She Sold Bears???!!

I'm always fascinated with the various jobs and careers people have had. It's fascinating how life, opportunity, and circumstances take us from one interest and direction to another, sometimes very far from where we thought we would end up. In college, I changed my major five times before finally settling on psychology, probably because I had just run out of ideas and didn't want to take ten years to graduate. These are some of the jobs I have had in the past:

• Customer service representative at a bank
• Substitute teacher
• Educational Diagnostician
  
• Psychotherapist
• Jury Consultant
• School Counselor
• College Instructor
• Entrepreneur

Entrepreneur? Hmmm....what exactly were you doing, you ask. Well, I find it strange to tell you this, but several years ago, I had a bear business. Yes, wild but true. I bought a stuff-your-own-teddy-bear franchise (like Build-A-Bear but these bears were much cuter in my opinion), hired a few teenagers, and set up shop in a mall. Now I didn't fantasize about selling bears as a youth, and I certainly didn't go to school for all those years to sell bears, but there I was. A little history. Four years prior to the bear phase I was working in the fast-paced, crazy intense world of litigation and trial consulting. It was an incredible adventure and experience, filled with glamour, intelligent attorneys, first class travel, exciting research, and even meeting a few celebrities along the way. It was also an insanely toxic work environment filled with long hours (80 to 100 hour workweeks), spending three months away from home living in a hotel room for a trial, running constantly on pure adrenaline, and trying to please (and avoid) two ego-maniacal bosses, one of whom now has his own talk show. So it's really no surprise that my impulsive decision to buy a bear business was a karmic attempt to get as far away from the world of conflict, greed, animosity, manipulation, and screaming bosses as I could get. Alas, my foray into retail didn't last very long. Retail, at least in the middle of the mall, I quickly found was not for me. (I've got a Dave Sedaris-esque short story in there somewhere.) But, I did walk away from the experience with a few life lessons, along with a herd of bears. So, please, won't you give one of these reindeer a home? Just leave a comment and I'll draw three names Thursday morning. (Reindeer have not been handled or played with, are stuffed with 100% polyester filling and a red felt heart. Not for children under the age of three. Bells could be a choking hazard. Prefers oats and barley but will also eat cat food if you have it.)