Insights into The Daughter - Part Three

More quotes from The Daughter's Facebook page.

How they deal with parents:

"I got a ride, mom." "With who?" "I don't know but they have candy."

"Who are you on the phone with?" "My drug dealer, mom."

"What are you gonna do there?" "Smoke pot, get drunk, and kill people, mom."

"Mom, I'm going out!" "With friends?" "No mom, with Chewbacca."

"Will there be boys there?" "No mom, it's a nun party."

"Be safe!" "No mom, I was planning on dying today."

*Checks phone* 4 Missed calls -- Mom. CRAP IM IN TROUBLE!
********************************

Letters & Thanks:

Dear Math: grow up and solve your own problems.

Dear bed: I'm sorry I left you this morning, take me back?

Dear homework: you're not attractive and I'm not doing you.

Dear sleep: I know we had problems when I was younger, but now I love you.

Thanks phone, for being strong every time I dropped you.

Thank you, hand sanitizer, for telling me I have a cut on my hand.
********************************

Peace be with you.

Nostalgia...the old Pee Chee Folder...

The lovely and talented Miss Ally over at Fourth Grade Nothing recently posted
this blog about old lunch boxes and school supplies. She caused me to remember
some old school supplies of my own during my school years of the 1970's.

We used to all have yellow 'PeeChee' folders in those days...and on the back
side of the folder there was an illustration of some basketball players. The
way they were posed presented a perfect opportunity to enhance the graphic just
a bit to make it look like one guy was hammering a stake into the chest of
another player. Here is what the original un-defaced folder looked like:

Perhaps it was just my own local clique, but upon getting a brand new folder,
everyone I knew would modify the picture by drawing on it so it looked like
this: (The modification is circled in red)

Ah, well, I guess it was just a local California thing, but a big thank-you to
you, Ally, for bringing back this fond memory. THAT is what blogging is all about!

Peace be with you.

My Illustrious Career...Part Thirty-one

I had severely regressed in my career again...the beginning of 2002
found me working a temp job in an electronics factory assembling
little components of some sort, it paid slightly above minimum wage,
and I had secured this job via a temp job agency. But again, we
were blessed...while my bride consistently faces lay-off rumors at
her job, they have so far never happened for her, and she at least
has always had a steady, well-paying career. I, on the other hand,
was not contributing very much to the household income.

A little more probing, and some help from a group of people at our
church, and I found a job paying a little better, doing phone
tech support for a company called TelVista. We supported customers
trying to get the internet to work on their home pc's, and the
job was only a few miles from home.

I started doing this on Monday, February 11, 2002. I was only
destined to have this job for about six weeks, however, because
a very good friend of ours worked at another airline, and
with her letter of recommendation, on Wednesday, May 1, 2002,
at the age of 45, I began working at my present job, which will
(hopefully) be the LAST JOB I ever have.

I have had this job for over eight years now...by FAR the longest
I have ever held a single job...and I expect to keep this job
for something like another 7-10 years. By then, the mortgage will
be done, and I will be close to retirement age. I will no longer
have the stress of 'I MUST NOT LOSE THIS JOB' hanging over me...
which means, if I choose, I can keep working, or I may just wake
up one day and say "The hell with it...I have had enough!".

My bride, being several years younger than me, making good money,
and, fortunately, enjoying her job, will probably work a bit
longer than me.

I thank God every day that He has blessed me with such a wonderful,
smart, patient and giving woman. Sometimes I can't believe she
has stuck with me for 22 years so far.

Peace be with you.

My Illustrious Career...Part THIRTY!

As we have seen, I lost my job at Software Spectrum doing phone
technical support. But luckily for me, I now had some kind of
marketable skill that was in demand.

I had finally found a niche...because, as we will see, there are
still a few more jobs to come, but from here on in, they will
all be the same kind of job...computer support over the phone.
This is the type of work I am doing to this day.

Note here that just because I have FOUND a niche, doesn't mean
that I actually ENJOY it...being a slave to a phone that NEVER
stops ringing is not pleasant. After taking somewhere between
50,000 and 75,000 calls over the past 12 years (not exaggerating),
it does get a little bit tedious.

When describing what phone tech support is, I always like to use
the analogy of walking someone over the phone on how to repair a
transmission...and they don't know what a wrench is or how to use it.
By the end of the day, after taking between 20-50 calls like this,
I am mentally wiped out, and my voice is sore from talking all day.

While I am blessed that I currently have a stable and consistent
type of work, it does not mean I have found my life's calling.
Help desk jobs are not what people aspire to, they are what most
people would call 'entry-level' jobs, something to do temporarily
while on the way up. It is ironic that for ME, it is the culmination
of my working life...I don't expect to ever do any other kind of work.

