The Job Hunting Roller Coaster

When I was a kid I was fortunate in that My family lived in Florida. This means that we were able to take advantage of the specials available by Walt Disney world to attract locals to come in during the slower parts of the year. As a young male child, I was of course enthralled by the roller coasters at the park. One of our favorite traditions happened at the start of the Main Street Parade. The lines at the attractions would go down as everyone was rushing to watch Mickey and Minnie wave to the kids. My brother and I would use that time to go on the space mountain roller coaster again and again. We loved it. That coaster rattled you around, but it wasn’t really intense, it was just a really fun ride. It ended quickly, but we could jump back in just as quickly assuming the parade was still going on.

Fast forward a few years when I was older and witnessed the coasters at a Six Flags park. The Six Flags and other coaster parks have the kind of coasters designed to be impossibly high with huge drops. I knew instantly those weren’t for me. I don’t like heights and I don’t like feeling my gut is still at the apex of the drop while my body is at the bottom, which, on these types of coasters happens again and again.

After witnessing a friend of mine try to switch careers, I realized these two coaster experiences are a great deal like hunting for a job. In one instance…