One of These Days

Hindsight

Describe a missed opportunity you encountered, and how things might have been different if you hadn't missed it.



I'll go with the thing that immediately flashed into my mind when I read this prompt and it's an oldie, circa 2007.

I graduated college with a BFA in graphic design (a focus on web design). I had debated on whether or not I wanted to get a masters degree and I decided against it because I was completely and utterly burned out.

Fast forward to the year of our lord 2020 and I'm working at Costco and not using my degree, at all. I tried a few times and neither time did it work out. Granted, I lived in a very rural part of NY and when I graduated in 2007, we had hit a big recession and suddenly you needed all of the years of experience. Plus, I had learned just design. I hadn't learned code (another opportunity I didn't realized I'd missed until a few years later). When I tried looking for jobs I needed to know both. A lot of companies were downsizing and they wanted people to do more. Plus, looking at it from now, it makes a lot of sense for that in general. Especially with the way the Internet is now.

I kind of regret it now. The Internet was really new and to be fair, was a lot easier then. Now, it's so much different and a lot more complex. I'd have to start pretty much all over if I wanted to do it now. I still do, but it's incredibly hard right now for me to fit it in. I still want to keep it on the back burner, but I will always think of that decision I could've made in 2007. I mean, it would've also been a lot more money I would've had to take out. More money to owe that I don't know if I will ever actually pay off, but it might've given me an actual avenue to having a job in something I wanted to do.

Also I would like to add that Costco isn't an awful place to work. I get paid pretty decent with a really good insurance plan. It's just...well, it's still just retail, doing something anyone could do.

But I like to think (and it's entirely possible that I could've done my masters degree and gotten nowhere also) that I'd be at least decently successful in a web design job. Though I won't lie thinking these last couple of months that I'm lucky I do work for Costco and that I have my job right now. I mean, I could technically be in quarantine, working from home, but I could also have lost my job because of what's going on right now too.

So who knows?

All I know is it's always something that festers in the back of my mind and comes bubbling to the front whenever I'm feeling down.