For one of my locum assignments, I found myself calling the same travel agency every month for over a year. I heard the same few voices and noticed when they added on a new one – Nick, the charming British voice I could never understand. They became familiar with my plans, my idiosyncratic interest in specific car rental brand loyalties, and accustomed to making sure I always got the same hotel. So, overtime, the phone calls were quick other than waiting for them to peruse the market for which flight would fit my needs. And then once, I got curious, and asked, very genuinely, “So Alicia, wait, how did you end up doing this? I’ve never asked.” “Well…”
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Do you ever really stop to wonder about how people get into certain lines of work? Sure, there are things that are common professions and tracts that people are shunted to via exposure from parents, friends, family or through learning about them in school; but, there are so so so many more jobs than that. Often, you do what you know. Some of my best friends back home have continued on to do family businesses: air conditioning companies, welding, finance, sales. Familiarity breeds repetition, and obviously for good reason. Especially when your idols stick to a certain job that they love, we as growing thriving human learn those things and our exposure drives us farther to see ourselves sometimes “keeping it in the family” even if only proverbially. My dad was a cardiologist, my mom’s a pharmacist, so my brother ended up a dentist, my sister ended up a nurse, and I ended up well, obviously, doing medicine. Coincidence?
But, the fascinating part of life are the esoteric jobs that are often less likely to be found, less likely to be thought of out of the gate, and always for me interesting to understand on how someone got to the point of doing whatever it is that they’re doing. Investing in understanding this other knowledge broadens horizons and leads to so many chances to grow in extracurricular and professional manners. Frequenting the dating pool over the years, there were many dates that did NOT work out – with the institution of online dating, so many times chemistry wasn’t clear until after i’d met someone, but by that point, I was already stuck meeting them. So, to make it a little less gruesome when the chemistry was clearly lacking, I would treat each interaction as a learning opportunity. I learned from a petroleum engineer, I learned from someone in marketing for a niche leather wallet, and so many more that I choose not to remember individually but whose knowledge has been assimilated into my subconscious. Then, with time, i have realized, that I am accumulating slowly world knowledge that not only makes me a better human but enriches my work as a doctor. It’s a pretty cool thing getting to take care of the child of a prominent brewery owner and hearing how they came across what they do and work on new things, after all.
I once met a new secretary, we refer to as a HUC, at my job in Wisconsin. She told me that she used to be a teacher for kids at high risk of not graduating high school. But, due to unfortunate circumstances surrounding the inherent risk of her job, she chose to leave. She had always recreationally bred dogs and birds, so specifically applied for the job opening in labor and delivery – puppies, birdies and bebes are all babies. I guess the point being, if I had never asked her how she ended up doing what she was doing, I would have never learned about all the things she had done before. We talked for a while about it and i broadened my world experience by just a little bit.
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Alicia told me that years ago she had needed a job in her teen years that ended her up working in the mail room of some large company. It was simple and she liked doing it, but somehow became more exposed to the people she would help organize and send mail for. One of those roles was travel agencies. It was a curious thing, she got interested and, i forget the details, she ended up eventually asking about how they got their job. She applied to a company that paid to fly her out to train at travel agency school in the days before Google. It was a brilliant deal to get paid to learn and open up a new skill. She went on from then to do help coordinate travel for the government and this led to another opportunity followed by another followed by another. Ultimately, she found herself on the phone with me helping to navigate the world of being a travel doctor; her daughter or daughter’s friend learning about being a travel nurse from her experience helping to send them on their way. I had no idea the world of travel was ever as large as she described to me; but, it opened my eyes.
There is always a job out there that we haven’t thought of and always a fascinating story behind how someone found their way to it. So, the next time you order a pizza and the cardboard doesn’t touch the box because of the awkward little pizza table, just think, someone is out there making or designing that; and, i bet if you asked them how they got there, you’d learn something.
The Nomadic Pediatrician 