Chapter 2 . The college years

 

If you want to know how it felt when I started college, imagine what you were doing when you were 14 years old. Picture yourself doing the normal stuff that a teenager does. Now picture yourself at that same age (14 years old) going into a playground at any random McDonald’s restaurant and start playing with the toddlers. That’s how I felt. It was very surreal. Not only was I two years older than almost everybody in my class, but already had two years of work experience in my back. At that particular age in our life, it pretty much seemed like my classmates and I were, at least, 5 light years apart:

• I had a very tight schedule, as this particular college compresses a vast amount of knowledge in terms of only 12 weeks; all my time had to be accounted for. Most of my colleagues were happy about the fact that they were on the night stream, like “grown-ups”, and could sleep late the day after; they could go to a bar or to a party right after class.
• I had to study in between classes to make up for the fact that I could not study during the day while at work. Some of my classmates were playing poker before, in between and after classes.
• My main concern was to try to not be exhausted while at work. Their main concern was either to work out at the gym in the afternoons or watch the latest “Dragon Ball Z” episode.
• I couldn’t fail any class because that would mean I would have to pay for that same class again and it would extend my time in college. They couldn’t fail a class because their parents would be disappointed (or would kill them!).

Don’t get me wrong: If those words sound bitter, please let me assure you that it is neither how I feel now nor how I felt back then. I am not saying that I was better than them. Had I been in their shoes I would have done exactly the same things they were doing. I’m just stating now that there was a clear difference between us. A clear difference in the way we approached life at that stage in our lives; a clear difference between us in terms of priorities.

 

Also, some of the “youngsters” in my class were really smart. They were fresh out of high school, with an impressive knowledge toolkit; they were able to resolve trigonometric integrals very easily. On the other hand, I didn’t even know what an integral was! I had never seen that elongated “S” in my life! That is the type of knowledge that you are not exposed to when you attend a technical school, so I needed to get my act together if I wanted to catch up with “the youth”.

 

I had to juggle with both work and that type of academic pressure. It wasn’t all horrible, though. I made some long lasting friendships at college and I can safely say that they are still great friends of mine and that we will be friends forever. And, with time, either I started to think like them, they started to think like me, or a combination of both. Or maybe it’s just because it took some time until I started hanging out with my core group of colleagues, my buddies (“Los Muyayos”), the ones that spent the final two years of the program with me. We didn’t realize of this back then, but we were quite a smart little gang: 5 out of 7 of us graduated with honors. Not too shabby, huh? (However, please remember my life lesson #1…)

 

The reality is that, at the beginning of the first year of the program, my classmates then and I were not in sync. It was really funny when some of my earlier colleagues called me “grandpa” when I refused to skip class to go with them to the movies to watch “Men in Black I”. I don’t know, but something tells me that neither Tommy “Two-Face” Lee Jones nor Mister Fresh Prince were going to pay for my additional college fees had I failed that class. I ended up watching that movie over that weekend, anyway. No class skip required! I had to play by the rules when it came to college…. Once again: priorities…

 

Obviously working full time and being at a very demanding and time consuming university took its toll on me. If I wanted to finish the program in time I had to take classes during regular business hours: not all classes were available between 6 pm and 10 pm. Some were only available in the afternoon stream and some of them only in the morning one. I decided to use my work holidays (14 days a year) to dedicate them to my education: I would split all 14 vacation days into hours, so I sent a plan to my boss and I was able to get away with taking a few classes at 4:00 pm, 2 days a week, for a few months every year, in a way that I wasn’t staying behind.  I even took one that was at a dreadful time for any one on a 8-5 job: from 11:00 am until 1:00 pm. This brings me to life lesson #5: stay away from rigid schedule employments.

 

I know. This is easier said than done. You don’t know how flexible your job will be until you are actually working there. But even if you cannot find out what is it like before joining the organization, once you are in there you need to start testing the flexibility of your current employment. Start bending some rules little by little, without breaking them. Some rules are there just because “things have always been done like this”, but not because they add any value to the business. Just make sure that you are not affecting the business (I said “bend”, not “break” the rules). Test the water before jumping in.

 

And you need to set your priorities straight: by 1997 I knew that my first job was not going to be THE job after I graduated from college. I knew I wanted more. I would give the best of me during working hours, but finishing college was my main goal. Having said that, I could not have finished college in 3.5 years had it not been because my boss at the time understood my situation and allowed me to leave early a couple of days a week in exchange for my vacation time. To me it was a win-win situation, as I was still showing up in office every day, as opposed to having me out 14 days in a row once a year.

 

This lesson has been particularly important to me. Humans are not robots. Life happens. You will get sick, you will need to go to get your car fixed, you will have to visit a relative at the hospital, you will want go to watch your kid’s school play, etc. So make sure you stay away from an employment that demands you to be there during a fixed period of time every single day of your life. I believe that this is not good for the employee or for the employer. It is not sustainable. Technology makes it easier nowadays by avoiding being physically present “at work”, with email access on your mobile phone, Internet access everywhere you go, etc. But back in the late 90’s it was not the case. I only bought my first cell phone in 2000, so it wasn’t as easy back then.

 

I believe that my employers were really kind to me and they allowed me to be where I am now. I will always be grateful to them. And I will always remember a phrase my first boss once told me: “Don’t get fooled by society: you can prosper in life by doing the right thing”. This is not even a life lesson. This is a life motto, which you need to have tattooed on the back of your eyelids. I stayed with them, my first job, for 5 years and 6 months. I stayed until I was ready to move to the next chapter in my life.

 

Chapter 3 . The Orange years

 

How do you know when you are ready to jump ship in your professional life (or in your love life, because it applies there as well)?

To be continued….