One of my neighbors worked at a company called Sabre, which was a
subsidiary company of American Airlines. I know a main function
of the company deals with the creation and management of PNR's...
Passenger Name Records...the 6 digit number you always get when
you fly somewhere, it keeps track of your reservation.

(Sabre has since been bought out by EDS, but they still do essentially
the same thing).

With my neighbor's recommendation, I started with this company on
Monday, June 26, 2000. It was still tech support-not my dream job,
but it was a JOB. And not only that, since this was a large, old,
established, and stable company dealing with a high-demand product,
I was quite thrilled to think that finally, although still fairly
late in my life (I was now nearly 44 years old), I had at last found
employment at a solid company that I could expect to keep as long as
I wanted! I recall we celebrated with champagne.

Amazingly (you would think I would be used to let-downs by now),
after working here for slightly more than ONE YEAR...rumors began
to surface about lay-offs...because, as you may guess, this was an
airline-based company, and we all know what happened on September
11, 2001.

To the company's credit, they did what they could to keep me around,
but on Monday, December 3, 2001, they finally had to let me go.

Peace be with you.

Insights into The Daughter - Part Two

More quotes from The Daughter's Facebook page:

********************************
Things that happen:

Screaming "I have my phone!!" to avoid being thrown in the water.

Pretending to look for your homework when you know you don't have it.

Shouting out the wrong answer in class with confidence.

Lying in bed Wondering if it's worth it to get up and pee.

Questions on a test that give away the answers to other questions.
(Been there done that!)

Counting people to see which paragraph you have to read out loud.
(I have done this as well.)

Not knowing what to do when people are singing me the birthday song.

********************************
Glimpses into her mind that she still remembers being small:

Middle school is so dramatic.

Life is getting too complicated, I wanna be 5 again.

My email address is stupid because I made it when I was 11.

Back in Kindergarten: sticking out your tongue = flipping them off.
(This is pretty good.)

We used to call people and say "Can you play?" instead of "Can you hangout?".

When we were little, why were we so scared of our parents counting to three?
(Ha, I wonder about that too!!)

Peace be with you.

Moral Music...

WARNING!!!

The following post deals with religious themes, and may appear to be a bit
'preachy'.
If you don't care to read about my Christian beliefs, then you may feel free to
skip this post altogether. Thanks!!

******************************

(Ah, now that we are alone, I may continue...)

I often thank God that I did NOT succeed as a professional musician during the
1980's. It was while my buddy Ray and I were in our 20's that we attempted to
'break in' to the field of Rock Stardom, and, obviously, we never made it.

(The closest we came was performing Ramblin' Guy once on the same stage as
Belinda Carlisle during an open-mike jam session at a coffee-house in Orange County,
California).

I now realize that had I become famous, I would have been the most immoral, self-centered,
egotistical person on the planet. I would have fathered an unknown number of children
from all around the country, and would also probably have become a drug addict, infected
with all manners of social diseases. I would have spread this immorality and disease around
to hundreds of people.

And worst of all, I never would have met my lovely bride, nor have had the privilege of
raising The Daughter.

Now, on a more positive note, if I ever became successful in music today, I believe that
my current Christian standards would allow me to enjoy my success in a positive way. I would
be generous to people in need, would use my influence to help other talented musicians
succeed, and, no matter where I was in the world, would insist on attending a Catholic Mass
at least once per week.

If I am mistaken in this belief, may God NEVER grant me music success!
(I don't have to worry about that, I am too old and too lazy to even pursue it now).

I thank God that He has allowed me to live long enough to repent of my evil ways and has
granted me the grace to live my life in alignment with His Will.

Peace be with you.

My Illustrious Career...Part Twenty-nine

So here I am at the end of 1996, new town, new state. I did
have the benefit of some kind of computer experience, however,
which put me in a better spot than I had been in before.

After a few weeks of searching, I got a job as a contractor
working for GE...they had a small computer shop that leased
out computers for trade shows and conventions. We loaded
computers up and brought them to the Dallas Convention Center,
hooked them up, and then tore them down and brought them back
to the shop after the convention was over.

As a contractor, though, I was not accruing any vacation pay.
But after several months...I think Christmas had passed, so we
were now in the year 1997...they offered to take me on directly.
There was a catch, however...there would be a cut in pay.

I was not thrilled with that, so I continued to look for something
else. I was lucky that it was a good year economy-wise, as well
as the tech industry being healthy in Irving, Texas. The trade
school I had taken turned out to be one of the few things in my
life that actually had some benefit.

I got a tech support job with a company called Software Spectrum.
We did phone support for Microsoft, it was my very first job
doing phone tech support. I started this job on March 3, 1997.
(As an aside, a few weeks after starting this job, The Daughter
was born).

At this job, I supported network engineers who needed advice and
technical assistance in 'planning, deploying and configuring'
their Microsoft Exchange email servers. It was scary and
intimidating at first, but now I have done this long enough where
the most stressful part of the job is trying to explain to someone
over the phone how to do various tasks on their computer when they
are not computer literate.

