Learning

Right as the gasoline prices started to rise to outrageous heights about two years ago, I was offered a position at a very prestigious university. Impressed? Not to instruct anything mind you, but to work in one of the offices. It was going to be part time, to get my foot in the door until something full time became available. However, gas was hovering at $4 per gallon, its 30 miles one way and it was every morning. That just didn’t calculate out to be a good move. I don’t really regret that decision but I do sometimes wonder, what if.

I love young people and being on the campus, even in one of the office buildings, gave me a real buzz. The people I talked with were smart, engaging, obviously loved being in their jobs and at their campus. It was a very good feeling. I had several interviews there for a couple of opportunities and each time, the candidate selected was a friend of a friend, or a co-worker from a previous job from someone on the interview committee. I was in three cases, candidate number 2. The maid of honor, the runner up, second fiddle, the also ran, the vice president, the sidekick...you get the picture. Until that last opportunity, when out of the blue, they called and without an interview said “We’d like you to consider this part time position we have opening up. We think you’re perfect for it...” and I had to fiscally and frugally decline.

The funny thing is, in the two years that I have been working from home I’ve probably learned more than I would have at that very prestigious college campus. Oh, I may have missed a football game or tailgate as a result but, I have learned much. For example, although I was pretty “computer savvy” during my working days outside of my home I am now running two cpus, dual monitors, log in to some pretty high tech applications for my work, talk to people a good part of my day troubleshooting their computer, device or networking issues. I can talk intelligently about RAM and DDR, the benefit of a solid state drive and shared cache not to mention quad-cores versus higher processing speeds. Sometimes I sell them a do-hickey or gadget or two.

I know our capacity for learning never stops and there is no end of things to be learned, no matter where you are.