Courage My Love - Dec 13, 2010

Oh crap, it goes from boom to bust in a heartbeat doesn't it. I know why we have Christmas. It's about having light in the darkness, hope in the time of the hopeless, and thinking, maybe, just maybe, it will work out, the sun will come back, the land will warm, spring will arrive and we will move from death to the birth of everything.

I find December is the hardest month. People die, lose their jobs, go broke, get lost, meet tragedy. Makes me want to hibernate.

What really started me on this rant, was work. All my whinging aside, this is a terrific place to work, the people are soso but that happens everywhere and now I cannot see how this can get better. For the last two years, this place has defied the rules of economic gravity. We were buffeted from the storms. The ships came in, the vessels unloaded and it never seemed to stop. Now it has stopped. There are so few ships in, no vehicles on the ground, 3/4 of the union laid off. I have a total of 7 people on this shift this week and next week doesn't look much better.

I hate, hate hate the thought of looking for work again. I am too old and too cranky to sit through bullshit interviews trying to convince some moron that I can do the job on offer, when in fact I could do his in a heartbeat, but not trying to seem too cocky or arrogant when I really want to yell at the top of my lungs "Hire me, you wanker, it'll be the only good thing you've ever done for this company".

Which gets me thinking about great jobs I have had, bad jobs I have had, and the times I fucked up on jobs and the other times where I was freakin great.

One of the ones I hated was the one I moved from the Okanagan to take. It sounded good, it paid well but nobody told me the President was a raving lunatic. A smart lunatic but a lunatic none the less. This guy was really bright in the business sense, I actually learned some stuff from him, but he was so incredibly socially inept, so fumbling a human being, so arrogant, so not aware of others around him, it was very funny and at the same time very sad. My job was to run the company which was divided into three divisions. Business was good, the plan was to free up the president so he could "develop" business, what ever that meant. My first clue should have been my office. It was on the second floor, at the far end of a board room, you actually had to walk through the board room to get to it.

That meant everytime there was a meeting, I could either stay in my office with the door closed or walk through someone else's meeting. It went downhill from there. I think what he really wanted was a fan club. I knew right away I wasn't going to be in it. The largest part of the business was run by a guy that reported to me, only he never reported to me. He was massively depressed and would sit in our meetings and stare at the wall. It was like talking to a rock.  Perhaps he felt overlooked, thought he should have the position not me, what ever it was I could not get to the root of it.

Things came to a head, about 11 months in, when someone asked me how I liked the place, and I said, I don't actually. The President and I sat down, he said he didn't want someone on his team that wasn't 100% there and committed. I said fair enough. I did not do well on that job, it never clicked, it never felt right, I felt out of place and I never hit it off with the guy, practically from day one. I believe I gave him some good work, not my best, but I did no harm. I went and had a look at their website tonight, and I know he is smart. In this downturn economy, he has invested millions in new technology. Smart move. He believes in balanced books at all times, and taught me to never let a problem get out of hand, to deal with it immediately.

Of the jobs I have liked and done really well, several come to mind. The last was the one before the one I hated, does that make sense? It was a small town with a surprising manufacturing base, and I was hired by a little company to run it. I ran it from 2.3 million in sales upto 12.5 million in sales in less than 3 years. I brought them new technology, did a complete overhaul on the facility and grounds and the employees all got the best bonus they had ever gotten (about $8000 each). It was a tough job, but so rewarding because I had a virtual blank slate of a company, and got to put into motion, programs and projects that had big returns.  They are still doing well, despite the downturn in the economy.

Okay, so I have been working since I was 12 years old. I have worked as a candy counter clerk in a theatre, a crossing gaurd at a school, a weather person at a weather station, helper in a kitchen, worker on an animal farm (the worst), a waitress - both in a bar and in restaurants, a store clerk. All those jobs seemed to be going no where, so I went back to school. Then I worked as a machinist, an assistant foreman, a foreman, a Supervisor, a Manager, an Operations Manager, and an HR Manager. Much more satisfying work and the pay was much much higher. So in the last 46 years I have worked in about 25 different places but the bulk of time was spent and money was made with 10 companies that range from super mega companies like McDonnell Douglas to Westinghouse to Daimler Chrysler and all the way down to little companies like that "One that can't be named that I wrote about above and the medium large one I am at now (shall also remain nameless but is a company that deals in logistics).  I never managed to stay anywhere more than 7 years because I mostly always got a better offer and moved on, occasionally got canned (twice) or just left because I was bored.

I am not sure which of the gods I have pissed off, must be the god of the lottery, because I will never be rich and I will always have to work, and working, well working takes courage my love....