Integrity

I have been speaking about integrity a lot lately. After much thought I decided to leave my happy work from home job with the US Navy and move forward with my career.

When I transitioned my job from a bustling office in a Department of Defense office building, to my home office, I was thrilled. My own hours and my own plan. Then, I came to realize that I was just on my own. This is when I decided to move on, and back to a busy office.

Interviewing is an odd part of your life. It's half, self-centered self-promotion, and half being the dorky kid wanting to be picked for the baseball team. But, one word came up in all my interviews. Integrity.

I believe it was my second apartment. Being just a dumb twink, money was tight. Before I knew it I was late on the rent. I walked slowly to the Manager's office after finding a notice taped to my apartment door. The manager of 1160 Ogden Street was a massive woman who once was a massive man. Like a first generation transsexual or tran 1.0 she was happy being a big beautiful gal. But, that day she wasn't happy to hear that it would be three days until she got rent money.

This is when she taught me about integrity. Integrity, is the only thing that can not be taken away from you. You can give it away, but it can't be broken like your will, or deprived like your freedom. Your integrity may be all you have. Sometimes it will be all you need.

I thought about the trans-apartment manager as I sat with the Director that was looking to fill an amazing position. I retold my thoughts on integrity. I left out the part where the police showed up in the middle of the night to haul off the trans-manger due to her embezzling thousands of dollars of property management funds, but hey, it was still a great lesson.

It got me the job.