So there it is. For as long as I can remember, I have been doing technical writing of some sort. Even when I worked at Albertson’s as a teenager, I felt the need to compile a book full of helpful hints about how to correctly close out the lottery machine at the end of the day. (One of my co-workers who often worked the evening shift, while I worked the morning, could not do the number crunching correctly, and I had to fix it almost every morning). This helped. One of my supervisors took it to some hifalutin corporate meeting and they actually implemented some of my writing as store policy. Pretty neat.

Even before that I wrote with an audience in mind. I remember being in grade school and getting some accolades from the teacher for an essay I wrote about my grandpa. So I kept making my writing more and more grandiose until the teacher finally said enough! too many adjectives and gave me a B (oh the horror!).

In college, I actually had a professor teach me how to write better. She was the first person that basically said, “you’re not doing well enough, I know you can do better.” Up until that point, I won every essay competition, was the best writer in my school according to one of those standardized tests, blah, blah, blah.

Once I finished school, I took a job at one of the computer giants doing technical writing. This seemed like everything I should want. Good company. Good pay. Close to my family (they thought this was a good thing, and I did at the time). In a nutshell, it is what everyone thought I should be doing.

But once I started the job, I met with conflict; I really had a hard time with my boss; she simply didn’t like me. Nothing paranoid here, those are just the facts. And, it was so boring. I need to have five thousand things piled up on my desk, working under some ridiculous deadline to feel like I am working hard. Maybe (probably) that is something I should change, but that’s what I need to feel like I am doing a good job.

So I got laid off from that job, joined the Red Cross, took a job as a trainer in New Orleans, couldn’t hack it, curled up in a ball and returned to Idaho, to what? take a job as a technical writer. Am I maybe the dumbest person on the planet? What happened to the learning from mistakes path I was on?

Bottom line, Idaho is comfortable. Technical writing is comfortable; good money, it is easy, but it is so damn boring! Working for myself freelance technical writing is not as bad because I can get it all done in bursts rather than being a slave to someone else’s schedule, but it is still boring. So what do I do?

Well, it kind of seems ungrateful to not write. I mean, I can do it, so shouldn’t I be using it? But I need to figure out how to do it differently. Maybe I should only write for purposes that make me feel good, like stopping procrastinating and finishing the New Orleans stuff and sending it off to McSweeneys. Finish it and move on.

So what then? I need to see results from whatever I am working on. I want a finished product, and I want someone to tell me I have done a good job; silly, I shouldn’t need that, but I do. I feel like I need to create something to be satisfied with work.

I have been thinking about moving to Austin (’cause it’s neat, and warm), and becoming a welder (craft, art) or upholsterer. (While waiting for news from the Peace Corps.) Crafts are a dying way of life. It is so rare to hear someone speak about being a carpenter (not houses) or anything like that (I couldn’t even think of another example). Now, everyone does something with computers. Computers make all of the things that we used to make; furniture, books, signs, shoes, almost everything. Computers definitely aren’t a bad thing; I love them and they make my world better. But what have we lost with the shift from man made everything to computer made everything? Pride in our work? Pride in general?

I think I would be happy running an upholstery shop. It is definitely a skill that I want to learn. But I want to make a living at it; a good living at it. I make good money in my industry, and I should make even more if I stay in the field. But that’s not enough. But, I’m also not willing to live a life that is not financially comfortable (not rich by any means). So how do I do it? How do I combine the two; a vocation and a good living? Combining the handcrafted (or machine crafted, through the guidance of a person) with computers? Simply using the computer to plan and market? Hmmm…

I definitely need a change. I need to be doing something with tangible results. Something that leaves something behind that I can touch, look at. Something that I can be proud of.

I’ve got to solve this riddle. And quick. How long did it take you to figure out what to do with your life? And how did you deal with the uncertainty it brought?