Career Shift, Is it possible after 35 !!!? , Check my story below;

Once upon a time, something like 14 or 15 years ago, I have graduated from the faculty of tourism. And because I love practicing foreign languages & I always loved to deal with tourists, so my dream was to find a job that can let me express my interest & passion to help tourists visiting my country.

In less than a month, I found a job as a Passenger Handling Agent in Sharm el Sheikh International Airport, representing many airlines that carry hundreds of thousands of tourists visiting Sharm el Sheikh resort.                     

Over the next 10 years, I have received many promotions, latest to be a Passenger Handling Supervisor for many world class airlines. So truly every day was a blessing, as I have always thought that if you work in afield that you really love, it will be very hard to change or even to get bored from the every day routine.

Until One day, October 31, 2015, the day that changed my life & turned everything upside down, The crash of the Metrojet Airlines, flight 9268, carrying 224 passengers & crew members, departing from Egypt, Sharm el Sheikh to Russia, St. Petersburg.

I can still remember the voice of my colleague "Mohamed Hassanin", in the early morning of this unfortunate day, sitting on the next door office, struggling to hear the phone caller & shouting, "what?!! down?, the plane is crashed??, Oh god, Are you sure sir??!!.

Sadly, the Russian government called the incident a "terror attack", so it wasn't bizarre to learn that all Russian flights were suspended to fly to and from Sharm. And shortly all operating foreign airlines have suspended their flights as well.

Dazzled from the surprise, I kept waiting and wondering, what could be the impacts of this incident on my future life & career?. I have never imagined that this tarmac full of airplanes from different countries & this terminal that was once full of different nationalities will be empty for a long long time.

Because of what happened, my company had to relocate me to my hometown "the metropolitan Alexandria", where my job was very limited to only one or two flights per month, something that deeply affected my income, & I had to search for another source of extra income.

Because of that, I have discovered that I have others skills that I could benefit from, as I was able to sell specific products online and I have gained some good money from it. And very shortly I have found another job in a construction company as an entry level marketing executive, and over the next 2 to 3 years, I have become the Marketing Maneger for the same company.

Until finally, while I was surfing on the Internet, I found the ads for the Digital Marketing Nanodegree by Udacity, sponsored by Egypt FWD Initiative. I quickly passed the Challenger track, and here I am writing my first ever blog post as part of my first project, seeking to pass the professional track with a steady goal to develop my discovered marketing skills hopefully for the benefit of my new career that I once thought it will be impossible to change.!