A Chance Conversation
I eavesdropped on a conversation at work and it changed my entire life.
I worked at a sandwich shop, I had just come back from maternity leave and was feeling the pressure to do more with my life now that I had a little one. I was also coming from a very judgmental family that was very not okay with the young, unmarried, and uneducated mom in their family tree.
I heard my manager talk to a lady at the register about taking a phlebotomy course. The lady said she was doing it to get a feel for health care before committing to nursing school. I didn’t think much else about the conversation at the time.
A month later my grandma basically has me in a corner just insisting I do something different with my life. She’s really pressuring me to make some sort of plan for education and I was a weepy hormonal mess still with PPD and finally just pulled out of my a** “I WANT TO GO TO PHLEBOTOMY SCHOOL.”
She asked why, and I quoted what the lady told my manager at the register. My mom was a nurse, so my grandma thought this would especially fit. She said, “Alright let’s pull up classes on the computer, find a school and I’ll pay for them.”
And…three months later I have an interview at a plasma center. I’m out of school, I have the skills to stick folks, but I’m not sure if I love it, but I’m just kind of going with it. I get the job and quit the sandwich shop.
It’s been 3 years and I’m still there. I love my job and it quite literally fell into my lap. I’m now the supervisor and make double what I made as a shift lead at a sandwich shop. I started applying for nursing schools.