It was my first job after college. I was working as an HR specialist and was frustrated with the very manual processes in the office, so I secured access to the one computer in the office and proceeded to teach myself Lotus 1-2-3. I remember how excited I was the day I successfully put together a file reporting on vacation balances. It sounds dumb, but the satisfaction I felt that day was huge.
Huge, very much like the way I felt today when I figured out a particularly tough query in MS Access. I taught myself that, too, so it’s possible that I have missed some important pieces of information along the way, but it makes no difference: this was a tough one.
I still have a lot of work to do on this one, and it’s not going to be easy. But for a moment, I was 25 again, learning something new and making it work, and it was so nerdily exciting.
© E. Stocking Evans 2014
Mom, Interrupted 