God makes a way

Pam Padgett ... member of body of Christ

After high school I went to college and earned degrees that qualified me to work in the field of counseling psychology.  I wanted to work with juvenile delinquents.  But I soon found that I hated this work and was very troubled by it and quickly stopped doing it.    Although I had other jobs after that, I didn't find anything that really seemed to "fit" me and which I enjoyed. 

When I was about 30 years old I was working as a secretary at a bank in the Trust Department for a man who was an attorney and CPA.  At first I found the job to be interesting.  But after a year or two I found myself becoming bored and began praying, asking God if there was some other kind of work I could do that would be more interesting to me.   

 

The department I worked in at the bank had been given 2 PC's, but no one knew much about using them.  One PC had never been taken out of the box.  (This was in the mid 1980's and most work was still being done with typewriters and adding machines in our department.)  

 

One day my boss asked me if I would be willing to start using the PC's for all my work.  I told him I would try to do this, but knew nothing about computers.  He agreed to let me take two classes at a community college to learn how to use the PCs. 

I got a schedule of classes and my boss and I chose the 2 we thought sounded most useful.  One of these was called "Basic".  We thought this would give a "basic" knowledge of computers.  Neither of us realized this class was teaching the computer programming language called "Basic"! 

During the first night of classes I went to the "Basic" class.  As the instructor started talking about programming, I knew very strongly that programming suited me perfectly. 

As I drove home I was so thankful to God and kept saying "This is it!"  I knew this was the answer to my prayer.

I completed both classes, and got the PC's setup at my bank job and began using them for my work and helped another secretary setup her work on the PCs as well.  While doing this during the day, I also began taking a night class to learn another programming language.

I needed to take many more courses to earn a programming degree, but I really wanted to work as a programmer as soon as possible and prayed about this.  

I felt led to send a letter to computer companies in the area and explained my background and interest in programming.  One small software company hired me as a part-time secretary, part-time programmer.   But the company had financial problems, laying people off, shutting down completely, starting back up much smaller but still financially unstable.  I prayed asking God what to do.  It seemed only a matter of time before there would be lay offs again. 

About that time something came in the mail at my apartment telling about classes being offered by the city's Parks and Recreation Department in various subject areas.  I glanced at the mailing and noticed there was a class in how to interview for jobs.  Interviewing for jobs was something that always terrified me.  Even a class in how to interview frightened me.  But as I kept praying about my job situation, this class kept being drawn to my attention.  I came to believe I was being led by God to take this 2-session class, which I did.   

The second night of the class the instructor told me she had a contact at FedEx who told her that FedEx had several job openings for entry-level programmers.  The instructor gave me the name and number for this contact and I called her.  She told me that if I would send my resume to her, she would make copies of it and put a copy on the desk of each manager with a job opening.  I sent my resume to her immediately. 

A few days later I received a call from one of the managers at FedEx named Dale.  He told me that my resume had come across his desk.  He said that no other managers were interested in interviewing me, but he was.  I laughed to myself, appreciating his honesty.  He sure wasn't trying to impress or flatter me! 

During the interview my answers to some of the technical questions were completely wrong.  When I got back to my job at the small software company I told the technical lead how badly I had answered some of the technical questions.  He laughed and said he hoped I wasn't counting on that job, implying there was no way they would hire me after this interview.  I agreed!  I simply considered this interview as good experience to help prepare me for the next interview. 

But there was no "next" interview.   Dale called a day or two later and offered me a job at FedEx.  I was shocked but very glad to accept the job. 

After working at FedEx for a few months, I asked Dale why he hired me.  I reminded him that I don't have a programming degree and also of how badly I had answered technical questions during the interview.  He responded, "Oh Pam.  We don't do rocket science here".  He went on to say he could tell from my resume that I was pretty smart and that I was a hard worker, and he knew I could do the work.

I have no doubt that God put this in Dale's heart and gave me favor with Dale. 

God made the way for me to work in programming (which I very much enjoyed) and at FedEx where I worked more than 23 years until I retired.

It builds my faith each time I consider how God worked in all of this. 

(Also, many of the things I learned as a programmer have helped me in what I am doing now with the blog and publishing books.  Even working at a large corporation like FedEx has helped me as I try to navigate through various departments at amazon and google to resolve problems that come up.  And I was financially able to retire a few years ago making me available to do this work when it came about.)