Saturday morning I left New York for Houston. Less than 24 hours after I landed I was headed for Hobby Airport and for Dallas. Now I’m sitting in the patio area outside the W’s bar enjoying a beer. Though I will be joining Bain’s Houston office, I am here in Dallas for a week of training. Houston is a new office and treated (for the time being) as a surrogate of the Dallas office, which has been around since 1990.
I’m writing this and resurrecting this blog in an effort to record my progression into my new career; perhaps the blog needs a new title? Inflection points or transitions such as these, times before routines have become habit, have been the most interesting times in my life– and I regret that before I have never been methodical about recording them and their impact on my life. The slow and subtle change from new to old. In particular, moving to Japan after college comes to mind. So how I wish I would have kept a journal or diary during my first weeks and months there.
A little over two years ago, I was a teaching high school English in Monterey, California. The road from there to here has followed the proverbial long and windy road. I departed Monterey for New Haven in order to study business and environment as a student of both the Yale School of Management and the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. It was a three year program, but I graduated in two years after jettisoning my association with the Forestry school– something I would never have expected when I arrived.
During my inaugural semester, I got caught up in the frenzy of recruiting and threw my name in the consulting hat. I had thought consulting would be a good fit and even wrote about it in my application essays, but hadn’t planned on pursuing consulting opportunities until the following year. A few months later, I had offers several firms and decided to spend my summer with Bain Dallas (the Houston office didn’t exist then). After a great summer, I decided– a touch decision– that two years was enough, and withdrew from the Forestry school.
Now I’m here. And now my battery is running out.
Hopefully, I can stay true to my intention and write each day as my new career unfolds.
