Probably nothing crazy but I reflect on my life. I started working as a security officer after high school. I thought: I'm going to move up in the ranks and mak

Probably nothing crazy but I reflect on my life. I started working as a security officer after high school. I thought: I'm going to move up in the ranks and make good money. I knew everything and I was ready to take on the world. While my pay wage was something of a joke, although at some sites it was more than others, but 4 years later and a penny raise (boss probably did it as a joke), I realized, I was stuck in a dead end job with no opportunity to grow. I went back to college, having no idea where I would end up. I continued working security jobs in order to help me pay my way through college. I was interested psychology (which I have my degree in) and eventually wanted to do something with career counseling -- helping college students find their place or helping people who decided to have a career change later in life. During my latter years in college, I got out of security and worked for student life, which only paid some minimum wage, but I got to do a series of jobs such as orientation leader, secretarial work, and even campus card (I took photos of everyone), and even worked at a liquor store in downtown Chicago for a year. Anyways, after college, I moved to Israel for a year, where I taught English to elementary and middle school students, and although it was nice, I wasn't very interested in working with kids. This nonprofit organization needed a website so I volunteered to do it for them and loved it. It gave me some insight into web design. I moved back home and I was desperate for a job with no money and student loans to pay off... so I did the only thing I knew to do: I applied across the boards on Craigslist. I figured I had a college degree now, who wouldn't hire me? Only one company responded, a software company that licensed out their autobody shop software, a program created in Visual Basic 6.0. I had experience in it personally, having taught myself when I was like 11 or 12, but not any experience professionally, but they took a chance on me, and I worked there for a year and a half. I was hired to make the UI more friendly and fix bugs. After that, tired of a tyrant boss, I moved on to full-time web designer for a Solar Panel company, working in Flash and did the animations for them that displayed on a kiosk for companies in their lobbies. At the same time, I also got hired as a web designer for the media (Solar Panel company on location from 8 AM - 5 PM, media company remotely from 6 PM - 2 AM). I was also freelancing on the side as a web designer. So for almost 2 years, this was my life. I was eventually laid off from the day job and currently still have a job working for the media, but I am no longer working remotely. They gave me a choice: move across the country or get laid off. So being one of the only employees who chose to move, out of about 20, I negotiated a nice salary rise and they even paid for my move across the country. If you asked me just a decade ago what I would've been doing today, I probably would have never guessed I'd be working as a web designer / web developer.