One of the great perks of working in Microsoft's environment was the
unbelievably lax dress code...shorts, sandals, flip-flops, tee shirts,
everything was fine, as long as it was clean, not torn, and did not
contain any offensive logos.

If you walked in wearing a suit and tie, you would have attracted
more attention than if you had put on pajamas and a bathrobe.

I had this job for a little over 3 years, a good run by my standards.
I lost it because of many complicated reasons. Generally in my past,
I lost my jobs because of lay-offs, slow-downs, and dis-satisfaction,
but really have not been actually FIRED from anything except maybe
that Tax Service sales job back in 1993, but that was unfair on their part.

In this case, let me just state that while following standard company
procedure on a call, I failed to recognize that the caller on the
other end was a 'favorite' of the owner of the company, and should
have warranted free technical support. Of course, I had no way of
knowing that, but that did not stop them from releasing me.

The painful thing about this was the fact that I had been one of
the top performers of the company for the past few years, had nothing
but glowing and positive letters from past customers, never missed
a day or came in late, and had to endure a belittling and humbling
chewing out from them before they showed me the door. This was my
reward for being a hard worker. This is why I hate Big Business.

Sometimes I think that the people who sit around all day and collect
welfare and unemployment because they don't want to work are the smart ones.

I went home and picked up The Daughter from daycare...she was three
years old at the time. I gave her a bath, played with her, and then
put her to bed. I was glad that she was too young to realize that
her old man had just lost another job.

This was on May 16, 2000.
I was 43.

Peace be with you.

My Illustrious Career...Part Twenty-eight

In 1996, I had been working at G-Tech for about two and a half
years...not a bad run for someone of my caliber. The endless
driving was starting to get old, I usually racked up about a
thousand miles a week, but I still appreciated the steady job.

The value of our house in Palmdale, however, had plummeted due
to another recession, and we owed a great deal more on the house
than it was actually worth. Now, unless you plan on selling, this
is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as you can anticipate an
upward swing by the time you DO plan on selling, and it also makes
property tax more manageable.

My bride worked for the phone company. She has had that job all her
adult life, and in fact, still works there now. (I often wonder what
it must feel like to have a single stable job for that long).

Now, being very intelligent, well-educated, and very good at what
she does (whatever that is), when her company offered her a job
transfer to Texas, with a package to buy us out of our upside-down
house, along with all moving expenses, we decided that it was a
good idea. Since she was the one who had the career-type job, and
was making more money than I was, we would have been fools not to
take it.

(My bride is one of the smartest people I have ever known, and she
has worked very hard in her career). I sometimes wonder what she
could possibly see in me, and I know she loves me because she sure
as hell didn't marry me for my money!

I gave notice at G-Tech, but continued to work there while my bride
moved to Texas ahead of me to get an apartment and get settled in her
new office in Irving, a Dallas suburb. She also hooked up with
a real estate agent so we could look for a house.

I wasn't TOO worried about finding a job...I sent out slews of resume's
to various companies in Irving, Dallas, and Forth Worth hoping I could
get a job as a network engineer. As much work as I had gone through
to get my network certification, I was rather dismayed that nobody
would hire me without having experience...not even at an entry-level
job! So how do you GET experience? Work for free? I guess I was going
to have to work pretty hard at getting a job again.

So we moved to Texas in October 1996, I was 40 years old. It was
pretty depressing to have to be going through this unemployment
crap at this age...I was not a kid anymore.

Peace be with you.

My Illustrious Career...Part Twenty-seven

I finally finished my trade school education in late spring
of 1994. I had done really well, and passed everything with
good grades. (I don't think we were graded with letters, but
you get a certificate. I think I aced everything).

True to their word, they enrolled me in a placement service
so I could go out and get a real job for a change. I was
hoping to get an entry-level job working as a network engineer,
but my Novell training was not complete yet. But I did get an
interview with a company called G-Tech.

G-Tech is the outfit that manages the lottery machines in many
states...I am not sure if they do ALL of them, but they did in
California, and I know they do here in Texas as well.

I remember that I arrived to the interview very early, so as
to not take any chances, and due to my heavy schedule, and me
being tired all the time, I took a little nap in my car while
I waited. Can you believe that I almost over-slept and was
nearly late for the interview? I woke up just in time, but
I bet I appeared pretty groggy during the interview!

I guess they liked me, because I got hired...and a great job
it was! (In fact, had we not moved to Texas, I may have still
had this job today...but that part is coming).

It seems I must have secured this job in early Summer 1994,
because I know that I had just completed my training when I
came home one day and the OJ Simpson 'low-speed' chase was on
the news, which would have been June 17, 1994.

(This was also around the time my seventeen-year old cat died).

