From Dental Assistant to Paralegal: Embracing Career Pivots
My incessant need to always find the bright side has pulled this together as a reminder to myself that when life starts to get rocky, I can always pivot and lean into something better.
I use to crown myself as the Queen of Pivoting. I was not afraid to shift gears and reset my focus when I needed to better my life and my situation.
When I was 17, I attended a local community college that allowed me to take what they considered post-secondary courses. This meant my general education classes there could be counted as high school classes, so it was a win win. I was a homeschooled girl and saw going to community college was a nice change of pace for me. In between my part-time grocery clerk job, I would drive to school three days a week and feel for the first time, normal.
Eventually, I graduated from this small town community college with a certificate in dental assisting, later passing the DANB and becoming certified. I remember I chose dental assisting because at the time, it seemed like something I could accomplish and do as a career. Before this, I mentioned to a friend I might pursue law one day but they laughed and said I was "definitely too dumb for that." I had not considered the logistics of this dental job long-term, and was discouraged by family to not pursue journalism or anything in the arts because it's a "waste of time and made no money" so, I thought this was the perfect fit. I also may have chose it because I got to wear pink scrubs in labs, look this is what happens when you make 17 year old's choose a career path OK?
I was the worst dental assistant. No, really, I was. No one said this to me directly but I can vividly recall the look of horror on another dental assistant's face after I short-circuited the autoclave machine. I couldn't help but laugh out of embarrassment and quickly found myself behind the desk calling insurance companies and scheduling patients for the Doctor instead of assisting her chairside. I think she was too scared to fire me but also saw an opportunity to put me to work elsewhere. This change up of job duties, however, helped me pivot.
I learned a couple things while working behind the front desk for a dental office: I liked helping people, I liked working at the computer, I liked organizing data, and I liked not fighting the anxiety of assisting a real live person in the middle of an intense dental procedure. The medical and dental field was not it for me so more power to anyone that does it for a living.
Recognizing what was and wasn't for me was a benefit in my eyes. I've met so many people in my life absolutely miserable with themselves, going to a job they hate, simply because they have to. A lot of people can't afford to pivot, and that's okay. So I hope this catches your eye before you're too far deep into something that makes you miserable.
Not long after my first desk job, I decided to apply for some other type of "desk job" career where I could have benefits, holidays off, and rarely work weekends. Enter: banking. I was ecstatic to begin working as a teller and quickly worked my way up to branch supervisor. I didn't realize it then but now I see that I was an expert at masking. Masking is basically the ability to appear unbothered on the outside by suppressing your true emotions in an effort to conform to society and other pressure. Eventually, I've come to learn, is that masking can break you down mentally.
By 22, I was severely underpaid and being screamed at regularly by small towners that thought I was the reason they over drafted their accounts. I've quite literally had a checkbook thrown at me. I'd then go home to be ridiculed and neglected by my partner at the time who couldn't even be bothered to take the trash to the curb despite only working 15 hours a week.
How anyone continues to survive customer-service facing jobs is amazing to me. Maybe it was the lifetime homeschooler in me, maybe it was my anxiety I later got diagnosed with, but I simply could not function as a pathological people-pleaser in this world. I was burnt out, crying more often than not in the bathroom on breaks, and losing sleep over other people's problems. I ignored so many red flags in my own personal life and lost out on some great opportunities.
Eventually, though, I decided to pivot, once again.
Thanks to a friend I made who happened to be a couple decades ahead of me, I learned a lot from her. One of the biggest things was that life is short, as cliche as that is to say, and to not waste another minute in a toxic work environment that dims your light.
After some soul searching and a few days mindlessly watching the show Friends, I found a career path I was interested in. At this point in my life, I was free of a financially and emotionally abusive relationship, and felt more free than I ever had before. I enrolled myself back into that same community college I had graduated from before and went on to earn my degree in Paralegal Studies.
It was the best of both worlds for me: writing, researching, decent hours, and the potential to complete meaningful work. I've been a paralegal now for 7 years and like any job or career, there have been ups and downs. I am 5 months out from graduating with a BA in Creative Writing because a couple years ago I thought screw what anyone else has to say, I enjoy writing and would like to improve, why not learn some more.
So PIVOT. Go after whatever it is that scratches your brain and excites your soul.
When I look back I see it all along, that I've always loved to write. Whether it was my diary, the stories I would make up and share with my grandmother, or the papers in school, writing was and has always been an outlet for me.
Now, I write court reports advocating for children in foster care, legal motions for attorneys, and occasionally, I write on this little blog that my grandma reads and tells me about later (hey grandma).
Pivoting from one big choice to another can be scary and sometimes it doesn't go as planned. Actually, nothing goes as planned. Which is part of the beauty in pivoting with life's curve balls. My incessant need to always find the bright side has pulled this together as a reminder to myself that when life starts to get rocky, I can always pivot and lean into something better.
-Liz