Career Journey - Part 1

My career has never felt like a ladder.

It’s felt like an old‑fashioned road trip in a VW bug — the kind with nare a roof, questionable brakes, and a snarky personality of its own.

Picture this: I’m barreling down an old Texas highway, the asphalt cracked like a dry riverbed and the horizon shimmering with heat mirages that look suspiciously like career opportunities that ghosted me.

The wind?

Not a gentle breeze — I mean panhandle wind, the kind that slaps you sideways and launches 3‑foot tumbleweeds that hit the buggy like boss‑level enemies.

Every now and then, a dust storm rolls in so thick it polishes the buggy’s fenders to a mirror shine while I’m still driving.

Free detailing.

Courtesy of Mother Nature and her gravel‑powered exfoliation cannon.

My hair gets longer every year because I keep forgetting to stop for a haircut.

My sunglasses are always slightly crooked — or maybe that was just my old nose.

And hitched behind this tiny VW buggy is an unmarked full‑sized semi‑trailer of experience — the kind that drifts across lanes like it’s seen things it shan’t ever speak of again.

The highway signs?

Sun‑bleached, graffiti’d, bullet‑peppered, and pointing in directions that defied both logic and physics.

Navigating my career was less “follow the map” and more “trust your gut and hope the buggy doesn’t veer into Narnia.”

The weather swung from sunshine to sideways hail to “is that a tornado or just my career pivoting again.”

The passengers?

Occasionally helpful friends, coaches, and counselors.

Mostly confused — coworkers, employers, understudies, and a few folks who hopped in thinking it was an Uber.

And then there were the mythical beasts I had to tame before they ate the upholstery — plus one dragon who once threatened to scorch several entire businesses on my behalf.

I rebuilt the engine while driving.

I patched the tires with old rubber cement and optimism.

I took detours that weren’t on any map —

Map? What map?

Half the time I was just following the path of least tumbleweed… or at least the path furthest from the cattle‑processing railyard.

I picked up side quests like a three‑legged coyote chasing a jackalope — zig‑zagging across the highway, kicking up dust, yelping with enthusiasm, and somehow still managing to grab every single one of them in my teeth.

And somewhere along the way, I accidentally became:

• a full‑stack developer

• a systems architect

• a product owner

• a workflow designer

• a business strategist

• a one‑person Scrum team

and the unofficial mechanic of my own career vehicle

All without anyone ever handing me a map, a manual, or even a “Hey, maybe you should learn Scrum principles.”

Honestly, I think the people around me either had no idea what road I was on, or they knew exactly what I was capable of and didn’t want me realizing I could trade the bug for a rocket ship.

And just when I thought the road couldn’t get any stranger…

it happened.