Congratulations, Kim Ng!

I am (im)perfectly happy with the career that I had. My work was generally interesting, I made decent money, and - most important - I had great colleagues (some of whom became great friends). Which doesn't mean that if I had it to do over again, I wouldn't have done something else. 

As a do-gooder at heart, think I would have been happy in the social services sorts of places my volunteer work takes me.

Giving money away by working for a foundation that gives money away to the social services sorts of places my volunteer work takes me also has a ton of 'what if' appeal.

I can't see me teaching kids, but college professor might have suited me just fine.

I like numbers. I like puzzles. I like solving mysteries. Maybe I should have been a forensic accountant. 

Politics is right up my alley, so I can envision myself working for an elected official. Chief of Staff for a Senator would have been cool. 

I know I would have been happier if my career had more directly involved writing. (I was in marketing, so I always wrote a lot, but it wasn't usually the main point of what I was doing.) So, I coulda-shoulda-woulda been a journalist. Or just bitten the bullet somewhere along the line and tried to make it as a writer, scrounging up a living and somehow keeping body and soul together. 

Then there's sports...

As a lifelong fan, wouldn't it have been fun to work for, say, the Boston Red Sox? No, I'm not enough of a wonk to have been in any strategic or operational position, but community outreach or marketing might have been a good place for me. 

On the other hand, strategic and operational is an excellent place for Kim Ng, who was just named the General Manager of the Florida Marlins, the first woman GM in any of the men's professional sports leagues. (And the first Asian-American, to boot.) 

She is, not surprisingly, supremely qualified. 

First off, she's both super-smart and something of a jock. She graduated from the University of Chicago (thus: super-smart) and she played varsity softball while there (thus: something of a jock).  Admittedly, Chicago isn't exactly an athletic powerhouse. (When was the last time you heard anything about The Maroons?) But if you're playing college sports, you're plenty competitive. And if you played softball, you know how baseball works. 

After college, Ng stayed in town and worked for the White Sox, where she became Assistant Director of Operations. This was followed by a stint with the American League. She then worked for the Yankees as Assistant GM. Then it was on to the Dodgers, where she held the same position. For the better part of the past decade, she's worked for Major League Baseball as SVP of Baseball Operations.

So, supremely well qualified.

But as we saw in 2016 when another supremely qualified person got passed by (thanks to the peculiarities of the Electoral College), being supremely qualified isn't always enough, especially if you're a woman. And/or a minority.

And for the longest while, it wasn't enough for Kim Ng:

...Ng, a former assistant GM for the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers, had interviewed at least four times for GM openings beginning in 2005, only to fall short each time. (Source: Washington Post)

Finally, though, supremely qualified is enough, and Kim Ng has just hurled a baseball through the glass ceiling of pro sports management. 

...the natural pinnacle of the recent trend of women making significant inroads in a sport that was once closed off, if not downright hostile, to them.

I'm so happy for Ng that I can even forgive her for having grown up a Yankees fan. 

Props to Marlins owner Derek Jeter (yes, that Derek Jeter) for making diversity a hallmark of the way he runs his team. And while the Marlins have often been a laughing stock, I will note that the finished this past season above .500 (unlike the Red Sox) and made it to the playoffs (unlike the Red Sox).

So congratulations to Kim Ng! 

Bet she won't be sitting there in twenty years with much by way of career regrets...