by Rene Kelly

Created on: May 06, 2008

How did I choose my career path? Well, I think that I didn't actually choose it; I just followed the path where it led. I took the first step on that path as a senior in high school because I didn't like study hall.

As a girl, I didn't have a lot of role models for different careers. My mom and most of the other women I knew were housewives. The few working women I knew were nurses and teachers if they were educated; those who were not so fortunate were grocery clerks or factory workers. I thought I wanted to teach. What I wanted to teach was Spanish.

I went to a small country high school with a rather limited number of elective courses. When I got to my senior year, I had a vacant period with few choices to fill it. I could take Home Economics (no, thank you; I learned cooking & sewing from Mom), shop (a girl in shop; that wouldn't do; it's 1970 after all), or something like geometry or physics that held no interest for someone who wanted to teach foreign languages. The only other options were study hall or something called "bookkeeping".

I didn't know what this bookkeeping thing was, but I knew all about study hall. My experience was that very little studying went on there. Like any other kid, I didn't want to be at school; but if I had to be there, I wasn't going to waste my time in a period where I wasn't going to get anything done. I decided that there was one way to find out what bookkeeping was.

Signing up for that class led me to where I am today. Not only was I good at it, but I enjoyed it. I even got an award for the highest grade average in the class that year and the teacher was giving me brochures about careers in accounting. (Thanks, Mr. Trowbridge, if you're still out there.)

Yeah, I still had to find out the hard way that teaching wasn't for me. Sometimes we all stray from the path no matter how clearly marked it is.

I was fortunate enough to go to college when financial aid was abundant. So I got to go to a small private school and live on campus something that I wouldn't have been able to do any other time. I did all the education classes & all the foreign language classes like I was supposed to do. I didn't acknowledge until student teaching (my last quarter of my senior year) just how much I disliked teaching in a classroom.

I messed around for a couple of years then went back to school. I majored in accounting and took all the business core classes. It seems to mean a lot more if you're paying for it yourself and if you take a couple of night classes a week after work. And I got an accounting job that I loved.

Our parent company moved the corporate office to another state. Since I was out of work anyhow, I moved to Florida where the rest of my family lived. Eventually I ended up at the company where I work now. Except for a break of about three years, I've been here since 1989. I manage the department that deals with the banking. And I'm happy as a clam. (Did you ever wonder just how happy a clam is?)

The other day our controller read some of my writing and liked it so much that she asked me to do an article for our quarterly newsletter. Could this be the first step on a new path? Or maybe it's another step on the path that I've been following all along

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