I’m a seventy-five sometimes a one-hundred percent match to jobs that are offered at $168,000 a year here in Dallas as an Information Technology Project Expert. Working my first job at IBM in Irving, I have not worked in the US since I was in Austin being a bellman, busboy, and cashier for 7-11 all at the same time when I was 19. I did have a job after that helping a painter, Mr. Black, paint the mural at the Longitude restaurant at the Dallas Zoo and a small waterpark near Wet n’ Wild. However right after SMU I went right to China, even leaving the graduation acceptance for the airport.
In China, I came back to the States for one year after my MBA in Tianjin to work at the Greater Dallas Chamber of Commerce for a year, to leave the job opportunity they gave me as an intern to return to China. I scrambled for a job and most of the jobs I found in China were through hearsay from one friend, Jordan Root. I had upwards of five jobs in China through his first initial call. I was in publishing, trade, construction, relocations, and education. I eventually got labeled as a schoolteacher even though I had done so much more there. The schoolteacher was my lowest job and that is what people in the United States wanted to label me.
I returned to the States several times looking for opportunity, but no one could point me in the right direction. I though I wouldn’t come back and moved with my wife to Colombia. There, living far from the city as was our intention, to get out of the hustle and bustle to relax in the country; I was not left with much opportunity for work that would support our family other than pushing a wheel barrow to get my start. Much like all the local people who had never taken to the skies. I experienced extreme xenophobia that I was not accustomed to, because in China the Western world was easily acclaimed. I had to relate the earning I was looking to make as blood money, better than what the drug cartels were offering and having no children, was not responsible for the wellbeing of a growing nature. I didn’t fit their small-town objectives of child first policy even at the movie theatre.
I have come back to the US to keep my business as I tried to explain to the market in Colombia about the misquoted numbers of print media. But, here in Dallas, print remains strong even on a very local level like the Highland Park paper. My prices have not changed and to my customers relief they are well within budget. I’m not being accepted into Uber without a shoe in or Accenture or any other company that I have not had some sort of someone telling my story for me. So, I need to keep doing what I’m doing till someone does decide to pick up my story in the office. Even if I could abide by the Literary Writers Digest of prices per written page in the corporate environment, I would be well within my means to sustain a career where I end up if not doing what I’m doing now to try and pick up the pieces.
Most people coming into a new market if at a distance from the landing need to do something on their own to ground themselves. I have found I do get a following creating this magazine. I’m not sure what the corporate environment expects from a worker in terms of the following they need to garner. That is to keep the lines of communication between work and personal life alive. I would say I do well for myself to get enough people to pay attention, something easily marketable enough in the working environment of CEOs. I wouldn’t say I would promote my ad over theirs or the company’s any day but to say that I can have my own self interest still attractive is well worth most people looking into.
I remain a person with directive and faith that I believe I have gone into at length within other stories in this publication. The guidance from my Higher Power, the faith to my wife even at long distance and the belief that I am worth a considerable amount, is something that keeps me following my passions even on slow and dreary days. The sun does shine when I try to do my best, and for that I am grateful.