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MONEY MATTERS
JUST START SOMEWHERE
– By George A . Santino
George ’ s life has been filled with many ups and downs . At one point he injured his back so badly it required three operations and led to an eventual diagnosis of Failed Back Syndrome and he was told he would never work again .
This was one of the many times George was knocked down but he always got back up , eventually landing a job at Microsoft – after being turned down four times – as an entry level lab engineer and retiring at fifty-five from his position as Partner Engineering Manager .
Since his retirement George has embarked upon a new career as a professional speaker and author . In this article , George shares some inspiration for his new book : Get Back Up .
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In the leading days up to the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500 race , the world ’ s best drivers competed in time trials to determine who would start in the coveted pole position .
Why is it so important to start in first place ? After all , the winner of last year ’ s race started in 15th place and the winner the year before that started in the 19th position . You have to go all the way back to 2009 to find a winner who began the race from the pole position . But still , everyone wants to start at the top .
What ’ s wrong with starting at the bottom ? What ’ s wrong with an entrylevel position ? In my opinion , there ’ s nothing wrong with it . I started at the bottom at almost every job I ’ ve ever had . My attitude is very simple ; it doesn ’ t matter where you start as long as you start . I had an uncle who had multiple college degrees . He applied for many jobs over the years , always applying for upper level management positions . He was offered many jobs as a manager trainee and he received many offers to come in as an individual contributor with an opportunity to move into management . He turned them all down , each time saying that he had the skills for a higher-level job and he shouldn ’ t have to prove himself .
I couldn ’ t have disagreed with him more and told him so many times but he would have none of it . To me it was simple . These companies didn ’ t know him . Why should they take the risk ? They had every right to ask him to prove himself and frankly , if he would have taken one of those jobs he would have been able to work his way up to the position he coveted . Instead he looked for work for years and finally had no choice but to accept the only job he had available to him , which was as the rental manager of the houses I owned during my real estate investment years .
On the other hand , I knew what I wanted when I applied for a job . I wanted to be in charge , but no one was going to let me walk in off the street and lead a team . Even during my fast-food management days , every new job I got was as a manager trainee . It didn ’ t matter to Arby ’ s that I had been the manager of a Burger Chef . No , they made me start at the bottom , and when I worked my way to the top at Arby ’ s and subsequently applied for a management job at Wendy ’ s , they didn ’ t care that I had just been a manager of an Arby ’ s ; again I had to start at the bottom and work my way up .
Years later I would apply for a job at Microsoft . By that time I had 17 years of management experience and I had spent the last two working my way up the management ladder in software testing at Ashton-Tate . Not only wasn ’ t that enough to get a test management job at Microsoft , it wasn ’ t even enough to get an individual contributor job doing software testing . I wasn ’ t deterred , however . Though it took multiple interviews I was finally able to land an entry-level job working in a test lab and keeping it clean .
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