Moving for a job

Moving for a job - Almost relocated

I went on a trip years ago that changed my life and it happened in the most unlikely place…Detroit.

I say unlikely because I didn’t know anything about the city other than what I read about…I didn’t know anybody from there and certainly didn’t think I would go and find out for myself at any point in the future.

I received an email from one of my oldest friends and was invited to attend a festival and spend the weekend. I wasn’t sure what to do because I just ended a series of important chapters in my life and didn’t think I had the luxury of soul searching when I really needed to just focus on rebuilding my career.

The drive to Detroit was exciting because it seemed as if my New York upbringing was all coming back to me….the gritty downtown, the danger in the air…it brought me back to when I was a teenager going to Manhattan.

I drove onto Woodward Avenue and found my friend’s place…we sat around talking for a little while and then decided to go out and walk around.

We talked as we walked to one of the numerous parks downtown and I mentioned that I was at a crossroads in my career and kind of open to any location or any change of pace.

As I walked by the boarded up storefronts and stepped over the broken glass and trash I was wondering what the universe was trying to tell me. The urban blight was a dramatic backdrop to my own story…leaving a job that I loved…a job that disappeared through no fault of my own…it was gone..and I was lost.

My experience told me to be confident, that I had endured hard times before and in life…things change...good times and bad times are both temporary.

My friend listened politely as I quietly began to experience the stirrings of an idea while complaining about my fate.

I talked about loss and disappointment…fairness…how my city was not what it once was. I went on to say that I was too old and too set in my ways to make any serious changes to my life.

It just seemed like I was going to disappear…that along with my job and my lifestyle…that I had nowhere to go…even though it is scientifically impossible for “nothing” to happen…or more specifically..the absence of something happening….I began to calm down.

We walked many blocks that day and the businesses that were thriving caught my attention and it was the same throughout the area we walked.

What I saw was places that sold liquor, cigarettes and chicken.Then the thought occurred to me….people need those things? No…they want those things?

I assessed myself…do I have what employers want?

If not, why not?

What can I do to change that?

It woke me up and I decided then and there that my skills were fine for a job market that had come and gone but they needed to be updated…and much like the city that I was visiting…I could not hang on to the past…I could not for example…wait for the world to start buying my cars again…

I was not in the car business…but Detroit was…and Detroit was hurting and devastated by the downturn in events. I was jolted into the urgent need to avoid my personal urban blight and enrolled into college a month later.
"Moving for a job" written by Ken Bownes