#ladybossin

[nomadwest]

Tuesday afternoon, coffee or tequila? Hmmm #ladybossin #nomadwest (at Nomad West)

[nomadwest]

Starting it off right #acaibowl at the Krak 👌🏼🎉😛 #breakiesdoneright #yum #nobanana #morning #goldenhill #25th #ladybossin #coffeeplease #nomadwest #nomadgirlgang #nomadcult (at Krakatoa)

[ladybossin-blog1]

How I got here

Lesson 1: Finding Vocation through Occupation, not in it. 

I am 24 years young and told by my elders that I am a “millennial.” Common characteristics include idealism, an unwillingness to settle for careers lacking in meaning, and Obsessive Xenophile Disorder. You’ve met us. 

As a millennial, I have grown up with the notion that whatever job I dedicate my time and energy to must not only make me money, it must serve some greater good. In other words, the job I took after college was somehow supposed to be define me as a “good” person. 

In December 2014, I graduated with a bachelor’s in International Security with a focus in Chinese, and a minor in Nonprofit Organizational Studies. I was accepted into the PeaceCorps Mongolia and simultaneously offered a job as recruiter at a global IT staffing firm. IT staffing? Where’s the greater good in that? Turns out there wasn’t any. Truthfully, I knew that to begin with and I didn’t care. Fresh out of college, twenty thousand in debt, and with the sour taste of poverty from my childhood still intoxicating my ambitions, I took the job.

At the time, a salaried job signified the potential for money, stability, and a level of comfort and societal prestige I had yet to experience but through a kaleidoscope of dreams and anticipation.The Peace Corps represented epic adventure and continuous growth, but also a sort of limbo where I had to again prolong  all notions of comfort or stability. I know now that neither representations were accurate. 

Five months after starting my career as an IT tech recruiter, I quit and moved across the country to Portland, Oregon where I now co-manage a coffee shop with three other wonderful lady bosses. I don’t make much money. But I have learned that money does not equal stability, relationships, or comfort. And Mongolia is not the only option for adventure. Most importantly, we are not defined by our jobs or the choices we make through our limited lenses of experience. Rather we are defined by how we choose to act out our vocations through whatever specific occupations we may hold. 

I am an adventurer, volunteer, conflict negotiator, peacemaker, strategist, and leader by vocation. I am a manager of a coffee house in Portland, Oregon by occupation. My life is filled with goodness and meaning because I make it so, not because it was granted to me by a career or title. 

What I want to make clear is that I never expected to be managing a coffee house a year out of college. It wasn’t a part of my grand plan, I didn’t ever dream of growing up to make coffee or become a lady boss for other amazing lady bosses. In fact, accepting that this is the job I chose and I love has been one of the greatest challenges I have yet to overcome. After all, shouldn’t I be interning at the UN, studying human rights law, or volunteering abroad? Aren’t these the types of careers that make “good” people? No. Because neither a career nor a job nor any other such opportunity make people who they are. We are how we choose to act within the boundaries we choose to draw for ourselves. I manage people and systems at a coffee shop because it is my occupation; I lead, strategize, communicate and problem-solve because I choose to passionately engage with these vocations.