How did I get here?

I can’t even begin to talk about how many times I had this thought once I realized that I definitely was somehow lost. I re-traced my steps and wondered where I’d gone wrong. How is it possible that I had so much structure and definitive path my whole life and now I have every opportunity in front of me and I feel like I’m at a dead end? I mostly felt this in my second job.

 

I took my second job as an escape from my first job. Things got to a point where I could not function at work because I was so frustrated and fed up with my Supervisor. Literally, I couldn’t come into work each day without being aggravated just knowing that I was going to have to interact with *Laura for 8 hours. This also wasn’t your regular run-of-the-mill ‘I don’t like my boss’ crap. It wasn’t just the fact that she was my boss. I was frustrated about a lot of things; the fact that the line between friendship and Supervisor/Employee were blurry, her communication skills were deplorable, my Supervisor had no experience or idea how to actually supervise, she had her own insecurities that filtered into her professional life and quite frankly, she just sucked in that portion of her job. However, because she sucked at it I suffered. I won’t get caught up in details – I’ll just leave it at the fact that I was pretty miserable. I left around my year and a half mark.

 

I took my second job because I just wanted to be in a setting where there was neutrality. Granted, this job was far less responsibility than a) I was used to or b) than I could handle but after being so tired of hating going to work each day I just wanted to be in a place where I did my job, went home and did whatever I wanted. I wanted some down time and a place where I didn’t hate to go each day and I thought this would also give me an opportunity to figure out what the hell I wanted. I will admit, a sleep medicine clinic is not your regular doctor’s office and there ARE things to learn and understand in order to do your job, but once you learn them you’re pretty much set. I learned my job in about 4-6 months and at that point I started to feel the itch that I was not being used to my fullest potential. I asked for some more challenging work and kind of got it, but not really. I began looking for a new job about 9 months after I started. I looked for Coordinator types of positions, some Executive Assistant (which I wasn’t crazy about, but some of them looked quasi-interesting.) For some reason, any time I applied for jobs something about me in my resume screamed that I wasn’t able to handle anything besides triaging calls, making photo copies, filing and basically being the office b*tch. This was also frustrating to me because I KNOW myself and I know what I’m capable of. I have a great deal of skills that are just waiting to be used and no one was picking up on that.

 

There’s an overwhelming feeling that comes when you take a step back and realize that you’re nowhere NEAR where you thought you’d be when you imagine your adult life as you grow up.  I’ve only recently (read: in the past 4 years) come to understand the feelings anxiety and panic. I NEVER felt these growing up or in high school. At some point during this employment, I started to have panic attacks. Granted, they didn't happen all the time, but they DID happen out of nowhere. 

To be perfectly honest, as time went on here I grew to be ashamed of what I did not because of the actual job, but because I knew I wasn’t working up to my full potential and that made me ashamed of myself. So there I was; working a job that I didn't like, was not proud and feeling like crap about myself and no one in the outside work force seemed to acknowledge my potential and wanted me on their team for more than, 'How can I help you?' positions. I'm sure you can imagine just how pleasant I was at work. It didn't help at this point that my Supervisor was switched to someone new who was a NITWIT. Things just sucked.

Looking back, I still feel like this was an extremely difficult time for me. I'm so glad to be where I am now, but at the time when I had that, 'How did I get here?' moment it was terrifying because never in the past had I seen myself at 25 years old being in a meaningless job, unhappy, making crappy money and just basically existing.

I remember saying to myself once I was approaching the end of college that I thought I wanted to just get a job and exist for a while (literally that was how I worded it!) It took this experience to realize that's not what I wanted at all. Sometimes we need that kick in the pants to develop ourselves as human beings. In hindsight this is a great learning experience. 

Sometimes, it takes situations like this to realize that what you thought you wanted is actually the last thing you wanted. 

 

What was your 'How did I get here?' moment like?