The Beast

It seems like ever since my sophomore year at college, I have tried to do different things to try and find the right career path for me. I was an average student in high school and I grew up wanting to be in sports media. I tried journalism and broadcasting out a bit more in college after liking it in high school and found out it wasn’t for me. The life of a reporter, the uncertain job prospects and salary and writing or doing radio or TV for a living just didn’t seem like a fit. I also thought about becoming an English teacher because I loved writing and reading autobiography books, but I didn’t care much for literature, so I felt education wasn’t the fit for me either. Some days I have I thought teaching business or PE or being a guidance counselor might have been a fit and that maybe I was in the wrong content area. But my wife is a teacher and after hearing from her, it doesn’t seem like I would fit well with kids. I also observed guidance counseling and think it takes a certain kind of person to work in that role and I don’t think I am that person. I switched majors, went to a different school and finished my degree in business administration/management. I reached out to the White Sox about jobs in sports and spoke to Boyer about opportunities and interned with the St. Louis Rams, but nothing ended up coming from those opportunities. I tried my hand at PR, worked at a start up and interned at a PR agency and didn’t like pitching to reporters. I needed a job with a salary to support myself as the other jobs didn’t pay anything. So I did FMLA administration for a few years, but it was call center work and I hated the pay that I got even after being promoted and felt I would be a better fit elsewhere since I didn’t like the company or work. So I have been working at an insurance carrier, where I work with underwriters and sales representatives to get proposals out to brokers. The pay got better and the work had been okay, but I felt that I could do more, but I didn’t know what to do. So I heard about Data Science being a good field and the my company’s tuition reimbursement program and thought I would try that, since the program was online, I could also take electives in MBA or Health Care Administration courses and I wouldn’t hurt financially as long as I passed. Fast forward to today, where I have three more courses until I graduate with the master’s degree, but I need to take one that is an elective this fall and two more next year so my employer can pay for the two remaining courses. The problem I have is that after doing some of the work with actuaries and analysts at my company, there appears to be a learning curve with learning from them remotely, since our main offices aren’t in Chicago and I am no where near where they are at with their analytical abilities. (We have a small office in Chicago but nobody is really on the same team and we all work from home a few days each week.) I am not a math person, but I work hard to try and learn things. I am not big on being in a small office and learning a new role remotely. I have to stay until the end of July so that I don’t owe my company anything, but I also don’t know if I want an analyst position, to try to work in health care on the business side (something in either purchasing or with data, for instance) and use my data science training to solve business problems at a hospital or insurer and if I should get a job at a Chicago based organization so I can be around people more often, learn from others in an office, earn more so I can support a family (my wife and I bought a house last year), see if the next company will pay for the two remaining courses and hopefully have more job satisfaction. There are times where I wish I figured things out earlier in life and that I wish I could be on my feet for a living or help people doing something like nursing, counseling or physical therapy, but I don’t know how I would make a living to support our responsibilities if I retrained (my wife will also be doing a graduate program to boost her earnings and she wants kids soon) and if I would even be good at those things (I was a C+/B- student at best in those courses in high school). These are also jobs people that I know have and have enjoyed success in terms of job satisfaction and financially, but these are just recent thoughts in the past year or so and weren’t things I really considered until then. Long story short, I guess I am wondering if I should make the job change soon and if I am going about things in a good way by reaching out to people in different industries in health care, am working on data science projects and am trying to learn coding on my own, even if I will never be a data scientist and would use the skills I have in a different role. I would love to have job satisfaction, make more money and keep my options open in case I decide to do a career change in the future. I have also done several informational interviews with the industries I am interested in and will continue to do so. I’m also open to suggestions if anyone has any.

Jack, what about checking out some technical writing jobs or even seeing if you can get a certification at a community college that would lead to employment? Also, I may have a post for all of you because I too have a career dilemma and can’t seem to figure it out.

Will Collins be next or will he get actual catching and not just DHing time?

Nice work ladies! I’ll be curious to see if they are invited to the White House and if they actually go. If they don’t, it’ll be a huge statement for a national team not to go. And yes, I went there.

Can the Sox Twitter account not mention Scott Carroll and Dylan Cease in the same sentence? It’s like a bad omen. What was everyone’s impressions of his first start? I missed it but it looked like he got in trouble with walks and then settled in with the exception of a long ball.

We had tickets to the first game of a double header and could have stayed for the second one. We only paid for parking once and left our cars there while we went to the Bridgeport bars. I think you will just need tickets for one game and then have one parking pass.

Dumb idea to run there.

Cordell got a rough break on that and Lester has been stealing strikes, but why is Cordell playing after going 0-4 last night and generally trending downward?

Contreras can suck on my left nut.

He’s doing the Strop and Baez gamesmanship. Strike those fuckers out and light up Strop again.

More dumb assholes calling into Holmes’ show. It’s unbelievable.

Why is Moncada even out there if he’s not able to play?

Does anyone know what’s up with Farmer? I mostly hear Andy Masur on the broadcasts now.

The secondary market argument was stupid. People will still buy his seats. If he is worried about something that will become mainstream that obstructs his view, okay, but if other parks are going to do it too, he is kind of dumb to get rid of season tickets. If the idiot gets rid of his season tickets, then so be it. I bet he keeps them and gets over it. And who the hell his age needs autographs?

Some idiot called into the Score and complained about his season tickets being impacted, saying he won’t renew them because it will hurt him on the secondary market and he can’t get autographs. Get over it.

Jack, I saw this article today and thought of you. https://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/ct-life-autism-hiring-program-05292019-story.html Hopefully you have had some good offers come your way, but I thought it was worth reading.

He wasn’t signed, they traded for him.

I turned on WGN Radio the other day and didn’t recognize the broadcaster who was doing play by play.

Can someone explain why DJ is in the booth? Who is doing the game with Farmer?

I hope all who b****ed about him eat crow.

Can someone provide me with an update on Zack Burdi? The last story I found on him is that he was in the minor league spring training camp but there is nothing further on him and he hasn’t appeared in any MILB games to my knowledge.

Oh heyyy girl. nevermind.

A little bit, I like Spiegs and Parkins or McNeil and Spiegs more than Parkins and McNeil any day of the week.

Come on Eloy, quit Moncadaing around.