Regina Brett - God Is Always Hiring: 50 Lessons for Finding Fulfilling Work

M ost rsums dont show the broken road life takes you on or the names people called you along the way. We pretty up our rsums, rename the jobs we had, leave out the parts we wish we could have skipped.

My rsum used to change every six months. Early on in my life, thats about how long I lasted at most jobs. Six months. I was a work in progress. I just wasnt making much progress.

The song Take This Job and Shove It was the sound track to my life. I could relate to that other country song, Its Five Oclock Somewhere, which describes a time when the boss pushes you over the limit and youd like to call him something, but youd better just call it a day. One day I didnt. I stormed out of the restaurant and quit my waitressing job. I didnt even stop on my way out to empty the tip jar.

Some people climb the ladder of success. I walked under it. For years I didnt seem to have much luck, and the luck I had seemed bad. My first boss was a real bitch. Seriously. She was a poodle named Mamselle who lived next door. My first paying job was to walk the neighbors dog. Mamselle wore bright red nail polish and a bow. After a long walk with that fluffy ball of white, she finally did her business and I brought her home. The owner lifted up the poodles puffy Q-tip of a tail.

Youdidntwipe her?! she gasped.

I swear Mamselle gave me an evil grin. I didnt last long at that job. I thought I was hired to be a dog walker, not a dog wiper.

My next job was to be a personal assistant at a dinner theater that had just opened. The boss ran me ragged cleaning dressing rooms and bathrooms. I was in high school and didnt get home until after midnight. My parents fired me from that job. Then I upgraded to being a cashier at Clarks Pharmacy, where I spent most of my time dusting vitamins and trying to look busy and not get caught sneaking candy bars. Then on to waitressing at Wideners Family Restaurant, where people left me pennies for tips in a puddle of ketchup.

I moved on to the local hospital, where I wore a pink uniform and a hairnet. I stood in white shoes for hours putting prune whip for sick patients on trays on a long conveyor belt. The employee ID card I carried gave me the lovely title Kitchen Help. The title I put on my rsum read Dietary Assistant. I still have the hairnet and ID badge glued to my scrapbook to remind me of those days working 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the dish room hosing down trays and dishes that sick people threw up and bled on. Im not sure we even wore protective gloves back then.

For a while I worked as a secretary. That was BCbefore computers. Back then, you were lucky if you were issued an IBM Selectric with eraser tape. I got ink-stained hands from arm-wrestling carbon paper. I used to be a Wite-Out wiz. Im surprised my boss didnt find me passed out over the keyboard from the fumes. I hated the job. One day it took me all morning to type a three-page letter, only to have my boss hand it back to me after he drew huge circles of red ink around typos that Wite-Out would have covered. I had to retype the whole thing.

It took me many jobs to realize I wanted something more than a job. A job is where you work so you can pay the bills. A job is a place where youre penalized if youre five minutes late even if you stopped to help a stranded motorist. A job is a place where you call in sick so you have time to look for a better job. It might be stable and safe, but its boring. You do whats expected and you go home. You call in sick every time you rack up enough sick pay because youre sick of the place.

A job is for making a living. A career is for making a life. A job is a paycheck. A career is a bigger paycheck. A career requires education, training, and taking risks. So I set out to get a career. I changed my college major six times, from biology to botany to conservation to English to public relations to journalism. Kent State University had mercy on me and applied its academic forgiveness policy to my GPA after I flunked chemistry and got Ds in zoology and child psychology. It took me 12 years to get a 4-year degree because I took time off to work and raise a child. I started college in 1974 and didnt graduate until 1986, when I was 30. Then it was time to take that degree in journalism and find my mission in life.

I used to think only people like Mother Teresa and Gandhi had a mission in life. We all have one. How do you find it? You listen to your life.

All those dead-end jobs? Theres no such thing. In Gods economy, nothing is ever wasted. The dots all connect in time. As a kid, I used to love those coloring books with the connect-the-dot pictures. Each dot had a number, which made it easier to discover the final picture. In real life, the dots arent numbered.

My zigzag route looked like a broken road for the longest time, until one day all the dots connected. As one friend told me, God writes straight with crooked lines. I love that Rascal Flatts song lyric that says, God blessed the broken road that led me straight to you. God did bless my broken road. I was never lost. God always knew right where I was.