This job was pretty good in lots of ways. First, we all had
a company van to drive, because we were loaded up with computers,
TV monitors, and a myriad of spare computer parts and hardware.

We installed, maintained, and repaired the little lotto machines
that are so common on the counters in bars, liquor stores, markets,
and various other businesses. We also were responsible for the big
self-service 'kiosks' in many supermarkets...the ones that would
actually print a lottery ticket, or dispense the 'scratcher' tickets.

We all had fairly large territories to cover, and we would hit each
business once a month for general cleaning and maintenance, or
refilling supplies. If something broke, we got paged out to take
care of it, so if I was not actually working, I was always on-call.

My hours were nights and weekends at first, but after working
there for some time I managed to get a normal day shift...but I
was on-call as well, so if something broke in the middle of the night,
I would have to take that service call.

Now, I have to dispel a myth that some people just can't grasp. As
employees, we were forbidden to play the lottery, because if we won,
we would have been in-eligible to take the prize. Of course, we
still played, it was just common knowledge that if we DID win, we
would just give the ticket to a trusted friend, and take it from there.
My bride was not eligible either, but my father-in-law would have been
legal to take the prize.

But remember...the lottery numbers are drawn randomly by selecting
different balls...there is no way to know beforehand what the numbers
will be. I was surprised at how many people I encountered every day that
thought they were being cute when they asked me to 'give' them the
winning numbers! Now, if I could really do that, don't you think I
WOULD have given them to my father-in-law?? 'Nuff said about that.

Anyway, I turned 38 that summer, and was enjoying the job...really!
My territory was vast...since I lived in the high desert, I had a
southern territory in the Valley, and a Northern one that stretched
into Central California. I had one account in Bishop...which was about
250 miles north of where I lived...and if I had a call going up there,
it shot the whole day. This was not bad at all...where else can you have
a job where you drive a company van for 4 hours...get to an account, spend
an hour there, and then drive home for another 4 hours?

Click the map to see my territory:

One day while driving up Interstate 5 into Hungry Valley (Near
Lake Castaic), after servicing an account, a heavy, cold, icy fog
descended on the area. While attempting to drive home, a pretty
major chain-reaction accident occurred just a few car lengths in front
of me. The entire freeway had to be shut down for a few hours, and
as I recall, there was at least one death.

If I had entered the freeway just a minute or two sooner than I did,
I could have missed all this and would have been on my way...OR...I
could have been involved in it. I considered it my lucky day.
I shot some video of the aftermath, it was quite a scene.

If the video below fails to play, you could also try this link

This was all during the midst of the OJ Simpson trial, which was
broadcast on our local AM radio station, KFI, all day. I used to
love getting these long-distance incidents, as the signal from
KFI was strong enough that I could hear it for most of the trip,
and I was provided with much entertainment during these long drives!

In the meantime, I finally finished my Novell exams, and passed, so I
was now a Certified Novell Engineer, which I hoped to use to advance
my career.

I worked with G-Tech until October 1996, when we moved to Texas.
So, as you will soon see, not only did I end up unemployed again,
but in a completely different state...so my endless progression of
jobs is not done yet...I still had a few more to go...

Peace be with you.

My Illustrious Career...Part Twenty-six

At the end of 1993, I was 37, still going to trade school during
the day, and working at 800-Direct in the late evening. Computers
were coming into common use for most people, and I was learning
about electronics, servers, and the internet. Since my trade
school also had a placement service upon completion, I was pretty
confident that I could find a job with a company working with
computers or LAN management.

I was also taking a course on weekends where I was going to try
to become a Novell Certified network engineer (CNE). While my
studies for the trade school were not too difficult for me...I was
able to pretty much ace every single test I took with them...the
Novell learning was one of the hardest things I had ever done...
even up to this day.

So I was handling a pretty tight schedule...Computer school 8 in
the morning till 2 in the afternoon, and working at the answering
service from 3 PM to midnight, Monday-Friday. I took my Novell
school on Saturdays, and was able to read and study for this stuff
during slow periods at work late at night. But I only had a few
more months to go, I was really starting to feel like I was getting
my life in order.

But then, at 4:30 in the morning, on Monday, January 17, 1994, came
the Northridge Earthquake, a magnitude 6.7, which is pretty high on
what they call the Richter Scale.

Now, before I start to complain about the wrench that this threw
into my plans, let me count my blessings:

1. While our house was shaken up pretty badly, our town of Palmdale
was far enough away to not sustain any damage.

2. The quake came early in the morning on Martin Luthor King Day...
a holiday for many people. This combination prevented what could have
been a deadly catastrophe for people that could have been driving the
freeways...as it was, they attributed about 72 deaths to the quake.

3. Police Officer Clarence W. Dean was killed when his motorcycle
plunged off the end of the destroyed freeway connector where Highway
114 feeds into Interstate 5. The rebuilt connector bears his name to
this day.

