February Question of the Month - Join the conversation and receive a badge

tturner33

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a wildlife biologist. Study animals in their natural environments. However, my high school guidance counselor had different ideas and pointed me towards a radio/television career. I quit college after a year; got married and had kids. Dabbled in computers on the side while I worked in the grocery store industry for 10+ years. At age 30, I went back to school and got my Bachelors in Information Science; started my career in IT and 30 years later I'm still in the IT game.

Still wonder what would have happened if I pursued the wildlife biology path...

Alison Clancy

I wanted to be Janet Jackson's backup dancer, and still do! 🔑

cvarela

As a kid, I wanted to teach. I spent hours helping teachers instead of playing on the playground.

Today I run the governance and IT infrastructure projects for our Supply Chain PMO.

Trish Dillon

When I was a kid, I dreamed of becoming a money market manager on Wall Street. However, now I invest in my free time and work as a senior project manager at a law firm.

brianschmidt

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/416949#Comment_416949

This quilt is incredibly detailed! I am blown away😍

brianschmidt

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a lot of things...fantasy magical warrior, guidance counselor, musician, poet, teacher, and so so much more!

Right now, I develop and maintain project management systems for a Solar Construction company. I get to exercise some of the creative and strategic elements I yearned for at a young age, and hope to keep expressing myself through my music and poetry as I get more settled into the new town I've moved to!

Selfish plug for a spoken word piece I wrote and published a few years back when I was still doing shows...https://open.spotify.com/track/1T9NAERSz8keEqIxwbnUBL?si=23ff23ea741948fc

Galexa0711

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a fighter jet pilot, going Mach 1. That didn't work out so well, since at the time I was old enough to join the military, none of them allowed female fighter jet pilots. I went through a few fields before settling in as an analyst but I love it.

edapel

When I was younger, we had a family friend who owned a funeral home. After hanging out there for a while I wanted to become a medical examiner or a coroner. Once I got into high school, I became friends with someone whose father worked for IBM. Well, then I went into IT, and I've been here ever since.

BarbaraHanville

When I was a kid I wanted to be an artist and a singer. When I was ready to go to college, my Dad encouraged me to get a degree that would allow me to support myself (there are a lot of starving artists and singers). He said I could take all the art classes I wanted to (which I did). I ended up getting a degree in Information Systems after working with computers at a summer job, and finding that I enjoyed the problem solving and enjoyed learning to code. My first job was working for EDS as a Systems Engineer, designing and implementing software. Many years later I've moved into Operations, creating processes for growing companies (still problem solving!)

Maxwell Griffith

I genuinely wanted to be a professional soccer player. Somewhere internationally too (Italy or Spain?).

I am now a Digital Marketer at Smartsheet!

K Miller

Growing up, I thought I wanted to be a veterinarian. I love animals and figured my passion to help others would make me a wonderful vet. That became a distant dream when we had to prick our finger in 9th grade to determine our blood type. I couldn't prick my own finger and when someone else did it for me, I passed out and hit my head on the table on my way down to the floor. Embarrassing to say the least, but made me realize becoming a veterinarian was most likely not in the cards for me.

My career has taken me from finance to IT and now to Operations. I am an accomplished Project Manager and certified Scrum Master working for an amazing company. As a Project Manger, I get to help people take an idea and make it become reality. I am also the Product Owner of Smartsheet at my company, helping others learn all of the wonderful things Smartsheet can do. :-)

Ashley Ferguson

I wanted to be a nurse, but soon found out that some bodily things grossed me out. Then I moved on to fashion designer. Eventually, I fell into studying marketing and management, fell in love with technology. Now, I'm the IS Project Manager for the largest health system in Southeast Georgia.

RebSchr

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a lawyer. I even spent time at the court house sitting in on cases and even got a job working in the circuit clerk's office. It was a real eye opener on how the criminal justice system really worked as well as how politics worked.

I decided to go back to school for something that I really enjoyed. I went to school for Electronics Engineering. Once I graduated school, it was a struggle because I was a female and was told I wouldn't be able to perform the same job as others.

Long story short, I ended up in the IT field, then Food Operations which led to Project Management and lastly, Healthcare IT.

Jerry Melichar

I enjoyed performing arts and music and being creative when I was young.

I hated math! Platforms like Smartsheet allow me to feel very creative as I solve complicated math and organizational problems.

Lindsay Scarey

When I was a child I wanted to be an artist. I didn't really have a more specific idea than that - I just liked the idea of being creative all day and getting to do that for my job. In my career I went from copy editing to administrative work, to being an Executive Assistant, and now I am a Program Manager at a non-profit. It's not what I envisioned growing up, but there is room for me to engage creatively with my work, and I get to make art that people enjoy outside of work - so I actually did become an artist it just doesn't pay the bills.