My career is in information technology (IT).

I am not a developer. I support software and the people who use it. I get excited about figuring out how it works, training people, and managing data. What the hell is wrong with me? I think it feeds a few things. It feeds my natural tendency to see the big picture and translate it into practical explanations. It feeds my need to fix, to find solutions, to create order from chaos. It feeds my deep-seated desire for world domination.

Hey, she who controls information controls the world.

Ok, so why information technology? Why is it my career after I devoted so much energy to music, aviation, and my deep desire and talent for writing?

There is a school of thought that classifies people as either right or left brained- as creative beings or logical beings. While I am right brain dominant (creative), I actually operate within both spaces. I can do either. I have a need for both creative and logical outlets. To me this is normal, so I never understand why people are surprised that I work with computers and am a musician that writes.

For the first part of my life, when I was completely focused on the arts, people categorized me as a creative person. They treated me as if I could not comprehend science, as if I were stupid and a flake. When I switched over to the sciences, at 21+, people then categorized me as a tech geek, unable to appreciate the arts, and super smart. While both categories fit me, both assumptions also offend me.

To explain how I came to IT, I must go back to the beginning. My father was a mechanical engineer and worked for Caterpillar for 25 years until his death. He was an extremely smart man. He held nine patents. My mother is also intelligent so naturally all of us kids are smart.

My brother is a strange bird. He is twelve years my elder and expresses an extreme form of logical intelligence. He was doing long division by age three. He is brilliant at math and science but not the humanities. He was the type to pull things apart and put them back together just to see how they work.

They bought him a Commodore 64 in the early 80’s. I would hang out in his room and watch him solder chips onto circuit boards. He would buy textbooks with BASIC code for computer games and sit for hours typing on that damn B/W TV he used as a monitor. I would watch him type code, I asked him to explain the code, and I would read the code. It made sense to me, a beautiful simple logic like music. At age ten, this all seemed perfectly normal.

So, I got to use his PC at a very young age when he would let me. In high school, I took a computer class because I thought it would be easy and it was. My teacher was surprised by my comfort level. He approached me and wisely advised, “You should consider doing this for a living.” I smiled and thought to myself, “No way dude. I’m going to be a rock star!” I was so obsessed with music…

I have resisted working with computers all my life. I like them, they come easy to me, but they are not my passion. Guess what is. When I gave up on the arts in college, I decided that I needed to get a day job that paid so that I could pursue my passions without trying to pay my bills with them. I was afraid that I would eventually learn to hate the arts for my inability to make a living at them.

Aviation was to be that day job and I did indeed finish my first B.S. in Aviation Management. Unfortunately, too far along in my flight training, I knew I didn’t want to fly for a living. They don’t tell you the reality of that industry until it’s too late. I took a hard look at IT but didn’t pursue it at the time. It would have only been for the money which I am philosophically against.

I was also too embarrassed to jump majors again, after being so sure of aviation in the beginning. I started as a music major then switched to an English major then finally settled on aviation. I struggled in college due to a lot of unresolved baggage. My experience at the University of Iowa went so poorly that I had to prove something to myself. I was not lazy or stupid or flakey. This loud, funny girl became very serious. I became disciplined, focused, and driven. I had no faith in my own work ethic until then.

I have a little too much now!

After I finally finished college I moved to Chicago. I volunteered at a fundraiser for a small non-profit and because I worked so hard, they offered me a temp job as the receptionist. I had so much trouble finding a job, I took it. It was my first non-profit gig. Their mission was workforce and small business development, adult literacy, and alternative high school. They provided educational and economic support and opportunities for disadvantaged communities.

After a time, they decided I was too valuable to let go. They cobbled together a permanent position and offered me a raise. It was the early 2000’s and I watched them struggle with their newly installed client management database. Given my need to ‘help’, to ‘fix’, I offered my assistance. Soon my boss said, “You- sit here, do this, figure it out.” My first foray into a large enterprise level relational database. Eventually, I was offered a position managing all the communications and databases for the company.

I was so not qualified.

So, I put myself back through school. I learned how to read binary and hexadecimal. I learned desktop support and network design. I learned visual basic programming and SQL. I learned systems analysis and web design. I took two years’ worth of classes in one year, worked full-time, and lost my fucking mind in the process. I did finish with honors. I did do my job better. I did complete my second B.S. in Information Technology.

Chicago is a hard place to try to make it in your 20’s. In 2003, I made a decision to move to Minnesota for better opportunities. I came here without a job but landed one at another small non-profit in St. Paul within two weeks. I was hired to work on the databases and reporting for the grant manager, until they needed an onsite IT person. I was then also doing desktop, software, and network support. Their mission is teen and young adult intervention and they provide medical, mental health, pregnancy support and services as well as an alternative high school and homeless drop-in center.

That all lead me to the University of Minnesota in 2009 where I currently work as a sysadmin. Career non-profit in Information Technology. I never set out to do this work. But I have to have a mission. I have to have a challenge. I have to have a job where I feel I am making a difference in the world. It is all just one big puzzle to my mind. I like puzzles. They exercise my brain.

Not bad for an English major drop-out.
-Copyright C.M. Mounts, April 2019