. After nearly a year there, the company was acquired by a larger oil and gas company (the nature of the industry). My position duties changed with the acquisition and I decided to move on. Somehow, without experience with or even understanding of the operations and production part of the oil and gas industry, I was hired as a Production Analyst at another company. Basically, I analyzed the production data that the field employees entered in the system and prepared reports. It doesn’t sound that exciting, but I very much enjoyed the work.
Over a decade later I’m still in the oil and gas industry and I’m still analyzing and reporting production data. However, my current company recently found out that we are being acquired by a company headquartered in Austin. Though the acquiring company is looking to hire as many employees as possible from my company, those jobs are in Austin. Personally, as a native of Colorado I would find it very difficult to move away from my state. And my entire support system is here as well. Austin is just not an option for me.
So I face a dilemma – begin the search for a new position in the industry, even though the job market for the oil and gas industry in Colorado is really not great right now, or finally reassess my interests and goals to find a new career that I’m passionate about. I’ve always loved to write and I enjoy photography, so this blog will combine both of those passions as I write about some of my favorite things – reading, writing, travel, food, careers and leadership, and a few other miscellaneous topics lumped together in the More section.
The odds of being able to fully support myself with this new career are not great, and I don’t handle uncertainty very well. But I’m excited to try something new and see where it leads! I hope you find a little laughter and comradery as you join me on this journey. Thank you for your support, and I look forward to chatting with you!
