I’m a newcomer to the door hardware industry. I watched my in-laws work in the industry for the last 8 years, but never paid a whole lot of attention. Their tendency to stop and point out particularly interesting knobs, hinges, or closers was a funny anecdote, not something I thought would ever infect me.
Fast forward to the past year, and you would have found an extremely unhappy molecular biologist having a mid-life crisis (a bit early, I like to think). Working as a scientist for a large university was not turning out to be my cup of tea, and I happened to experience this crisis of confidence at a moment when Hager Company was looking to expand their Pacific Northwest sales agency.
It wasn’t an easy transition to make. I had spent my entire professional career fighting to get where I was, and leaving the field felt like throwing away all those years of hard work. Paul told me, though, that if this wasn’t the best job I’d ever had after 6 months, that I could go back to science and never look back. I accepted the challenge.
So far, Paul’s prediction has been so true that I can’t help but laugh at my past self, dithering over which job to take – the best job in the world, or something that was only going to make me money, not happy, and was going to involve a 2 hour commute every morning and evening.
