OyChicago articles

Linda, celebrating 25 years as a working girl

This month is the 25th anniversary of the day I started my first real job. That first day of work was blistering cold, like today. I was wearing a suit with a skirt—no pants for women allowed, then—and I remember making my way across the bridge over the steaming Chicago River, trying to suck it up and act like a tough commuter.

I spent a lot of that first winter trying to suck it up and act tough.

The job market that year was as horrendous as it is now, so here I was, with two degrees, earning jack shit. My last year of college cost more than my first annual salary. My student loans and rent ate up most of my take-home pay, and I was broke. I can still see myself shopping for groceries with my mother, finally explaining to her that I wasn’t buying the economy-size jug of laundry detergent because I just didn’t have enough cash. I had two fancy degrees, and was too poor to buy an extra-large bottle of Tide.

It wouldn’t have been so bad, if someone had just taken me aside and said: “Okay; here’s the deal. The first year or two out of school completely suck, but then it will be okay. It’s not because this is The Real World. It’s because you’re 24.”

Looking back, it all makes sense. I had a fabulous education, but worked an entry-level job. I had developed an appreciation for the finer things in life, but had no money to pursue them. I had made intense friendships in college, but those friends were scattered across the globe. Plus, I had a bad body wave and no boyfriend.

And then, shit just happened to me. I overslept on a work day. My storage locker was broken into, my car was burglarized, and my wallet was snatched out of my purse. It never happened again, but I swear, all this shit happened when I was 24. It was like falling into a cosmic black hole. It took a year or two, but it was an incredible relief to find that this was not my permanent reality.

However, what was permanent was the realization that exchanging academic quarters for fiscal quarters had not been a good trade. Let’s be real: It is a lot more satisfying to end a term with a few days off and a couple of beers than to mark it with a news release about your company’s earnings. Plus, I’d learned to schedule my classes to avoid, you know, morning, so it pissed me off to have office hours at all, let alone office hours that began before the crack of noon. Again, this was not a good trade. Admittedly, when I wrote something, now people paid me instead of giving me a report card—a much better deal—but no one ever suggested that I take time off for an Independent Study or a trip overseas to explore one of my brilliant ideas.

I think I was afraid of having an examined life during this winter of my discontent, so I sleep-walked through my life during that first year or two after college. I found an apartment I loved, managed my own finances, and learned how to deal with patronizing male co-workers (who did a whole lot of things that would be utterly illegal today) without noticing that I had landed well on my feet. I received three promotions in three years without realizing I was a success. I discovered what I truly wanted—and didn’t want—in a life partner without considering how long that took most people. I got involved in causes I believed in without understanding that I had found my life’s work. And I had a body that I would die to have today, but was ashamed of at the time.

So now I wish I could go back and enjoy those accomplishments as they happened—and enjoy the kick ass bod I didn’t appreciate back then.  Basically, I want a do-over. Which is probably the same thing I’ll say about how I’m living today in another 25 years.