Life Choices

Perspective is an interesting thing.

For the last year and a half of my life I have been focused on a singular objective; becoming an Air Traffic Controller. I grew up in an Airport. At five or six years old, my mother used to drop me off a the greatest daycare in the world, the Control Tower at the Niagara-on-the-Lake Municipal Airport. My father was an Air Traffic Controller, so him and whatever staff was working at the time would take on the very easy task of babysitting me. I didn't need much entertainment, or even supervision. We were a hundred feet or so up in the air, so not many places for me to go and between using the white boards to do string bean math (which I'm pretty sure my mom invented), watching the planes land, playing golf on the computers, and otherwise finding ways to entertain myself. I thought this might be the coolest place in the world, I felt at home at the Airport.

Fast forward a few decades, and I'm a 26 year old business major who's work in everything from logistics, sports marketing, call center management, to now system administration. About a year and a half ago, I wrote the tests, passed the interview and was made eligible to become an Air Traffic Controller. All I was waiting for was the call for a training course in Toronto and I was set.

The wait was terrible. In the meantime, I took a new job up in Ottawa, ON with a company that supports a wide range of clients running Mac and mixed networks. Which leads us to present day. On Monday, almost a year and a half after I applied, 4 months into my move to Ottawa, and a few weeks into the realization that I may never get the call for an Air Traffic Control course; I got the call. They had an opening for a course at the Toronto Tower (Pearson International) starting January 8th. 3 weeks notice for a course that they generally give you 3 months for to prepare. I had to make a decision in 24 hours. It should have been easy. It wasn't.

An interesting thing happened to me over the last 4 months. I think I realized that I'm built for something different. Not necessarily better, just different. In my career, I've come to realize I'm good at three things. One, understanding technology and how to leverage it, coming up with great ideas, and convincing people to that I'm worth following. To me that equates to three things; technician, marketer, and manager. The simple fact, is that in the world of Air Traffic Control those skills and traits are rarely used. The big paycheck, the job security and the great conversation starter may have blurred my perspective on what I really wanted to do in life, and ultimately the career path I chose.

I made the decision to decline the offer and give this thing in Ottawa a shot. I love my job here, and see amazing potential down the road. I'm learning from the best Macintosh techs in the business, I love the city of Ottawa, and I've got lots of potential to explore my management, marketing, and creative roots down the road. It was a incredibly tough decision, but something was pulling me to give this a shot.

They say that the worse decision is no decision. I feel that having to make this difficult choice is what I needed to focus on my current career and give me all the incentive I need to hit the ball out of the ballpark. With nothing holding me back, 2009 could turn out to be an incredible year.