They say you never stop learning. I sure hope so. I was fortunate enough to find a variety of careers after graduating from school with what appears in hindsight was a toolkit to open many jars. Jars of knowledge and understanding.
In doing so each jar or opportunity was just that - a chance to learn a bit of the industry I was working in and make myself smarter in some small area. I kept learning and extrapolating the skills and ideas of one to another and pretty soon it gave me the confidence to embark on adventures that I had little to no knowledge about.
In that respect I worked in Financial Services, helping customers open trading accounts to buy and sell equities in an underdeveloped market; before which I produced steel from scrap, for variety of manufacturing companies.
Then came my career in consulting which by design was an opportunity to appear smarter than I was and jump headlong into an area with some of the same tools that I had left school with. In that role I traveled a lot to client sites all over the USA. In the beginning there was a software maker in Maryland that needed someone to just write operational reports from data in a large database. Then I helped a barcode reader manufacturer get their supply chain tweaked. I went to a major American publishing house in NY and helped them figure out why their sales tracking process did not work; then a bunch of car companies both American and Japanese reduce their cost of doing business.
One example of the latter was simply to point out losses incurred when their cars sat on a boat in dock waiting to unload and gather rust - literally - sea water with its salt content is very corrosive, even when its just in the air around.
Later I moved to manage technology projects for a variety of Silicon Valley companies and help them drive efficiency in what are described as back office functions. Essentially put an end to end technology platform to do the work and be able to audit pinch points.
That was great fun. You meet a lot of interesting people from all over the world since my clients were usually multinationals. You learn of languages, food and culture through these interactions more than you learn about the job they hired you for.
On one such assignment in the cold of Minnesota in the north of America, I found amazing Sri Lankan food. Go figure. It was a hole in the wall as holes go but what aroma. I still remember a dish called Egg Bowl which is a crepe like consistency but in shape of a bowl filled with curry.
I also discovered some wonderful Vietnamese food and Lebanese cuisine when in the Motor City, Detroit.
Then came a career in a brand new industry - electronic payments. There I got to be part of an arcane world of moving money around the globe in a blink of an eye and also became a steward for all things loyalty. As in customer loyalty. It has been amazing and exciting to be part of all this and who knows what jar I might open in another five years.
In doing so each jar or opportunity was just that - a chance to learn a bit of the industry I was working in and make myself smarter in some small area. I kept learning and extrapolating the skills and ideas of one to another and pretty soon it gave me the confidence to embark on adventures that I had little to no knowledge about.
In that respect I worked in Financial Services, helping customers open trading accounts to buy and sell equities in an underdeveloped market; before which I produced steel from scrap, for variety of manufacturing companies.
Then came my career in consulting which by design was an opportunity to appear smarter than I was and jump headlong into an area with some of the same tools that I had left school with. In that role I traveled a lot to client sites all over the USA. In the beginning there was a software maker in Maryland that needed someone to just write operational reports from data in a large database. Then I helped a barcode reader manufacturer get their supply chain tweaked. I went to a major American publishing house in NY and helped them figure out why their sales tracking process did not work; then a bunch of car companies both American and Japanese reduce their cost of doing business.
One example of the latter was simply to point out losses incurred when their cars sat on a boat in dock waiting to unload and gather rust - literally - sea water with its salt content is very corrosive, even when its just in the air around.
Later I moved to manage technology projects for a variety of Silicon Valley companies and help them drive efficiency in what are described as back office functions. Essentially put an end to end technology platform to do the work and be able to audit pinch points.
That was great fun. You meet a lot of interesting people from all over the world since my clients were usually multinationals. You learn of languages, food and culture through these interactions more than you learn about the job they hired you for.
On one such assignment in the cold of Minnesota in the north of America, I found amazing Sri Lankan food. Go figure. It was a hole in the wall as holes go but what aroma. I still remember a dish called Egg Bowl which is a crepe like consistency but in shape of a bowl filled with curry.
I also discovered some wonderful Vietnamese food and Lebanese cuisine when in the Motor City, Detroit.
Then came a career in a brand new industry - electronic payments. There I got to be part of an arcane world of moving money around the globe in a blink of an eye and also became a steward for all things loyalty. As in customer loyalty. It has been amazing and exciting to be part of all this and who knows what jar I might open in another five years.
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