"What is your Quest?"

This blog will chronicle and aid my journey from one career field to another. 

Most of the posts here will focus on my goal to help young people nurture a passion for reading, and on developing their imagination, as a school Media Specialist.

But in this introductory post, I must digress. I want to let you know who I am, and why I am here. 

My name is S.B. Kates, and I am interested in far too many things, but right now, what's shaping this journey, is my interest in having a meaningful job. 

I am currently a front-end web developer at a private corporation, based in New York City. I have had the same position at the same company for 12 years now. 

That's an unusual tenure, for someone my age, in my industry. 

Why haven't I climbed that corporate ladder?

I asked myself that a few years ago, in 2021. I volunteered to run some meetings on the topic of gender identity, and I signed up to help orient new employees with remote get-to-know-you workshops. I also studied more difficult web programming tasks, using video lessons that my company paid for a subscription to.

I tried as hard as I could to learn from these lessons. I watched them after work, I fell asleep. I tried again, this time in the morning, and I accidentally worked on the lessons instead of my actual job. I tried again, at night, and I destroyed what little was left of my social life, and became depressed. 

I just could not get through the subject matter. I beat myself up for not being able to do this simple thing that I knew could eventually make me so much more money.

I asked a friend for advice, and they were frank.

"There's nothing wrong with you. It's basically impossible to motivate yourself in something you're not interested in."

That was the harsh truth. I was just not interested in advanced programming. 

I had a passion for basic programming, because there was an element of creativity to it. It was right next to design, in terms of my daily tasks. But advanced web programming was getting right into the guts of servers and databases and syntax. I really could not care deeply about  it at all.  

But I had enjoyed part of my changing career roles in 2021 - the trainings I did for my fellow employees. I actually connected with people, focusing on sharing my knowledge, and on helping new team members to feel motivated and included. I received enthusiastic feedback from them afterwards. I was good at teaching, and at connecting with people.

I then looked at my managers' reviews of my web development: I was a decent developer. Not good enough to move forward on that alone. Not without completing those lessons first!

I listened to my heart. The motivation of bigger paychecks alone just didn't help me. I'm not fascinated enough by advanced programming in the 2020's. 

I looked at all of the jobs and volunteer positions I have had. My three favorite positions were educator at a natural history museum, art teacher for children at a community arts center, waiter at a fast-paced restaurant, and volunteer backstage in community theater. What did those all have in common with each other, and with the different job tasks that I enjoyed in 2021?

I'm motivated by helping people. I remembered how I considered social work in college. I am also motivated by my love for high quality books, comics, and media - which I why I took the journalism and media classes that I took.

I decided I needed to change careers to something more educational and service-oriented than programming.

I remembered more jobs I had considered in my life, including public librarian, and I thought about the post that my teacher husband had just read about New Jersey public schools being in dire need of Media Specialists. I had actually gotten a degree in Media Studies, that sounded like I could do that. It all clicked together. So now, I am taking classes to change my career. 

Somehow, I will figure out how to apply my call to help people, my love of teaching, my expertise in media and technology, and my sincere belief in the supreme value of imagination and curiosity, to a new project: my quest is to become a school Media Specialist.

Here's to hoping that I have better luck than everyone who was looking for that grail in this movie!