I Didn’t Go for Drinks, And It Saved My Career

Insignificant then, but now one of my biggest life lessons

Photo courtesy of author

A pager buzzed. The instructions came. And I said “no.”

That split second ended the career I once wanted and set me on a path I now love… a career that’s even better than what I had planned.

The Summer of 1998

I don’t remember the exact date. It was likely July. I remember the heat.

Choosing a window seat on the train was a mistake. There was no air conditioning, and the sun on your face made it unbearably warm. And, windows only turned the carriage into a wind tunnel if you dared open them.

An hour and twenty minutes on the train, then a twenty-five-minute walk in a suit and tie. Not a favorite memory.

I was a summer intern at a big law firm. I started the same day as two other interns. The first thing we got … pagers. For those too young to remember, they were small, battery-powered wireless devices that received very short messages on a dot matrix LCD display. Mobile phones were not mainstream yet.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but this simple device and the “instructions” I received would dominate my life for the next few weeks.