My plan A was to major in English and then teach. I loved all aspects of the subject, including grammar, which I believed I could teach in a nonstandard way that would be engaging to kids.
I majored in English all right, Dean’s List and all, and graduated into a time and place where there was a glut on the education market. Would-be teachers were washing cars and waiting tables. I wound up in an office.
Computers were just making their way into workplaces. Laptops were far off in the future. Office computers were largeish free-standing boxes with various peripherals to fulfill the basic office functions—“BICARSA,” billing, inventory control, accounts receivable, and sales analysis. I was tapped to take the classes and learn to operate and program the thing.
That’s how I wound up working with computers. That became plan B.
But I never really let go of plan A. It was incorporated into plan C, when I converted a moonlighting semi-career, editing books for book publishers, into a full-time job. I ended up with an amalgam: working for computer companies as editor of their technical documentation and user manuals. It left me with some dissatisfaction, since there is nothing literary about tech docs, but it was a nice, lucrative wrap-up of my career and left me with a good retirement plan.