My Mid Life Change of Employment Shocked Everyone I Knew

On the worst day of my life, I surprisingly didn't quit my job, but that day set in motion my plan to do so and it took me over five years to finally walk out of work and start living the life of the novelist I hoped to be. I dreamed of reading my own stories at night, they came and went through my mind and I kept files because one day I would retire.

What I already knew that worst day of my life was that I couldn't have children. I had surgery that took that option away because of all day every day menstrual bleeding and pain at 33 from endometriosis. I had already had one precancerous polyp removed from my colon. I had been on medications that advised me to change my life style-medications for ulcers and other internal stomach problems. I knew I could pay off my home and buy a new car. I had vested retirement money in my savings and 16 years with the Boeing company. What I didn't have was what I wanted-the ability to use my mind to solve problems, create beauty, share emotions, teach lessons, let my imagination go free. I didn't have much to lose.

The Worst Day of My Life

On the worst day of my life, my fiancé at the time, agreed to take me to see my dad in the hospital before I went to work. That morning I was frenzied to get there because I had terrible nightmares and I knew something was terribly wrong. We arrived as my dad came out of surgery. I held his hand as he was wheeled out and all around me the doctors and nurses were giving me odd looks. His eyes rolled up in his head as I said, "Dad, dad, it's me. Mom couldn't come right away but she'll be here later." He told me his hand hurt where I held it so I let go. But not before I told him I loved him and he said he loved me. They took him away. Then the doctor's told me they were surprised he made it because his heart had stopped on the operating table and his heart only had about 10-20% of his heart functionality left.

I had to get to work so left. I went to my Facility customer's site in Renton and checked in with my team mates. Then I went to my office at another building and checked in with my duties then went to a meeting in Bellevue dealing with network security. Then I went to lunch.

The night before my mother had begged me to take my nephew who she had planned to adopt but now with my dad in the hospital she didn't think she could, so I spent my lunch hour trying to locate information about area day care.

After lunch, I went to the meeting where I had been asked to give a presentation on the cross-organizational work I was doing as part of Boeing's billion dollar initiative related to installing engineering and manufacturing software. The team I worked with on this project was part of customer engineering, I was providing design consulting work that evaluated the project being implemented to insure they met standards and to ensure the software installed would function with other systems and databases.

When I got to the meeting, my boss' favorite thug kept interrupting me every time I started to present my work. Finally I said, if you don't want to listen to what I have to say, I'll just sit down. No one objected, until I got back to my office.

My mom called and said, never mind, she wanted to keep my nephew.

Then my boss called me to the office and yelled at me because I hadn't given the presentation and I said, you act like you don't believe I'm qualified to do the work that I am doing. He said he didn't but could provide no reason why. He had made three previous attempts to discredit me that had returned "on target" status by the evaluators. At that point I reported the situation to his boss and the EEO office. My customer backed me up as doing the needed work.

In the next weeks, my boss then arranged a transfer of me to a woman manager who was likely to lose her job and her organization disbanded. I said no. I did agree to work for another manager in the same organization but work with him was difficult and I started having nightmares about my house burning down. My facilities customer yelled at me because my previous boss canceled the work I was doing with him because "I had no interest in it", without saying anything to me. Then one of my girl friends in the office told me that a man in the organization had a gun and the managers were afraid that he was going to use it.

In addition to all of the stress of work, I was engaged to work with a man in my office who worked for the same boss. He was able to move to work under several powerful people, but they couldn't do anything for me.

How I Resisted My Desires for Another Five Years

At that point I had enough. I quit work for Boeing. I had nothing to lose. During after hours, I had completed a poetry certificate at the University of Washington and some of my poems were getting published. I was enrolled in a science fiction writing course where I was getting good feedback about the story ideas and some of my writing. I wanted to write more, but with work, a man in my life, family complications, I didn't have time.

When the issue of adopting my nephews came up again, I set aside my plan to write and I applied and got a job at the Port of Seattle because if it was possible to adopt, I knew I would need the money. But the children were placed in the families that had the children and it wasn't a real option. Work at the Port of Seattle was good but my new husband wanted more and more time off to travel as he neared retirement and then the layoffs came. I voluntarily quit because my new husband said if I didn't spend money, I could quit work and write.

A year later I finally figured out I needed help on how to begin and enrolled in a certificate course at the University of Washington where I wrote my first novel.

About the Past Ten Years Writing My First Two Novels, Five Poetry Chapbooks and a Collection of Short Stories

It hasn't been easy. I spend very little money and what I do spend is mostly on nonprofit donations or to support my writing. My husband is happy with me because I can spend time with him, travel with him, golf with him. Everyone says they are jealous of me because they have jobs that want them, or families that need them, or all these things that they need or have to have. Things I don't have. But they don't do like me and take the leap into the unknown and stop making $60,000 a year because they believe in themselves and the power of their stories. I may be a mad woman. But I believe. Because I have nothing to lose. And because I have the belief that I have a lot of wisdom and beauty and fun to give an audience. Someday.