Since the destroyed connector was really the ONLY easy way for commuters
in my town to get to the Valley, this presented quite a problem for me...
HOW was I going to continue going to school and to work? There was an
alternate route, however...taking Sand Canyon off the 114 to Little
Tujunga Canyon Road, leading into the Valley. Of course, myself and a
few thousand other people had the same idea...which meant very heavy
traffic, and a lot of time spent. But at least it was an option.
Click the map below to see the details:

And finally, I dug up an old video I had taken a short time after
the earthquake. It is very 'quaint'.
If the video below does not play, you could try this link:


Thank the Lord, I survived, and was able to continue my education
and my work.

Peace be with you.

My Illustrious Career...Part Twenty-five

I had just been released from my job of trying to sell income tax
services to local businesses in the San Fernando Valley.

I realized then, half-way through 1993, at the tender age of
37, that computers were becoming more and more common, and since
I had always been an 'electronic gadget' sort of person, it might
not be a bad idea to start learning something about them.

I started going to a trade school to learn about computers and
electronics. I was still living in the high desert...Palmdale,
California, and the school was located in the Valley, I believe
it was Van Nuys.

It was going to be nine months of classes, five days a week, and
the hours were 8:00 AM to 2:00 PM. I would have to find me a job
where I could hopefully work early afternoon to late at night, so
I could at least be at home with my bride at night.

First, I thought I would try driving a taxi, since I was a pretty
experienced driver. They ran in twelve hour shifts, so they said
I could start working the 3:00 PM to 3:00 AM shift. I wasn't real
sure how I was going to be able to fit SLEEPING into this
schedule, but I'm sure it wasn't going to be 5 days a week. It
might have been only 3 or 4 days a week, which I thought I could
handle if it was Saturday, Sunday, Monday and maybe Tuesday.

I started in the middle of my shift for the first night, and it was
not very comforting. The very first fare that I picked up was in
the middle of the night, around 1:00 AM, and I was instructed to take
him up to a remote and dark location in Topanga Canyon.

Starting from the Valley, Topanga Canyon Road runs south and goes
through some pretty remote mountains towards the ocean between
Malibu and Santa Monica. As we pressed on through the dark and
twisty road, my mind was running overtime going through various
scenarios where he would try to rob or kill me...this was a real
fear that I had, and I couldn't believe I was going through this
on my VERY FIRST FARE!

It all worked out, however, and we got to his destination, he paid me,
and I was on my way.

There was another time where I picked up a very elderly man so
I could drive him to 7-Eleven where he would go to use the ATM.
Normally, fares were calculated by a combination of miles driven
and time elapsed. I know these things are probably all modern and
computerized today, but back then, it was still the old-fashioned
mechanical meter box where you had to grab this big lever and
pull it down to start counting.

The meter was running when we got to 7-Eleven, and the elderly
gentleman asked me to wait for him, and to keep the meter running,
like we would be required to do. And then I watched, as the old
sir began to slowly shuffle over to the store at about the same
speed as the growth rate of bamboo.

It took him several minutes to make his way to the door, and I
painfully watched the meter click off twenty cents every fifteen
seconds. Now, I am not afraid to take money from fares for
legitimate services, but there was no way I was going to watch
this man get charged 80 cents a minute while I was sitting in my air-
conditioned car waiting for him, especially in light of the fact
that there was really no telling how long he would actually be IN
the store.

I had to reach up and crank off the meter until he came out, and
when he was within a few feet of the car on his way back I turned it
back on. I bet with the computerized gizmos today, I wouldn't have been
allowed to do that.

(I don't recall that I took this as 'stealing' money from the company, I
think I made up the difference myself, it was only a few dollars, I could
afford that).

I worked this job for a couple weeks, and made decent money from tips (at
least, compared to what I was used to making so far in my life).
But the cabs were not maintained very well, and a few times I
had breakdowns. I would have to radio in my location and wait for
someone to come pick me up and bring me back to the depot. This would
be a wasted night...no money made, and no sleep either.

Since I was going to my trade school during the daytime, I knew that
if I could pick up a more comfortable job to work in the late afternoons,
knowing it would only be temporary, I decided to try to hook up again
with the answering service I had worked at a few years back...800-Direct.

This worked out just fine for me...I went to school from eight in the
morning till two in the afternoon, then worked at 800-Direct from 3:00 PM
till around midnight. I was able to spend most of the night at home with
my bride, and didn't have to get up again until 6:00 AM.

I think I was starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel!

Peace be with you.

My Illustrious Career...Part Twenty-four

Early in 1993, the embroidery company I had been working for
completed their re-location to Las Vegas.

Since I needed to get a job in a hurry, I turned to...take a
guess...another sales job!

Now, it's not that I love sales so much, in fact, I hate it...
but it is the only way for a slob like me to get into a quick
job, which is why I fall back to it so often.

