Thirty Years

Yesterday was my thirtieth birthday. As I leave my thirtieth year of life and enter my thirty-first I reflect on the passed year.  Year thirty feels as if I've been a plane that's waited at the gate, taxied up the runway, and taken off for a new destination.  Here's the highlights:

• Working at inthinc : I continued my job at inthinc technology solutions for the first part of the year.  This time taught me once again the importance of good management.  Our last manager was very skilled at keeping the support team of which I was a part happy and feeling valued within the company.  During the first part of the year we had no manager and a number of internal conflicts arose within the team as well as numerous difficulties arising from a lack of effective interfacing with the rest of the company.  Our new manager, when hired, eventually turned out to make promises like a politician, fail to inform us about and connect us effectively with the rest of the company, and make the talent feel undervalued. I was the third person to leave the team as the burden on our team increased and feelings of valuation decreased.  After leaving the company I continued to hear of hardships and found the company was losing money and talent at an alarming rate, though it seems to have stabilized at this point. I have a number of good friends from my time there, but am happy to have gone.
• Returning to University : Leaving inthinc prompted an overall career change.  I had noticed that the career trajectory in technical support would take significant time to advance and might not lead to a place I really wanted to be.  Looking at what field might be related to my previous scholastic experience in physics I found that radiology is something that would probably take about as much time to train in as it would to advance in my current work, had similar job demands at higher pay, and ultimately would be more fulfilling and interesting.  I enrolled at Weber State University and started attending classes. I was reminded how much I appreciated the university atmosphere and learning new material.
• Entering Medicine : Preparing to enter the field of radiography I've been learning about the medical field generally as well.  I trained as a phlebotomist and am making arrangements to test for my limited x-ray machine operator's license.  I have been fascinated by the challenges and nature of the medical field. There's an intriguing intimacy to healthcare that makes me feel a great deal of responsibility toward patients. I never thought that biochemistry would hold any interest for me but after studying it (in part at least) for a semester I've completely turned the corner and am engaged by protein structures and metabolic pathways.  There's clearly a lot to learn and do in this field and I'm eager to continue exploring it in year thirty one of life and beyond.