Mary struck me as an elegant lady at the first sight. She wore a typical Taipei women’s delicate, feminine look. Everything about her manner and bearing screamed class. There was not a slightest sign of rough edge in her. Age sat well on her. It’s hard to tell that she is almost 60 years old.

Not like other teachers, Mary taught us with her own experiences. She had been a secretary in the same company for 32 years. I always thought that there was nothing to tell about secretary or assistant’s job---too trivial, too detail-oriented to give any decent description. I mean, you can’t tell the others how many documents you have copied, right? But not for Mary. She told us a lot of small stories about coping documents, arranging seats, and serving coffee with beaming pride. “We are secretaries. We don’t cope with the affairs of the state, but the affairs of the life.” Through those small stories, through the way she handled one little crisis after another, we saw the sparks of a woman’s intelligences. She certainly has a lot to be proud of.

When talking about career planning, she told us honestly: “I don’t have any career planning in my life. The only plan I made is to be a secretary. Being a teacher is just an accident.”

A person like Mary, a person who had done one job until retirement, still once had time to get lost. With her extraordinary performance, she was promoted to be HR manager. She was so thrilled about this opportunity. But her excitement didn’t last long. Pressures came with glories, pressures a secretary would never need to face with. A tiny failure in her job made her to review this promotion, but what led her to make the final decision was an accident which had no relevant to her job. She had a heated argument with one of postal clerk over something trivial—she won and got what she wanted. However, she was not happy because suddenly she realized that being a decision maker had somehow changed her personality---toughen her up. “My husband is a typical alpha male. Two in one family certainly is crowded. I can’t let my job to harm my family. I have to make the decision.” She said as the matter of fact, even she knew many might not agree with this opinion.

What kind of courage to make a proud person like Mary to admit her failure and step backward? She did anyway. She asked her boss for her old job---cut in salaries? Ok. Humiliated? Not at all, because she knew what she want.

I still don’t know what I want---but I will figure it out.