I did a job where I had to go to different businesses and try to
set them up with a contract to bring in vending machines for snacks.
I had a pretty hard time with this one, and I did not do it for
very long.

(You must think I am quite the flake the way I blow through these
jobs...and you just may be right to think that).

Next, I answered an ad where I was going to try to sell tax services
to businesses. I must have impressed them during the interview,
because I ended up spending a week in Atlantic City, New Jersey for
training. I did well at the training, and when I arrived back home
they started sending me out.

I recall that the leads were secured by some office personnel that
were doing out-bound solicitation calls to small businesses in
the area. They set appointments for me to go out to them and try
sell them our income tax service. It was pretty good in the sense
that these were confirmed leads, so I was not just 'cold-calling'.

I don't remember what kind of money I was to make, or if I even
made any money during this run, because they really didn't give me
the chance to work it long enough.

I had done enough sales to recognize that often, you don't make a
sale during the first visit. If you try to pressure people too hard
on the initial call, you end up just pissing them off and they
will not buy anything. In this kind of sale, you have to lay out
the information for them, give them all the facts, and set a call-back
time for a return visit to discuss their questions.

The people that hired me expressed concern that I was coming back
from the initial call without securing a contract. I remember that
after only a few weeks, they began sending me out on sales calls
with one of the senior big-wigs to see what I was doing wrong.
On the calls we went on together, this big-shot pro did not get
any firm commitments either on his first try.

This did not stop them from 'letting me go', however, due to
poor performance. You would think that after going through the
expense of a plane trip from California to New Jersey, a week's stay
in a decent hotel with all meals included, as well as whatever the
training program itself had cost them, that they would at least look
at the system a bit closer before just canning me after about 6
weeks...especially in light of what their top executive was able to
'accomplish'.

This turned out to be the very last job I would ever do that had
anything at all to do with sales.

Peace be with you.

My Illustrious Career...Part Twenty-three

During 1992, I started working as a shipping-receiving clerk
at a company called Art Craft Embroidery. This company was
owned by the husband of a friend my bride knew from work. I
started working there with the understanding that it would
be temporary, as they were getting ready to transfer the
operation to Las Vegas.

They didn't manufacture any clothes, but they did have racks
and racks of automated computer-controlled embroidery machines
that would create pictures, text, and logos on shirts and caps
using colored thread.

They had some pretty big contracts with companies like Disney,
Universal Studios, and various record companies.

When shipments of clothing came in I would receive it, count
it, and store it in preparation for the work to be done on them.
I would also take care of shipping completed orders out again,
as well as doing general inventory tracking, and helping with
moving boxes of merchandise around to wherever it needed to go.

The company was located in Burbank, but they were gradually
transferring the operation to Las Vegas. I recall that I made
one trip out to Vegas during 1993 to help them get set up. Then,
since I did not plan to move out there, I was all done with
the company.

This was the year that I turned 37.

Peace be with you.

Memories of Past Desert Trips

Some of my best memories from my 20's was going out camping
in the desert with my old buddies. I don't really have to
go into a whole lot of detail about it in this post, since
when I first started blogging late last year I did a pretty
long post about going to the desert called Leon's Grave,
which can be seen if you click this link.

This was the Mojave Desert, California, just north of good
old Victorville. We went on many trips in the summers
between about 1976 and 1987. I am just posting a mish-mash
of pictures over the years...and I realize it may not mean
much to anyone reading this, but it means a lot to me, so I
am compelled to post them.

This is a map showing the approximate location of our
campground. Today, it is mostly built up and developed:

1977: Me with my guitar (I always brought my guitar)
and a shot of cloud shadows on the plain:

1978: Some buddies looking at a coming storm, and me
overlooking the plain:

1979: Hood surfing!! (using a hood from an old VW bug):

And me holding my friend Jack, observing as someone tries
to tune my guitar:

At night, I upgraded to Budweiser, and decided to annoy my
buddy Jeff:

Here is a bunch from 1985:
Any tent needing instructions is too complicated for me:

A series of zoom-ins of our campsite taken from a rocky
outcrop:


I am always impressed by females who can shoot:

Star trails taken by putting my camera on a tripod and
leaving it there for several hours. This was during the
days of film cameras, obviously, so I had to wait about a
week to see if it even came out. I was quite surprised that
it did!

1986: A classic teepee.

1987: My bud James on the left (who got me the job at ITT)
and me on the right. This was one of our last trips.

I will never forget those days.

Peace be with you.

My Illustrious Career...Part Twenty-two

In 1991 I began working at an answering service place, they
were fairly well-known in the Valley, I think this was in
Canoga Park, and the company was called 800-Direct.

'Answering service' is a pretty generic term, what we really
did was answer the phones in response to various ads that
played on TV, or took orders from magazines.

