My Reality Check Bounced! - Jason Ryan Dorsey [71]
After completing training, Sara’s first assignment was as a field marketing representative. She received a company car, expense account, and great salary with lots of benefits. In exchange for all this, her boss expected only one thing—her complete dedication to making their company’s products fly off the shelves of retailers in her territory.
Sara loves a challenge. She accepted this first real-world assignment with pride and enthusiasm. Her zest for work and life quickly spread to the stores in her territory. The store managers in fact looked forward to seeing her, and she loved helping them sell more of her company’s stuff.
Sales in her territory began rising in the second quarter after she took over. This was proof of her success learning the market, building key relationships, and working those relationships from sunrise to sunset. Sara didn’t mind. It was her job. She was on a path straight to the executive level, possibly before age thirty.
After six months working in the field, Sara’s boss was so impressed he asked her to transfer to their company’s national headquarters in a different state. There she would work side by side with division executives. She would learn how to create the products she so effectively marketed. Along with a hefty increase in salary, she would get to travel overseas—a big bonus for someone who had not traveled much. The opportunity was so good she didn’t hesitate to say yes!
The promotion turned out better than Sara imagined. She was whisked from Asia to Arizona for business trips. She stayed at beautiful resorts. She worked with smart people solving complex problems. One night she even sat next to the company CEO during dinner. He wanted her opinion on what the company could do to be more successful!
Her most exciting responsibility was being put in charge of taking a new product from concept to completion. This responsibility included everything from visiting the factory in China where the product would be produced to creating the marketing campaign for releasing the product. It was amazing. Sara was only twenty-three years old and launching her own product that her mom could buy at the grocery store!
PERSONAL LIFE—R.I.P.
In all the excitement, Sara became skilled at working ridiculously long hours. Friends called less and less because they knew she would be too busy to return their calls. Boyfriends became a thing of the past as her work ran later into the evenings. But she didn’t mind staring at her laptop into the wee hours; she had so much to do she didn’t have time to care.
After a year working at her company’s national headquarters, Sara was transferred to Chicago. This would be the third state in which she had lived in a year and a half, but again she didn’t mind. She was on the fast track to corporate stardom. And Chicago sounded fun.
Sara got a corporate apartment a few blocks from Michigan Avenue. She figured the location would motivate her to get out of the office and build a social life. She was wrong. Her new job brought more responsibilities and even longer work hours. In her mind, it was still worth it. She was just paying her dues like her boss had done before her and his boss had done before him.
Sara began to practically live at her office. She quit exercising, her one daily escape—because who had time for exercise when she hadn’t even unpacked her moving boxes? As long as Sara stayed in a hurry, she felt as if she were on top of the world or fast approaching it.
Who could blame her? She was making great money, working for a big-name company, and earning prestigious assignments. She was in the eye of an adrenaline tornado. As long as she had more to do than she could possibly accomplish, life was grand. It was only in the rare moments when she stopped sprinting that her spirit dropped. Her boss helped her avoid this by assigning additional responsibilities whenever Sara got close to catching up.
A WAKE-UP CALL
At 8:30 P.M. on a frigid Friday in February, Sara’s tornado spun apart.