After getting fired from the print shop, I drifted through a few more printing jobs before eventually landing in electronic assembly.
For the first time in years, things started making sense again.
The work moved. Problems could actually be solved instead of silently growing worse while you stared at them. I became good at it quickly. Quality control would still catch little things now and then, but there were no disasters anymore. No mountains of wasted paper. No panic attacks watching ruined work pile up around me.
The company eventually purchased a wire printing and cutting machine, and because I was good with computers, I ended up programming and running it.
That should have been my first clue.
Computers had always made sense to me in ways other things didn’t.
My mother-in-law worked in the department next to mine. During breaks I would wander over just to say hi. She was genuinely a great person, and for a while life actually felt stable.
We had a condo for a period of time. The girls were around. Christian was around. We were trying to build something that looked like a normal family.
I kept searching for computer jobs in that small Michigan town, hoping to eventually escape factory work completely.
Then one day I came across an ad for tech support at an appraisal software company.
I applied and interviewed.
I still remember getting the phone call close to Christmas telling me I got the job.
I immediately gave my two weeks notice, but my boss happened to be on vacation at the time. Everyone in the department already knew I was leaving except her.
On my last day I even offered my tools to some of the other workers before I left.
When I returned later to pick up my final paycheck, she had them hold it until she spoke to me personally. She was angry that I was leaving and upset that I had given my tools away.
She told me I never gave notice.
I told her everyone in the department already knew. She just hadn’t been there.
She reluctantly handed over my check and let me move on.
That new tech support job changed everything.
The company was booming. Eventually they moved into a beautiful office building in St. Joseph. It felt modern and exciting in a way none of my previous jobs ever had.
We had giant break rooms, company Christmas parties, and an atmosphere that almost felt electric. One year the company gave away scooters at the Christmas party, and before long people were riding them through the hallways all day.
I did it too.
For the first time in my life, work was actually fun.
I loved the job and I loved my boss. I was good at tech support almost immediately. If I needed to walk a customer through rebuilding an engine over the phone, I probably could have done it.
Helping people solve problems felt natural to me.
Y2K was approaching then, and customers were panicking constantly. Everyone thought computers were going to fail when the calendar rolled over to the year 2000.
But I had already tested plenty of systems myself by manually changing dates forward.
Honestly, most of it felt overhyped to me.
I remember thinking that even if things broke, we could probably just pretend systems were still in the 1900s and keep moving until patches were released.
And honestly, that’s pretty much what happened.
Y2K came and went with very few real problems. A handful of customers needed updates, but the world didn’t end.
Not long after that, the company was sold to Polaroid.
Then eventually it was sold again.
Suddenly there were discussions about relocation and expansion. Florida became part of the conversation. The company offered relocation assistance, and many people were excited about the opportunity.
But my wife refused to move to Florida.
The only major cities she would even consider were in Texas because she still had family in Houston and San Antonio.
At the same time, I had already realized something important myself.
If I wanted a real future in technology and support work, I probably needed to leave small-town Michigan eventually anyway.
The jobs simply weren’t there.
For the first time in my life, it felt like the world was getting bigger.
And for the first time in a very long time, life clicked.