What do I want to be when I grow up??

Don't let the title fool you. I have no intention of ever "growing up." Grown-ups suck!

Moving on... I'm looking for a new career. Seriously. Well, I'm serious about looking anyway...not so much seriously doing anything about it :)

How did I get here? I did the typical student thing... started out as a pre-med major and made it all the way until my second semester of college before I gave it up. Funny story behind that... the very first core class for a pre-med major is freshman Chemistry. Oooohhhhh... that sounded exciting. Of course, my only experience with chemistry thus far was being in a high school classroom with a lab that nobody was allowed to use (apparently there were some attempts to cook meth, as well as a few beaker-bongs that turned up in lockers - not mine, really!). My school wasn't that bad, really, I never felt unsafe or anything, but as you see there were some, um, limitations to our education??? Anyway... I show up to class, suffer through memorization of the periodic chart, and manage to keep a crappy but strangely acceptable "C" level. Then came the lab of doom. The college lab was in the basement (seriously) of a very old stinky science building. There were sliding glass doors (walk-out basement, I guess) that allowed a minimal amount of light in, but were either painted or glued shut and coated with what I hope was condensation deposits. It was a sad place. I did okay there for a few weeks... until the Great Copper Experiment of '98. Said experiment was a four-part experiment that took approximately four hours to complete. The product of each part was used for the next part, so if you screwed up you had to start all over (foreshadowing!!!). Anyway, I start the experiment and make it all the way to step four, where you had to cook the final product in a small porcelain bowl with the lid precariously perched to allow venting. The wobbly little sucker fell right off in the floor and of course, broke. Sigh. I start over. Again I make it to step four. Crash. Sigh. Apparently I had more patience in those days, because it took me around six times to finally make it. Yep - six times at four hours each = 24 hours.... No, I didn't do it all at one time, it took a few days. Needless to say, the fumes and the classy lab glasses finally got to me. I dropped the lab, squeaked out of the class with a C, and changed my major to Economics.

I know, right? What the @#$! was I thinking? I didn't even LIKE economics really, but the college didn't offer an accounting degree then, you had to major in economics and "concentrate" in accounting. I always thought "concentrate" was a funny term... like you really needed to "concentrate" to make it in that field. Again, moving on... I loved my accounting teachers and was mildly amused by the econ professors (one caveman and one heavily-accented Baghdadian). We were all dorks but numbers are like a puzzle to me. The college finally added an accounting major, but by then I had so many Econ credits that I ended up with a double major in Boring and Boring-er. Now what?

A friend of mine told me about the Master's program for accounting that she was looking into - sounded good to me. More school and putting off real work was okay with me! It was only a year anyway and it satisfied the CPA requirements, so why not? Breezed right on through... Oh crap, really, now what???

Long story short - I interviewed with several public accounting firms - I didn't want to travel around auditing so they politely said "no thank you" to my offer to work for them. A classmate suggested I try my current company. I sent a resume, they called, I interviewed, they called back, I peed in a cup, and here I am.

And here I've been for seven years now. Yikes. It's been a long, strange trip. I've met some of the best people on earth, and very possibly some of the worst; I learned that my work ethic is actually better than most and I really can work for 16 hours a day for several months straight-while 8 months pregnant; I learned more than any human should want or need to know about the IRS, tax rules, and corporations... I was good at my job. Really good. I'm still good at it. I have a quasi-photographic memory and apparently that's very handy in a field riddled with rules. Apparently I love rules, especially when they aren't directed at me personally. I changed positions within my department twice - same line of work, different areas - and liked them all. I learned that I can put up with a lot of crap from a lot of different directions as long as I like my work.
Then I moved to my current job. I handle state income tax audits (you may be excused to vomit, I'll wait) of the company. The job requires negotiation skills, conflict management, and coordination with many areas of the company. It's also an area with a lot of uncertainty and lots of guesswork and judgment.

Some more information about me: 1) I hate conflict. I "adjust," remember?? 2) My idea of negotiation is to cheerfully agree with whatever the other party wants. 3) I hate to ask people I don't know for information and/or help. 4) I have a strong aversion to change, uncertainty makes my head hurt, I prefer not to guess, and I have zero knowledge for making any reasonable judgment call in this field. Perfect. Should be a picnic.

I've actually made it for three years in this job. I've learned to remove personal issues from my work, and therefore I can do most of these things without my stomach turning over now. My boss is awesome. The hours are "normal" and very flexible, so I can come and go as long as I get my work done.

I HATE the work. Even though I'll grudgingly admit I've done quite a bit of growing up in this position (hmm, maybe that's the problem since grown-ups suck!), I get no personal satisfaction out of my accomplishments. I need to move on, but being the change-averse, headachy, predictable idiot that I am, I'm too scared to really start walking down that path just yet.

Besides, I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. My girls alternate between "dolphin trainer" and artist. Sounds good to me.