Did you know what you wanted to do when you grew up? I did—with a little help

I was going through a shoebox of old photos recently and found this picture of yours truly, from October 1993.  I was 32 years old and probably the happiest I’d ever been in my life. 

I was a software developer for the Department of Aging in Allegheny County.  I started there October 16, 1989 (on my Grandma Morris’ 75th birthday) and was only supposed to be there for 6 months, but wound up working for Aging for 9 years. 

Loved the office, loved the people, and most importantly, loved my work.

If someone had told me just a couple years prior “you’re going to be living in Pittsburgh, working at a government agency and developing Managed Care software for 40-50 caseworkers” I never would’ve believed it. 

Prior to the start of my IT career, I’d been asked 3 times (that I can remember) what I wanted to do with my life, and computers never came to mind.

In third grade, before we moved to the country and still lived in town, my teacher Mr. Porter asked us to write an essay on who we thought we’d be in the year 2001.  (He’d recently seen 2001: A Space Odyssey and couldn’t stop talking about it.  Plus he was awesome.)  I wrote that I’d be 40 years old, probably married with 4 kids.  I was going to be a Methodist minister & cartoonist.  My dad had two jobs (a coal shaft engineer and musician) so I would too.

In the fall of 1978, my senior year of high school, our guidance counselor Mr. Titus met with me to discuss my future and asked if I had plans to go to college and what I wanted to do.  When I told him I’d been giving a lot of thought to teaching, maybe math, he said “No no no… we’ve got a glut of teachers already.  You want to work with numbers, go into accounting.  That’s where all the money is.  Got it?  Good.”

I did pursue Accounting in college but dropped out after one year, it just wasn’t me.  I remember in the early 1980s, seeing a news segment on the shortage of teachers in America, particularly in math & science and got my first real lesson in life; listen to yourself first.  Corny but true.

The third time I was asked was in the spring of 1986.  Dr. Jane (my dentist) talked me into meeting with Bill Lewis, a counselor she knew at the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation.  When he asked if I had any idea what I’d like to do with myself, I said no, but I’d spent the last 6 years selling lumber & gardening supplies for $4.15 an hour and knew I didn’t want to do that.

He recommended we travel to Pittsburgh so I could take something called the ASVAB, a battery of tests the military gave their recruits to determine their strengths & weaknesses vocation-wise.  Afterwards, Mr. Lewis said “Have I got news for you!” and I said “What, I’m in the Army now?”  He laughed and said “No Douglas, I know what you’re meant to do.”  I said “Radar repairman?”  and he said “Computers.” 

I told him I didn’t think I’d be good at repairing computers, and he said “Not repairing them; computer programming.”  I was terrified, I’d never been near one.  But I loved Star Trek, that show was full of computers and frankly that’s where I got the courage to return to school in a special 2 year college program in Computer Science.  It didn’t take long to know I’d found my calling.

All of this comes to mind as recently my sister Shawn has been going with my 17 year old niece Sophia to visit colleges.  (Sophia will be a senior this year.)  Shawn said that Sophia had initially wanted to pursue teaching, but now wasn’t sure.  Who can blame her?  How many people know what they want to do at the tender age of 17? 

I’m sure there’s a few out there who can say yes, they DID know—our own brother Duke announced he was going to be a lawyer on his 13th birthday, and he became one too. 

As for people like me…. a little help along the way certainly helped.

Good Luck, Sophia