The New Job

When I first introduced myself here at Ack!Thbbbt!, I was a music radio DJ trapped in a newsradio job. I took you along with me as I escaped radio and sought sanctuary at video news company where I was hired as a social media manager, and it was there that I learned about a thing called SEO (Search Engine Optimization). I found it very interesting, and it reminded me that I had once been extremely fascinated with how websites worked. So fascinated had I been that around the turn of the millennium I had pursued a website development certificate at a local tech college. I finished about three courses before life and children proved too difficult to continue. But, this SEO job made me remember that something existed in the world that was as intriguing to me as radio once had been.

When the video news company went bankrupt, a series of fortunate events landed me a job as an SEO Specialist at a small website development company. There, I nurtured and grew my website knowledge while attending a big girl university. In six years' time, I turned my 30-year-old associate's degree in Marketing into a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Communication with an emphasis in Public Relations.
I took my six years of website development experience and my brand new shiny degree, and I got a new job.

My New Job
I am an SEO Specialist for a company that owns a chain of retail establishments located throughout the midwest. To be more precise, I am their first ever SEO Specialist. They didn't have one before me. They hired a 53 year old woman to take the reins of a job that is only as old as one of today's college graduates.

To be truthful, this is not where I expected to end up when I decided to leave radio seven years ago. I thought I'd fall into a non-profit gig easily, thought I was a shoe-in for a library public relations position. I declared to The Husband many times that I wanted to make a difference more than I wanted to make money. But you know what? After making lousy money at small companies for most of my life, I'm kinda digging working for a large established corporation that pays well and offers benefits.
Does that make me a sell out? Maybe.
Does that bother me? Nope.
What I am... is surprised and delighted to find how comfortable this feels. When I was much younger working to earn my associates degree in business, this is the kind of business job I imagined I'd get. But I think it's good that I worked at all the other jobs first so I could fully appreciate how nice it is to work for a well-run company.

After watching and worrying as I spent decades in radio moving "town to town, up and down the dial", Mom and Dad would be very happy to know that I've finally gotten the stable, grown up job they had always hoped I'd get. :-)

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My friends and family can't understand how I could walk away from a 30 year career in radio and turn into a computer nerd. But, you can see in just two paragraphs how short and sensible that journey was, right?
See, you guys get me.