I’m 32 with a dog and two cats, employed part time as a safety diver at a Helicopter Underwater Escape Training (HUET) Facility with hardly a cent to my name. Never in my wildest dreams did I think this is where I’d be at this point in life. I was totally convinced I would be a career engineer, working boring desk jobs that “benefit society” and shoveling as much money as possible into early retirement so that I could hopefully get a few years of my life back. But I never wanted that. Frankly, I don’t give a shit about benefitting society. Not when it comes with getting bullied, stonewalled, gaslit, and passed over for 40 hours a week, year after year. Something had to change, and I had to be the one to change it.
I left my first defense contractor job after almost 6 years for another smaller, start-up sized, defense contractor. At first it was great. My coworkers liked me! Hell, some even befriended me. It was a major step up, but not even friends could overcome management’s misogyny. For the year I was there I struggled to make headway on measurable improvements to the company. Did I really want to stay at this company and keep getting ignored? There’s a chance management could get better, right? And then, it’s like life, the universe, or whatever other higher power came down and said “enough”: I got fired. Out of the blue and without sufficient explanation.
Well, shit. Sure, I’ve been wanting out of the STEM field lately, but I didn’t feel quite ready to leave yet. Not only did I have unfinished work at that company, but I wasn’t ready to leave my friends. I wasn’t ready to be a non-engineer. But then I thought, when would I be ready? I’ve been miserable for most of the last 7 years and I’m still here. When would enough be enough? When would I decide to leave?
I found myself jobless one week before my interview for the part time HUET job, which I nailed. Landing the job was great, but a decision still had to be made: Do I want to jump back into engineering or do I want to hold out for a full time position at this new job at some point in the future? Whenever I thought about it, every single fiber of my being told me to stay the fuck away from the field I just left, so I decided to give it a few weeks to let the dust settle.
Not long after starting my new job I started going through physiological changes that could best be described as unpacking 7 years of pent-up stress. Fatigue, repetitive thoughts about certain people and events, irritability, emotional roller coasters for days, you name it. There’s no way I could go back to an environment that did this to me, let alone pull myself together enough to apply to more jobs. It’s like life was saying “That shit’s bad for you. Stay away.”
Ok, ok. I’m listening. I’m finally listening. I decided to take a break from the STEM field for at least a year and see where this new career takes me. Just the thought of not returning to engineering was such a huge weight off my shoulders, and I’m so excited to see where this leads.