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Lyn Alden

List of all jobs I’ve had in chronological order:

-Assistant MMA instructor (part time)

-Deli clerk

-Industrial automation intern

-College resident assistant (part-time)

-Forum administrator (part-time)

-Software intern*

-Electrical engineer*

-Equity analyst/blogger (part-time)

-Freelance finance writer (part-time)

-Lead electrical engineer*

-Engineering procurement/finance lead*

-Facility engineering/finance manager*

-Macro analyst / talking head

-Side gigs: board director, VC fund adviser, author

*These ones were all for the same aviation employer

When I was entering college, my initial goal was to work in space-related electronic systems or in solar energy systems. As I learned more about them and as the Great Recession hit, I ended up shifting into aviation kind of randomly, but liked it a lot for about a decade.

Out of all of the jobs, the most surprising to me was “talking head”. That was certainly never really part of my toolkit and just kind of happened somehow.

Lyn Alden 2y ago

The assistant MMA instructor to deli clerk transition was definitely the least fun among these job role changes, lol.

The reason it happened was that I changed from a small martial arts school (where I was one of two assistant instructors) to a big martial arts school that I began commuting too in the evenings in the city with a much better instructor (he was an instructor of instructors for the federation of this martial arts system), where I resumed the role of a student so that I could reach a higher skill ceiling than my prior instructor could get me to (I had stalled for quite some time). It worked like flying colors (this head instructor was a living meme; I should write about him sometime) and I got way better, but then... I broke my leg.

So after I healed, my summer job was as a deli clerk. I had applied to the UPS as a box handler and to Target as a cashier, but they both turned me down, and so I ended up in my backup job as a supermarket deli clerk for a summer.

The list of jobs might seem like cool or bragging but when you dig into the details of how it happened, a lot of it was random and not very flattering.

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Discussion

mcshane 2y ago

very cool, what is your martial arts background?

Lyn Alden 2y ago

12 years of karate, kickboxing, and jiu jitsu which was eventually rebranded as MMA, as MMA became more of a thing.

mcshane 2y ago

love it, that’s some serious proof of work! ever have a chance to train bjj or hit bags now?

Lyn Alden 2y ago

I stay in shape but haven’t done any bag hitting or bjj.

I would like to get back into some of it mildly, but have been too busy lately. In the years ahead I plan to improve work/life balance and will figure out what I want to do.

mcshane 2y ago

yesss, well I hope you get more freetime to train however you like 🤙 oss

iefan 🕊️ 2y ago

MMA is one of the purest and more sensible sports, unlike hitting a ball with a stick. I love it. Btw Jiu jitsu?

Lyn Alden 2y ago

When I started, it was back in the mid 1990s and our school didn’t call it MMA. It was a mix of karate, kickboxing, and jiu jitsu.

And then as the industry consolidated and and MMA became more of a thing, our school rebranded to MMA.

iefan 🕊️ 2y ago

I got it, Kickboxing and jiu-jitsu is a brutal combination, it's basically MMA.

The UFC really pushed it, now it's everywhere. Personally, I started with judo and now do jiu-jitsu. I really love and respect this sport.

Kaizen 2y ago

I'd love to have a light, technical spar with you.

Randall 2y ago

Hmm… sounds like Krav Maga