I spent my earlier career moving my kids around to the next best job...from Michigan (MSU) to PA to NJ where at that point I found Colgate where I felt I could retire there. But funny thing about God is he'll shake up your reality to the point where it makes no sense. I had no intentions to marry...as a matter of fact I had a 5-year plan in 2013 that I was going to move to Italy and work out of the Colgate Anzio plant. Within year one of my plan I met and married my husband and my youngest daughter graduated from college. That's when I started to hear God clearly...it's time to move South and leave Colgate. Nooooo I loved my job and boss! How could I do such a thing??? My husband would never leave anyway. Well so as I asked he immediately said yes he'll go...surprise, surprise!
Well I moved to Chattanooga for a Sr Packaging Engr job where they promised I would be managing a team but that didn't work out after I moved there...needless to say my boss and I didn’t see eye-to-eye so I was terminated after a year. Did God make a mistake? I can say through the 2 months waiting for another job He took care of us so we weren't hurting at all. Then I ended up at Cooper Lighting. My boss was awesome like my boss at Colgate so I felt like I was somewhere I can retire from again. We even decided to buy a house and settled down in Atlanta. Well that ended when my boss resigned and then it was La-Z-Boy all over again. A lot of ups and downs since I left New Jersey but God keeps directing me to the next step...so the next step should be an up based on my track record. I have to believe it's all for a reason.
So now I can't relocate as the house we bought is not one to walk away from and we've planted here with roots. My dream is to finally get to the Director level and have a large team under me. One thing I dislike about Packaging is it's really hard to get to Director level. I feel like every time I move to a new job I have to start all over as an individual contributor. I finally had a Manager level and a couple head count, however my head count reported to the Warehouse and got their direction from me daily. Following a lay off during COVID I end up at Papa John's with a lot of promises made with a Sr Manager title, but no reports. Two years later and no movement and nothing insight. Again it never seems to move completely to the next level...very frustrating. One more thing...I moved into the CI role but it was very boring to me...not challenging at all. I've come to terms that Packaging is my niche and I believe Quality, Procurement, CI or a true PM role would all be the same way...not really what brings me joy like Packaging. It's a catch 22... but I’m waiting to see what God has up his sleeve as he's made it clear that I'm where I'm supposed to be right now.