My professional life has been a winding road of ups and downs. After graduating from Indiana University, I worked as a high school science teacher for two years and then switched to a business career in Chicago. I moved to the big city not knowing what I wanted to do, but knowing I needed a change.
After grinding it out briefly as a temp, I switched jobs and started working for a supply chain software vendor. The dot com bust was brutal for me professionally. I lost all of my savings in my companies stock, Whittman-Hart. Although the Supply Chain division of the company I worked for was profitable, the majority of the business was not. Three different technology companies later, I found myself unemployed and nearly broke.
If things were handed to me on a plate, my life sure would have been boring and I would not have met so many interesting people along the way. My life truly has been about the journey, not the destination.
– Kyle Groce
I was tired of Chicago and all the negative energy that I found there professionally so I took a 4 week road trip across 15 states looking for my next opportunity. I ended up selecting Denver, Colorado and found a part-time job working as barista at a coffee shop. I soon landed an outdoor sales job for a small technology start-up dealing with residential real estate. I was the top sales person across three different states for the company, but like so many other start-ups, the company struggled and was sold. You would think I had learned my lesson during the dot com bust to avoid technology companies, but I still kept gravitating to jobs in the field.
After working in both inside and outside business to business sales, I landed a job working as the sales training manager for a large technology company focused on analytics for the commercial real estate and banking industries. If you recall, the entire commercial and residential real estate sectors collapsed in 1998 with the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression. At the age of 40, I found myself unemployed and without a plan. It was a brutal feeling as so many people were struggling during this time period. I went from making over $100,000 a year, to not being able to secure a full-time job.
After the financial market collapse, I decided to move back home to Indianapolis and apply to nursing school at Indiana University. I was a hospital corpsman in the United States Navy when I was younger, so knew I liked working in health care. On my 40th birthday I was sitting in a college algebra class taking a test thinking, ‘where the hell has my life taken me now…’ There were 650 applicants for only 90 positions in that nursing class. I worked extremely hard on all my pre-requisites and was one of the lucky ones accepted into the program.
Upon moving back home to Indianapolis, I landed three part-time jobs. I worked the front desk at a small hotel, as a project manager for a cancer research study, and as a ball boy for the women’s soccer and volleyball teams. Yes, I was a 40 year old ball boy and was paid $10 an hour to go help with the games. It was awesome actually. Throughout nursing school, I worked close to 60 hours a week between all of my jobs and going to school full-time. It was challenging, but I made it work and graduated.
After graduating from nursing school, the hospital organization I was working for laid off 6,000 employees state wide. The thought of going through another extended lay-off truly scared me. I had been there before, and really did not want to experience it again, especially after securing $40,000 in student loans to change careers; so I decided to move to Florida, where nursing jobs were more plentiful.
I have enjoyed being a bedside nurse. In fact it is my favorite job. I like helping people and the daily interaction involved with the job. Unfortunately, the job has taken a physical toll on my body. I recently woke up with severe pain and numbness in my leg and hip. I was startled as I could not walk well. I went from being able to walk 7 miles a day at work, to needing a cane to get around the house. After an MRI, I found out that the last disc in my back broke off and was pressing against my spinal cord. Because I had such a sudden and drastic loss of function and weakness in my lower leg and foot, the surgeon said I needed surgery as soon as possible. They had me on the operating table within a week of my initial deficits. I have never had any issues with my back or leg in the past, so the whole episode shocked me. It also brought up the feeling of, ‘here we go again…’ with a possible career ending disability.
Luckily, my surgery went very well, and I am almost 90% back to my original strength and feeling in my foot and leg. Having a couple months off from work, had me reflect on my journey. My life has never been easy, but what I have learned is that I never give up and find a way to survive.
I started working on this website during my time off from back surgery. It has been another new skill to learn, as a potential fall back in the future. I love learning new things, so if I can gain more skills in search engine optimization and web design, it may give me an opportunity to do some part-time work down the road. Plus, it has given me something to do during my time off from working as a bedside nurse.
So there you have my story. There are many more chapters to add along the way, but this gives you a little glimpse of where I came from, where I have been, and where I am going. I don’t blame others for the problems I have faced in life. I just get out of bed, and try to make today the best it possibly can be. I am not afraid to work hard, and try new things. If things were handed to me on a plate, my life sure would have been boring and I would not have met so many interesting people along the way. My life truly has been about the journey, not the destination. The challenges I have faced have made me stronger. After living in Indianapolis, Chicago, New York, Denver, Toronto, Baltimore, St Petersburg, and now Houston, I think things are starting to look up for me! At least I know it will be fun along the way, regardless of where I go, and I will continue to learn new skills so I can keep going forward.
