xtcian

I've been at my current job for sixteen years, so this goes back to 1994.

My first radio job out of college was at an Indie Rock station that was tons of fun and where I made lots of friends I still have today but it was woefully mismanaged. One year to the day after being hired, I was fired on a Friday, over the friggin' phone.

The following Monday I got hired by the bigger, heritage, rival station across town. It felt so good to go clean out my office at my old job wearing a crisp new t-shirt from my new employer. It pre-empted any pity parties from my old colleagues. Within a year, the old station folded.

Being chosen by Special Olympics Texas to be an equestrian coach for Team USA in the 2003 Special Olympics World Games in Ireland.

Not necessarily a victory, but a great thrill: getting to work closely with one of my favorite writers, Nicholson Baker. He donated a large collection to my library, and I went to help pack it up. We worked together in a chilly warehouse for several days during a record New England cold snap. The night before we left, he had us over for dinner at his house. He and his family were just as cool as I'd hoped they'd be, and then some.

Actually publishing my first novel after years of rejection and knowing that as hard as I worked, it might never happen. It actually did, and it may have saved my life. I would not have met many of the people I've met without it.

Hanging on to a good job.

So far. Check back in a few weeks.

Working for 5 years to pass all 3 levels of the CFA exam and being presented with my charter in a room full of men. The average pass rate starts at 50 percent for the first level and declines to 33 percent by the third level.

Writing this article: http://spq.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0190272510361602v1 Or stumbling into the hedge fund industry 20.5 years ago.

Ooh Julie, the CFA is no joke. You just brought back old memories with that one. Thank heavens Patrick earned his before we had kids because it was three years of sheer misery for him, working full-time then locking himself away at night and on weekends to study. He had some really brilliant coworkers and old b-school friends who weren't able to pass the the second and third levels.

Hmm, for me, I'd have to say the handful of years I spent writing for Inside Carolina (old school version) and Tar Heel Monthly. Favorite interviews ever were David Thornton, Antawn Jamison and Ademola Okulaja as well as some of the lesser known athletes who were just all-around great kids.

The nice thing about a career in the arts is that each little victory makes the next challenge easier to overcome. Winning Best Musical for Fleet Week would have to be our biggest success, not because it was the biggest success we've had to date, but because it made everything a little easier that came after it.

My great personal artistic achievement might have been a series of one-acts I did last year as an actor, but in terms of professional success, it's hard to argue with winning an award, getting a play extended and being offered an off-Broadway run, so this last year has probably been the best.

Quitting a job that made me miserable, without a plan or anything else lined up, in the middle of a god-awful recession...and finding an amazing new gig inside of 3 weeks.

Noticing while rounding on ICU patients one morning that there was a cancer patient in respiratory distress, asking his team to consult me, making a very unusual diagnosis based on some similarities I saw between him and the AIDS patients I've taken care of, starting him on the right medication and 1) being found correct on diagnostic testing two days later and 2) saving his life. He died a few months later, but most victories in medicine are short-lived.

For my MPH thesis I wrote a plan for NC to adopt a Medicaid program used in a few other states that helps women who otherwise don't qualify for Medicaid get family planning services. I was able to show the impressive cost savings it would bring to the state (who would have to provide Medicaid to these women if they became pregnant).
I presented it to the NC Dept of Health and Human Services and really wasn't sure what they'd make of it as they seemed to be disinterested at the time. I was frustrated and of course turned off to politics.
Then, after some political changes a few years later, after I had moved on from public health, they picked up the plan again and what do you know.. starting 2005 they implemented this...http://www.nchealthystart.org/besmart.htm. My plan!! It helped me see that politics is mighty slow business but sometimes it actually changes things for the better (although you wouldn't know it lately).
I've never felt like I made such a difference for so many people before or since (but I'm still working on it!).

Obtaining as a client a very large oil company after being out of law school for your years and being told by the folks at the firm (Big firm at the time) that I needed to hand the contact over to a partner.

Being selected as regional environmental counsel for same big oil four years later and after leaving big firm.

Recently (Friday - 2/26/10) having a directed verdict motion granted on behalf of my client against a group of completely unethical.... unbelievably unethical, attorneys after a six month jury trial in downtown Los Angeles. Hard to explain the feeling upon hearing the words "motion granted". Not so much because of who was right or wrong but because of how i was losing all hope for any chance for our legal system watching a group of lawyers absolutely destroy and spit on ever foundation that the system relies upon to not fall into chaos.