Pullin' A Rove

Yesterday, my brother circulated, via e-mail, a picture of Jackson playing golf. Chris has taught his 5 year old to swing a baseball bat and golf club lefty; our dad taught Chris the same thing when he was younger. With me, he either forgot or didn't think I had much of a baseball career ahead of me. My Mendoza Line batting average proved him right.

Batting from the left side of the plate does have its advantages. The gap between second baseman and first baseman is bigger than the gap between third and short stop. Also, you're two-and-a-half steps closer to first base. And if you ever play softball off of Oltorf in Austin, the right field fence doesn't extend much beyond first base. A short fence and stanozolol adds up to a lot of home runs in church league softball.

But that's not the point. Today, I've been thinking about how we end up with the various careers we have. Most are by choice, others are by accident, and some just sort of evolve. My dad, for all intents and purposes, is a computer programmer for the state's retirement system; my mother is an assistant at the church; my brother, a hair stylist (hey, aren't you just a barber who charges obscene prices?); his wife, Charlotte, (your first shout out, yo!) is a school librarian; my sister is a school teacher; Melissa is a fax editor for a newswire. Anyway, I got an e-mail from my brother-in-law, Eric, who is making a career switch. Sales. Wow.

I tried sales one summer in West Virginia. Sounds like a bad joke that ends with pig squealing noises, but it's the honest truth. I learned quickly I couldn't sell ice water to a man about to die of thirst. At half price. I really couldn't.

Anyway, here's part of the e-mail Eric sent me:
"our go-live is 9-1 for our system's conversion onto two new system platforms."

I don't have any idea what that means. But isn't that what Valerie Plame used to do?

My theory is that if you can't explain what you do in thirty seconds, I don't want your career. Chances are I don't want it to begin with, but I'm scratching yours off the list first.

My dream careers could be summed up in either two or four words: "pro golfer" or "pitcher for the Yankees".

Plus, I don't think either has a system conversion or a system platform. Just wins and losses.