If you ever were watching TV in the middle of the night, and
saw one of those info-mercials come up where they say "Call
Now and have your credit card ready!"...I was the person
who may have taken that call! Our phones were hooked up to a
computer, and when someone called in, they went through the
computer, and a message would pop up on our screen giving us a
ready-made script to read that was tailor-made depending on
what phone number they called.

Our script would have us say, for example:
"Thank you for calling to order the Franklin Mint Coin, may I
take your order?"
Or
"Thank you for calling to donate to Care International..."
"Thank you for ordering such-and-such CD or movie..."
You get the point.
Then we would collect their name, address, credit card number,
etc.

I worked the week-ends and the overnight shift. On a slow night,
we would be sitting around reading, when suddenly all the
phones would light up. We would nod to each other, saying,
"Yep, they must have just ran one of the ads on TV!"

We also got calls from people ordering stuff from magazines...
Joseph A. Bank, Barnes & Noble, What On Earth, Cracker Barrel,
Crabtree & Evelyn etc., as well as turning on certain cable
channels for their TV's.

Once in a while I got a call from someone well-known or someone
who was semi-famous...I talked to Gil Garcetti, who was the DA of
LA at the time, and we knew him pretty well from the local news.

I also talked to Alex Trebeck's sister...she was quite a hoot
as I recall. A very nice woman, we had a great chat.

Here is a little hint...these catalogue ordering places make
a large portion of their profits on what they charge you for
'shipping and handling'. For a plastic gizmo that weighs a
few ounces, they could charge you ten bucks for 'shipping',
when in reality, the fastest first-class you can possibly get
at the post office would only cost you about a buck.

Getting a 'free life-time supply' of Sham-Wow still makes them
money...it probably only costs them a dollar or two to make and
send you a new rag, and since they say 'Just pay Shipping and
Handling', they can charge you ten dollars, and they still make
a profit.

Not that you can do anything about this, but it kind of annoys
me that they can just randomly 'make up' anything they want to
so they can charge you a fee for something.

I left this job somewhere in 1992 to work for someone my bride
knew who had his own clothing embroidery factory. But this gig
at 800-Direct will be re-visited a few years later, as we
shall see. Isn't the anticipation just KILLING you?

Peace be with you.

My Illustrious Career...Part Twenty-one

After being laid off from Familian in 1991, I was again on
the prowl for a new job. My patient, newly-married bride was
now forced to see me go through a succession of crappy,
low-paying no-future jobs all in the year 1991:

I did out-bound telephone solicitation calls for our local
newspaper. That was not pleasant at all...no better for me
than it is for you to get the call at dinner.

I worked for a time as an office manager for a 25-year-old 'kid'
who owned an auto window-tinting shop in Chatsworth.
I think his dad had set him up in business, and I was the one who
answered his phones, helped with his accounting, supervised the
lads who were working on the cars, and scheduled his appointments.

This kid must have had some pretty good connections, because
he had service contracts with all the major new car dealers in
the area, and it was pretty cool when we got to go to the dealers
and drive the new cars back to his shop to do the tinting.

He even did a few Rolls Royces...and I learned that the proper
way to refer to these cars was not by calling them a 'Rolls',
but as a 'Royce'.

But it was a temporary minimum wage gig, and silly me, I took on
another Sales type job during that year! I sold adjustable beds...
not the well-known Craftmatic, but a brand called Celebrity Choice.

These were very expensive beds, running into several thousand
dollars, and were sold by going directly to home owners who had
requested that we come out to them. It was difficult, hard-sell
work, but the commission was fairly nice on a sale. Still, you really
had to work hard mentally, and I was going out to work on
evenings and weekends, almost every day. It was not what I
wanted to be doing while still a newlywed.

Next I took a job at an answering service.
This was 'flunky work' as well, but interesting enough to warrant
its own post, so this will be described in my next exciting episode!

Peace be with you.

My Illustrious Career...Part Twenty

I was laid off from Simon-Levi Liquor Distributors after
a nearly 3 year run. My bride and I had purchased a home
in Palmdale...the housing prices in the Valley were just
too rich for us, and we found that new houses in the high
desert were more within our budget.

My mother-in-law had been working as an accountant for a
plumbing-supply company for most of her adult life, and
she determined that she could probably get me in as a
warehouse worker\counter person. So I started working at
Familian Pipe and Supply in early 1989. Gotta love Nepotism!

I ended up working there for about 2 years before getting laid
off due to a company slowdown. I worked in various capacities,
such as counter-person, warehouse worker, receiving, and
towards the end, as delivery, sales and purchasing.

They had several branches in Southern California, and I started
out working in Van Nuys in the main warehouse. I learned all
about the different types of pipe fittings...copper, steel, PVC, ABS,
and cast iron. I became knowledgeable about the various tools and
accessories of the trade, the lingo, and was able to make recommendations
to plumbers as to what size water heater to install, and what style toilet a
customer might be happy with.

