What's YOUR background?

Now THIS is a loaded question. In those moments when I start hearing the question being asked, my mind races, my hands start to shake, and I can already hear my voice start to crackle, even stutter.

I have NEVER been asked this question before however, the amount of times I have been asked this past week will make up for the years that my 'background' was never requested.

Truth be told, I feel like I was living someone else's life before I decided to get my own.

As the question is being asked, I race to answer it intelligently and with poise, because all eyes and ears are on me but I'm struggling to find the words.

I begin to wonder if I am ashamed that I waited until I was 29 to return to school. I also wonder if perhaps eleven years of customer service wasn't something I was proud of either.

Could it be both?
 

Instead, I should really just be honest, regardless of what my background was... I am who I am today because of it. So here goes...

I worked in customer service for eleven years. Even though the job itself was not something that I particularly liked, it did make me more conscious of how treating clients and customers can impact your business and ultimately make a good impression, or bad one depending on the service you're providing.

I worked for one company for 7 years, left to go to another, only to find out that it wasn't the company that I didn't like but the job itself. It was the definition of insanity, I got the same results.

I tried sales, for a short time; I liked it, it was a casual position but I liked the flexibility, and that the more I sold, the more money I made.

I went to University in 2011, I have a diploma in Marketing Management AND Public Relations. During my time in school, I chased after every volunteer position that I could when they became available. I wanted to start my industry experience immediately.

I then moved on to Automotive Marketing, an interesting form of marketing - I will write about it on another post.

I'm not a veteran in the industry, in fact, I'm the rookie. However, my ambition to succeed and desire to learn and express myself is much greater than I ever could have imagined. Even though I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I started the program, I quickly adapted and it became a part of me, someone I didn't know I was and something I didn't know that I would LOVE!

I work full time and come home and work until bed time, not because I have to... but because I want to. There it is, in a nutshell - MY BACKGROUND... and It's only going to get better!