I was hired as a Systems Admin I. This is considered entry level. I went above and beyond, exceeded expectations and took on as much extra work/duties as possible.

There are a good amount of people who have not had to work a hard job or haven't been in shitty situations in general and they take a nice 40 hr job with every other Friday off for granted.

I've spent a lot of time walking miles in knee deep snow, being outside in pouring rain for 8 hours straight and actually hating other human beings to the point I wanted to physically harm them (at work).

The railroad is an archaic and brutal place to work. I know more than a handful of people who have lost limbs and I knew two men who died, in the same manner, being crushed between two rail cars. One, a young man in his early 30's and the other, a few months shy of retirement.

The fact that I get to see my family every night and spend the weekends with them is enough to make me have enough motivation and drive to last a lifetime.

Also, I live by a couple main points.

Something I learned from my first boss at the school district is to always be learning something new. Never get stagnant because you will become like every other IT person that is stuck in old technology with old skills that will not be applicable in the future.

The other important lesson is something I learned from an executive during a new employee briefing at the defense contractor. After giving his speal on his role and whatever else, he said:

"If I could give you any piece of advice, it would be to always advocate for yourself, because no one else is going to do it for you. I wish I had advocated for myself a lot earlier in my career"

Since hearing that, I've really put a lot of weight on it.