Thursday, April 14, 2011

Life as I know it..right now...



The last couple weeks I’ve been having these conversations with myself about who, what, where, why I’m doing the things I’m doing with my life at the moment. Thinking about what the future could hold and where I would like to ultimately end up. I truly believe that everything that has happened in my life has happened for a reason and is only preparing me for what I’m supposed to do with my life. I feel so blessed that I clearly know what I want to pursue with my career and have found something that I truly feel at home doing and feel confident in my work. If you know me at all, you would know that I have a love for entertaining, for having people in my home, making things happen for those around me and for planning events, dinners, and ideally hoping to someday plan the dream weddings every girl hopes for. With this in mind I know that where I’m at right now isn’t where I ultimately want to be but I do believe it’s the right place for right now.


About a year and a half ago I made the huge decision to take a break from my studies here at OSU. It was a huge decision I struggled with for months in trying to decide if it was the right one. If this was something I would regret. I came to the conclusion that it was the right decision for that point in my life. Paying for college and life on my own, I couldn’t justify another massive loan when my heart wasn’t in it. I decided to find a full time job and then re-evaluate things in a year and see where I was at. Seems to be how I’ve been doing my life lately. Change happens and at the end of the year I start to re-evaluate where I’m at and where I want to go. I was fortunate enough to have found a job doing what I hope to end up doing with my life, event coordinating. I would be working for Chemeketa Event Services, the downer of this job, it didn’t pay the best and it was in Salem. And despite being offered another job that paid more I took the event coordinating job. And the experience alone was worth it. I learned so much about the catering aspects and well basically every aspect of running an event. I also more importantly learned how I wouldn’t want to have my business run. I loved my job while I was there, but the politics and the way some things were run made me realize the importance of having a strong foundation of a business and networking and making sure your customers were happy to your fullest extent and the little details were what made or broke things. Customer service was what it came down too. Good customer service and going out of your way to make things better. People notice that. People notice when you step up and go out of your way. That’s what I want my business to be now and forever. I want it to be a business where it’s not out of the ordinary for things to be exceptional.


Anyways, now that I went on a tangent. I’ll get back to my point. After about nine months working in Salem and commuting and working my ass off I started to question if it was the right thing to do. My hours became un-guaranteed and with gas prices rising and money not coming in it was time for a change. I originally told myself that in a year if I felt good with where I was at I would think about moving to Salem to keep working there. But I didn’t feel good about where I was at. And at that point in my life it became about finding a job that could get me back on my feet financially.


Through the world of connections I was given the opportunity to work for the College of Pharmacy in Corvallis, where I lived, and where I made more than I did in Salem. It was the right decision for me at the time. I would work as a temp with the possibility of becoming a permanent, aka, benefits of working for the college!! And now that I’m at the 9 month mark of this job I am almost officially permanent. This job has been a blessing. They are supportive of my small business and with a great staff and students here it has been a great place to work. And I do see myself here for at least another year, but although my dreams of wedding and event planning have been on the sidelines the last year it is still my passion. Sometimes the dreams and goals we have can’t just happen with the drop of a hat. You have to work for them. Work for the opportunity. And you have to be willing to work hard for things to happen. And that’s exactly what I’m doing. As I came to the re-evaluation of where things are at in my life this year, I’ve decided that this next year I will stay exactly where I’m at. However, this will be a year of planning, and organizing. I see big changes in the next year or so. I just want to make sure I’m as prepared as I can be when they happen.

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