Life, filled with many questions. It’s the answers that are hard to come by.

I graduated this past Thursday. I received another lamb skin, another sheet of paper saying that this young man is qualified. Another diploma to be surrounded by mahogany showing, bragging about an accomplishment. I am no longer a Ford trainee. I am a 100% certified employee. 100% dissatisfied employee.

The class I have been training with for the last two months sat at tables wanting to eat not wanting to listen. Like every graduation it is time where one must dress up, look interested, and unfortunately sit patiently as a speaker drones with words of wisdom that we have heard one too many times. Sure enough, a middle aged balding man with a bad tie and a worst jacket went on to tell us his career path, the importance of a work life balance, and his respect for the company. A company that I too still have much respect for. He then went on to talk about office politics and said you better follow them. You can't advance in this company if you don't get a grasp on these. I appreciate his honesty. I know office politics exist wherever you go, but to the degree they are present here is shocking. I'm not a republican, democrat, elephant, or donkey. I am an independent with the government and want to stay one at work too.

Still part of his speech made my ears perk up, "Make sure you like the job you're in. Make sure you have a passion for what you do." I hate my job, but love cars. I hate direct sales, but love marketing. So from the beginning I've been in a situation that leaves me queasy. Should I work for a company that has wonderful benefits, great pay, and security or should I be like Robert Frost and take the path less traveled. I'm leaning towards the latter. Two and a half months isn't that long to develop an opinion, but it is a long time to do a lot of thinking about what I want in my life. I will be leaving for the office soon, this may be the last weekend where I do such a thing. I have more interviews in Dallas and an open in invitation in NYC. My vacation days for the year have already been used, which that fact alone is sad. Pursuing either one of these I will have to terminate my employment. I won't be on the other side of some table facing a guy with a comb-over and his two henchmen waiting for those words "You're Fired." I will be a white sheet of paper with 12 point Times New Roman font explaining my reasons for termination. I will drop off the car, the laptop, and other items and say goodbye.

I've been raised to be a practical person. Not having taken any drugs, carrying no credit card debt, and with only one speeding ticket my run ins with the cops have been kept to a minimal. That's a good thing. Still there is this internal battle that goes on, from what society expects from us and from what I except from life. Society tells me to stay with Ford for it is the beginning of a career. I want to live on a beach or the mountains, read some books, do a bit of volunteering, and do a lot of traveling. That is not going to happen either, so now I need to find that happy medium.

This week I started talking to others about the job they are in. Some of them received positions in the office as a market rep, event planner, or advertising coordinator. They enjoy the work they do, they are not looking forward to the day where they have a zone such as mine and are on the road alone through their twenties. I've started talking to the other zone managers and why I thought my opinion was rare turned out to be the opposite. Others started opening up saying they doubt they will make it to years end, they wish they didn't sign a year lease, etc. One thing we all wish was a better description of the job at hand. No where was it explained to me that I would need to sell tires, no where was it said that in order for me to become promoted I would have to track body shop information. More importantly when I placed my John Hancock on those papers did it show that Ford has a career path in mind for me. A path in Ford Customer Service Division. It's the luck of the draw or so they say. Well because of that I might just take my short end of the straw, throw it to the ground and leave all of this behind.