By Tom Kirvan
Legal News
This is a column about "jobs."
Not Steve, the Apple co-founder who appears destined for an unkind end to a computer career that forever will be the stuff of inventive legend.
Nor is it about President Obama's latest plan to generate more of the same, an economic proposal that he is scheduled to unveil in a nationally televised address to Congress on Thursday, Sept. 8, one day later than he had hoped due to a political spat with the Speaker of the House.
Instead, this is a bit about the other day, one of those odd days in life, decidedly split by a series of real job-related emotions.
On that last day in August, two people with whom I am unalterably connected -- my son and his mother, who just so happens to be my former wife -- were headed in different job directions.
Early in the day, the soon-to-be 30-year-old son of ours sent a message that he was about to board a plane for California. Nothing unusual about that, especially for a young man who has spent the past five years as a pilot for a regional airline, ferrying passengers to appointed destinations around the country, to airports big and small.
But this day was different, a possible life-changer that could serve as a career springboard for someone who has longed for this special opportunity since he was a boy, his head filled with fanciful notions of flying for a major airline. Yesterday, he began the final stage of a multi-step interview process, one that has stretched for months, in a quest to land one of those plum pilot jobs. He was excited. He was nervous. He was awaiting the chance to take that sometime elusive next career step.
Coincidentally, or perhaps not, his mother was experiencing a different kind of job feeling yesterday. She called to say that her career in aviation, as a flight attendant for one of the major airlines, had just ended. Fortunately for her, it wasn't because of a pink slip. Instead, it was the result of a sweetened early retirement offer that had been a long time coming for someone who spent a quarter of a century working flights around the globe, in a job that was much more grueling and far less glamorous than either of us expected.
It was a happy day for her, capping a career that literally and figuratively was filled with airline ups and downs. She said that I was the first person she called, which seemed particularly fitting for us, both fresh with the knowledge that while one airline career had just happily landed another was preparing to take off to heights certain to make a mother and father very proud.
Published: Fri, Sep 2, 2011
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