Where's My Parachute?

Today while getting into the car to go to lunch with the current team I'm helping, the guy who thinks he's my boss now asks, 'Do you need a booster seat?' how professional. I wanted to say, 'I dunno, do you need some new shocks?' (meaning, what, fat ass?!) I know, I know. It's really mean but I get really sick of the short jokes, particularly from people I hardly know, and especially not at the office. With my friends it's okay, but at least I know they view me as more than just Short Girl. But I bit my tongue because this guy is the boss' favorite and I'm not sure I want to be fired yet....my last witty comment to my other manager who also tried to be witty about my size eventually made its way back to HR and I almost got the talking-to, but he insisted to HR that he deserved it...let's just say I have an arsenal of comebacks for short jokes from years of experience, some of which are especially unfavorable if you are male. Don't dish it if you can't take it. In any case when I thought about that first incident, (to which my manager replied 'I'm insulted and impressed at the same time!') I wondered what I would have done if pulled into conference room 4 for a 'talk.' Frankly, I wasn't sorry, but I don't know if the me who was afraid of things going on my 'permanent record' in school or bitchy me who's put up with all sorts of crapola in NYC would come out. Whenever I'm meek or laugh it off, I regret not defending myself. When I have my witty or bitchy comeback, I almost inevitably feel bad about it, worried that I hurt their feelings. So the standard answer lately in the office is the slow 'har..har...very funny.' Lame.

I'm having a minor quarterlife crisis a little bit late (grad school delayed this I'm guessing) and considering leveraging my architecty skills into something broader and more in demand. If I do another drainage plan (been on drainage for about 1 month or so now) I'm going to have to run out of the building screaming. I'm sorry I promised in my last post not to talk about career crises so if you want to avoid that skip the rest of this post and go on about your day.

Please share your stories of career crises, job changes into positions that weren't exactly what you were doing before or expecting, and other such anecdotes. Last year I did actually read 'What Should I do with my Life?' but I would love to hear from people I know too. I need some commiseration s'il vous plait.

I'm looking into applying for two positions I've come across lately. One is an environments designer, which is going to be super competitive and is a bit of a long shot, but actually is the sort of thing I'd really love...lots of shadowing people to see how they really use space, etc. , coming up with recommendations, design concepts, but not necessarily doing the tedious part of figuring out every nut and bolt of the ultimate execution. Better yet, they actually LIKE people with interdisciplinary backgrounds, which in job interviews in architecture I usually get the eyebrow raise that I was a liberal arts undergrad. Studying your client's needs and behaviors is what architects are *supposed* to do anyway but generally the budget for this part of the job is so small that it's virtually nonexistent. In the hierarchy of my current firm, I've never seen any of the sites I've worked on, which to me is sacrilege in architecture or any design field. And then everything is designed by the two official 'designers' while the rest of us 90 people do the grunt work of making it real. Good for learning about construction, but also good for wearing away love for the work.
The other position is more 'practical' and I'd be essentially entry level....product marketing management for Google. I love Google and their products and they are so relevant to everyday life, but it's almost an entirely different field so I have reservations. I know I'd use my architecty skills but I'd feel like I wasted grad school, and it will be harder case to argue. I hate job hunting. Nothing like having your education, career path, skillset, and persona value judged.
*sigh* If you made it to the end of this post, thank you for reading and resisting rolling your eyes.