Kozmo Girl
Are you where you planned to be in your career and life?
If you’re anything like me, some of the major events in your life were planned, but likely quite a few were accidental. That certainly was my case. I dreamed of becoming a psychologist, but that isn’t where life took me. Instead, I took a different route (or the S Curves as my best friend called it), by way of a lime green sequined mini skirt, a 15+ year career in HR, and finally, to my current beloved role as a life and career coach for Gen X professional women.
How? Well, let me tell you about it.
I graduated from college from Antioch University a couple of months before turning 30 with my five-year-old daughter in hand but struggled to find a job using my college degree. I was determined not to go back to work in restaurants and wanted to put that part of my life behind me, so I didn’t look for work in the most obvious places even though I needed money badly.
Luckily for me, my best high school friend knew I was desperate since it was right before the holidays and offered to help me get a job with Kozmo.com, one of the first internet delivery companies around. The job was not glamorous. Truth be told, I would be delivering DVDs and ice cream in my car to people’s homes…not something I was excited about because the customers could very well be the parents of my daughter’s private school friends where she attended with a fantastic scholarship. I was horrified, but I needed to pay the bills.
How does this relate to the S curves and the lime green mini skirt? Well, on my first day of work, the marketing team came out and asked the female drivers “in the pit” if any of us wore a size 6. I asked why and they said that they needed some Kozmo elves to work Winterfest at the Seattle Center for the entire month of December. I lept out of my seat! You might recall that I was not excited to see my daughter’s friend’s parents have me deliver their ice cream and DVDs at their front doors, so I jumped at the chance to escape my imagined horrifying fate.
Long story short, I showed up to work the entire month of December in lime green spandex leggings, top, glitter skirt, tennies, and even a lime green Santa hat. I was even in Forbes Magazine! To my delight, at the end of the season, the Kozmo.com office team liked me enough to offer me a chance to work with the talent management team. That crazy quick twist of fate was the accident that sent me along the path to HR…not what kept me there. Still, it was certainly the catalyst that set the next twenty years in motion, which, oddly enough, led me straight back to hospitality but in an entirely different capacity.
At this point in my career, I’m taking a different approach to how I’m showing up. I’ve become more intentional, less accidental, and am fully considering how I want to spend my time, what I want to commit to and where I find the most joy, value, and connection.
If you’re finding yourself wanting to make some changes in your life or career, I’d love to talk to you. Send me a private message or book some time with me to see if we might be a good fit.