I’ll bet you never realized caring for a diabetic cat has the same resume-building potential of a grad school education. Well, think about it. There are myriad high-level skills required to keep a furry diabetic going from day to day, and every one of them can be translated into a well-paying job. Just look at this list:
Budget Management: Isabella’s diagnosis meant all sorts of new entries on the Expense side of the household balance sheet, without corresponding increases on the Income side. One year later, I’ve still got the house, the creditors aren’t calling, and both cats are thriving. Is it such a stretch to think this sort of budgetary finesse could be applied to a job as the budget manager for, say, a small city or a Fortune 500 company?
Potential Salary: in 2006, the Budget Director for the City of San Jose earned just shy of $197,000.
Data Management and Interpretation: You’ve read about my spreadsheets. All those numbers and trends play a large part in the day-to-day decision making involved in feline diabetes care. Who else uses numbers and trends for daily decisions? That’s right – a stockbroker. Do I hear Dean Whitter calling?
Potential Salary: $131,290 is what those at the top of the middle 50% earn.
Diplomacy: Although I alone deal with Isabella’s diabetes on a day-to-day basis, I definitely need a knowledgeable veterinarian. Luckily, I’ve found one. Like all relationships, though, there are times when I don’t agree completely with the vet’s opinions (on, say, food) or suggestions (for lab tests). That’s where a healthy dose of tact comes into play. I’ve got to be able to disagree, ask questions, and make my own suggestions and maintain collaborative relationship. It can be tricky, but not, I imagine, any more tricky than the work done by the diplomats of the US Foreign Service.
Potential Salary: Senior Foreign Service officials earn $100,000.
Drug Delivery: I’m not talking about dark-alley felonies. Rather, I refer to the skill of safely inserting exogenous insulin into a creature with teeth and claws. It’s all about timing and distraction. I imagine it’s not unlike getting meds into a patient housed in a hospital for the criminally insane. On second thought – maybe that skill is best left off the resume…
Specialty Cleaning: It isn’t one of my favorite parts of kitty diabetes, but let’s face it: the disease involves a certain exposure to, ahem, bodily fluids. First, there’s the blood. Several times a day I perforate my cat to make her bleed. Sometimes the blood is easily contained, sometimes it gets flung far and wide. Then there’s the urine: it needs to be occasionally captured and tested for ketones. The capturing requires a certain intimacy with the cat; the testing, a certain intimacy with the urine. And then there’s the vomit. All cats puke; diabetic ones just seem to puke more, and they like to puke in the middle – middle of the night, middle of the floor, middle of the bed, etc. As Isabella’s personal handmaiden, I get to mop up all those fluids. Often. And that, I believe, qualifies me for a well-paid job as a crime-scene cleaning specialist.
Potential salary: Per the website HowStuffWorks.com “it's possible to reach six figures in a big city with a lot of violent deaths and meth labs” Cool.
So, if I ever get tired of my current job, I’ve got a few other options to explore, courtesy of my cat’s lazy pancreas.
Budget Management: Isabella’s diagnosis meant all sorts of new entries on the Expense side of the household balance sheet, without corresponding increases on the Income side. One year later, I’ve still got the house, the creditors aren’t calling, and both cats are thriving. Is it such a stretch to think this sort of budgetary finesse could be applied to a job as the budget manager for, say, a small city or a Fortune 500 company?
Potential Salary: in 2006, the Budget Director for the City of San Jose earned just shy of $197,000.
Data Management and Interpretation: You’ve read about my spreadsheets. All those numbers and trends play a large part in the day-to-day decision making involved in feline diabetes care. Who else uses numbers and trends for daily decisions? That’s right – a stockbroker. Do I hear Dean Whitter calling?
Potential Salary: $131,290 is what those at the top of the middle 50% earn.
Diplomacy: Although I alone deal with Isabella’s diabetes on a day-to-day basis, I definitely need a knowledgeable veterinarian. Luckily, I’ve found one. Like all relationships, though, there are times when I don’t agree completely with the vet’s opinions (on, say, food) or suggestions (for lab tests). That’s where a healthy dose of tact comes into play. I’ve got to be able to disagree, ask questions, and make my own suggestions and maintain collaborative relationship. It can be tricky, but not, I imagine, any more tricky than the work done by the diplomats of the US Foreign Service.
Potential Salary: Senior Foreign Service officials earn $100,000.
Drug Delivery: I’m not talking about dark-alley felonies. Rather, I refer to the skill of safely inserting exogenous insulin into a creature with teeth and claws. It’s all about timing and distraction. I imagine it’s not unlike getting meds into a patient housed in a hospital for the criminally insane. On second thought – maybe that skill is best left off the resume…
Specialty Cleaning: It isn’t one of my favorite parts of kitty diabetes, but let’s face it: the disease involves a certain exposure to, ahem, bodily fluids. First, there’s the blood. Several times a day I perforate my cat to make her bleed. Sometimes the blood is easily contained, sometimes it gets flung far and wide. Then there’s the urine: it needs to be occasionally captured and tested for ketones. The capturing requires a certain intimacy with the cat; the testing, a certain intimacy with the urine. And then there’s the vomit. All cats puke; diabetic ones just seem to puke more, and they like to puke in the middle – middle of the night, middle of the floor, middle of the bed, etc. As Isabella’s personal handmaiden, I get to mop up all those fluids. Often. And that, I believe, qualifies me for a well-paid job as a crime-scene cleaning specialist.
Potential salary: Per the website HowStuffWorks.com “it's possible to reach six figures in a big city with a lot of violent deaths and meth labs” Cool.
So, if I ever get tired of my current job, I’ve got a few other options to explore, courtesy of my cat’s lazy pancreas.
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