Who touched my stapler?

I've never really worked in a cubicle all day before.  As a reporter, we had cubicles, but they were basically just a place to crash, and wolf down some fast food while you hurried up and typed in whatever story you were working on as late as five minutes to news time.

My first 'real' job was cleaning a church with my sister.  She and I were convinced that little old ladies were hiding little old pieces of lint under the church pews, just to see if we were vacuuming like we were supposed to.  We were in junior high and high school and probably wrong about that, but we would always worry we might lose our job.  During many summers, we would also 'walk beans' to make extra money.  It essentially involved walking up and down long rows of soybean fields, chopping down weeds.  We 'detassled' corn too.  That was a bit of a step up, as you weren't walking, but riding in a strange-looking machine up and down corn rows, pulling off the female corn tassle, so the male tassle would do its job and pollinate the female rows.  This eventually resulted in 'seed' corn, which is the type of corn you would plant and not eat.  Sometimes the job would gross me out, because I would start to think of it as a big cornfield of sex, and I was a sweaty and sunburned partner in it, covered in pollen myself.

In college, I got a job in the City of Kirksville's code enforcement office.  I have no clue how I got that job.  I had no idea what water mains and meters were about and what sizes they needed to be, but I had no problem recognizing an angry contractor.  A friend of mine who lived in the same dorm got hired in the same department that summer, too, as a weed inspector.  Her job title would get a lot of laughs, but nobody was laughing when the property owners would call in after she wrote them a ticket.  Her job was literally driving around town with a yardstick and measuring weeds.  Weeds that were too tall, landed the owner a ticket, and her a death threat.  I figured I would have been better suited at that job, with my bean-walking experience, but when I'd see how angry people would get about their tickets, was grateful to just deal with the angry contractors.  The code enforcement job helped me to land another job with the City, as a police dispatcher.  The last year or so of college I would work from 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. as a dispatcher, and then go to my classes, and try to go to bed at 4:00 p.m.

After college I worked in TV news for about eight years, and left to work for Pfizer for about ten years.  Pfizer had a big downsizing in 2007, and my job was cut.  I took a year off, we moved back to St. Louis and took a job with another big corporation.  It soon closed the division I was in, and I found a job with another big company, and it soon closed the division I was in.  Tired of Corporate America, I decided I wanted to be a nurse practitioner, and so off to nursing school I went.  Nursing school (and life in general) is expensive, so I recently found a temporary job for a large managed care company.  It's a great (and growing) company.

The office is warming up to me.  Our department is made up of about 50% permanent employees and the rest of us are temporary workers, who may eventually be full-time.  This creates an interesting dynamic that I won't even go into.  My manager (who I like very much) recently told me she thought I could go far in this company.  It's flattering, but dangerous, like a pick-up line at a bar.  Because I know when companies are in trouble, they eat their young.  I've been gobbled up a few times.  But at 45, I'm also wise enough to know to never rule out anything.  I told my manager I'd think about it, and I honestly will.  But I also think about working as a nurse practitioner somewhere in Arizona, taking the best care of people that I possibly can, and volunteering regularly at a free clinic or with one of the local American Indian tribes nearby.  I see myself dripping in turquoise, and not 'business casual' attire.  Out of a cubicle and among people...listening, learning and helping.