Early in 2022, I visited my alma mater, Tishomingo County High School, to speak to the Career and College Readiness classes and the football team. Why would I do this, you ask? Richard Russo, aka Russo or Coach Russo, created a wonderful program to bring back alumni of Tishomingo County to speak to students, share their career progress, and pass on some hard-earned life lessons. It was called Wednesday #ROW Above the Line Character Education and Real Talk. It was an absolute honor to be invited to participate.
I had lots to share, being a shy girl that moved to the big city. And let me tell you, I did not have a well-planned career trajectory. Nope, not at all. I wanted to share this with students at Tish County. I wanted to share my messy path to the career I have now. If I’d had someone share with me back when I was in high school that life doesn’t always look like the way you think it will, that it’s ok to make mistakes and to figure it out one step at a time; then maybe I wouldn’t have been so hard on myself. Spoiler alert, I wouldn’t change anything about my messy path because it got me to where I am now.
In fact, in 2006 I moved to Houston the day after graduating from Mississippi State University with an undergraduate degree in Finance. I was not recruited by a company in Houston and the real reason I moved so suddenly is I was, at the time, married to someone that had a job offer in Houston. I followed, obviously, however, his success with a career wasn’t the same trajectory I had. Nope, I STRUGGLED mightily to find my way or to even find a job. I stopped counting the job applications after I surpassed 100. No calls, no emails…crickets. I knew no one, had no contacts, nothing. I think a lot of people might find themselves in a similar place. You have a college degree or experience and yet no job offer, no real leads, nada.
So, what did I do? Well, I started with what I could find. I did a couple of temp jobs, one of which was a receptionist in downtown Houston in one of those gigantic skyscrapers. I remember it so vividly and don’t even know how I had the gumption and fortitude to ride a metro bus in to downtown, walk to the right building and then find my way to the appropriate floor. I remember my job was to answer the phone and connect the calls to the right people. The calls that came in were from people that had foreign accents, asking for people that I didn’t know how to pronounce their names. I asked the people on the phone to repeat themselves quite often and prayed as I connected the calls. I began to sweat at the front desk from the pressure of the phone ringing. I survived, though, being that the temp job was only for a couple of days. If I could go back and tell my younger self anything, it would be, “There’s no pressure with a 2-day temp job. Relax! You are doing great!”
Context is everything and hindsight too!
I found another job shortly thereafter, this time working at a staffing agency. I worked closely with a girl named Courtney. We were about the same age, our birthdays were both in April and she actually attended Ole Miss for about a year. Small world and I was so glad to find someone with a Mississippi connection. I made it about 2 weeks in that job. I didn’t get fired, I quit. Why would I do such a thing?! Well, I struggled so so much after I moved. I began having what I now recognize were anxiety attacks. Not being able to breathe, crying uncontrollably, unable to calm myself. It was horrible and I quit my job. I was incredibly embarrassed and my already fragile self-esteem took a major hit. The worst of it all was I felt like I let down my new friend Courtney. I couldn’t find the words to tell her what was going on and I left without an explanation. I still feel terrible about that to this day. I felt like something was wrong with me and like I was a failure which only pushed me further into anxiety.
Context is everything and so is hindsight. Looking back and reflecting has helped me understand that the only way I was going to get through that horrible time was to walk through it, as hard as it was and as much as I felt like I wasn’t going to make it. Putting one foot in front of the other, and yes, sometimes taking two or three steps backward. I needed to give myself some time to adjust to the big life change of uprooting myself from everything I’d ever known. And yet I needed to work and make money. Life doesn’t stop and neither do the bills! They weren’t going to pay themselves.
What did I do next? Stay tuned and I’ll unfold the story, as this is the first part in a career series from a small-town girl in the big city.
Carlynn is a 2000 graduate of Tishomingo County High School.