I worked the counter waiting on plumbers and contractors who
came in to buy pipe fittings, pipe, toilets, tubs, faucets, etc. I
worked the late afternoon shift (commonly called the 'swing' shift).
Later in the evenings I would help load up the trucks for delivery
of big- ticket items to various job sites.

I recall I was also on their incoming help phone lines to take
orders over the phone for contractors calling in.

Sometimes we had to unload full semi trailers full of boxed toilets,
which was the worst part of the job. Inside the trailers in the
middle of summer, it was HOT and dusty...running back and
forth inside of them while lugging toilets from the trailer to
stacked pallets outside was some of the most distasteful work I
have ever done.

But aside from that, it was decent work, and the people I
worked with were all great. My hope was to someday work my
way into the classy showroom where I could be involved in the
sales of high-end tub and shower enclosures, and fancy
expensive faucet fixtures. This never happened, as I kept
getting shifted around to different branches to forestall the
pending layoffs.

As time went on they transferred me to a smaller outlet in
Chatsworth which dealt mainly in plumbing supplies only, not so
much the water-heaters and bathtubs. It was while working for
this branch that I got involved in some outside sales. I went
through the phonebook, contacted plumbers in the area, and tried
to drum up some business that way.

I also became a delivery-driver several days a week, loading
up the pipes, toilets, and aluminum flashing, and then delivering
it to new construction sites in a bobtail truck.

Finally, I got sent to the North Hollywood branch, where I
was doing mainly paperwork, keeping track of purchasing
orders. It was a nice change to have normal office work for a while.

Then, I was laid off on February 5, 1991.
(As we get into the more recent past, I am able to come up with more
exact dates for some of this stuff).

I was now 34 years old, and being unemployed was a lot
scarier now that I had a wife and a mortgage...thankfully, my
bride is a lot smarter than me, has a college education, and has
always had the same steady job at GTE (now, Verizon).

Peace be with you.

My Illustrious Career...Part Nineteen

I started working for Simon-Levi Liquor Distributors in late
1986, the year I turned 30. I became aware of this job because
they had supplied my dad when he was in the restaurant
business all those years ago. I had filled out an application, and
had been hoping to hear from them for some time.

I was a liquor salesman\merchandiser. It wasn't hard sell at all,
I serviced existing accounts at bars, restaurants, liquor stores,
and even in supermarkets (in Southern California, most of the
supermarkets sell hard liquor...not just beer and wine).

Restaurants and bars were pretty easy, normally I would arrive
at each account on the same day of the week at about the same
time, and they would be expecting me, and have the order all
ready to take.

At the markets and liquor stores, it was a little more work, as
I had to try to promote special brands, and try to 'bump' up
their order. But after some of the cold-call, hard-sell
commission-only jobs I had done, it was a relief to be doing
this.

And the best part was, I didn't have to handle the merchandise.
I took the orders, and the liquor was delivered at a later date.
Sometimes at a supermarket if it was a really big order, I would
help them set up a display. You may have seen those big fancy
stacks they build at markets, where they promote the Super Bowl,
or NASCAR, with bottles of beer or liquor all artfully arranged
in boxes. But that was it.

All in all, this was a great job, the pay was fair if not
outstanding, and I was pretty happy doing it. For the first time
in my life, I had a job that did not give me nausea when I thought
about having to go to work! This was the first time I had ever
had a job that made me feel like a real human being...where
when you are meeting someone new, and they ask you what you
do for a living, I did not have to evade the subject.

In fact, I still had this job in early 1988 when I first met
my future bride. Of course, now that I know my bride so well,
I can understand that she is not so shallow that what I did
for a living would affect her feelings for me, but it sure
didn't hurt that I had held the same job for two years!

So in the summer of 1988, we got married, I turned 32 a few
days later, and as we settled down to live in her apartment
in Santa Monica, I began to hear the hellish rumors of a
layoff due to the company going out of business!

Apparently, we were losing lots of our name-brand liquors to
the competition. For example, while we used to handle Bacardi
Rum, Chivas Regal Scotch, and Korbel Champagne, we were
now being relegated to brands like Sheep's Head Scotch...

After the layoff, I was hired briefly with another distributor
outfit called Bohemian, but they dealt only in wine. I was
not as happy there, and just before we moved to the high
desert in Palmdale, California, we learned from my
mother-in-law that the company she worked for was hiring.

Peace be with you.

My Illustrious Career...Part Eighteen

It was early in 1986, and being pretty new in town, and not
having a stellar work history, I needed to get a job quickly.
I applied as a car salesman, even though I had no experience
doing this. They took me on anyway.

I worked for a Toyota dealer, and our job was to hang around
'The Point'...a small concrete walkway where customers would
first arrive when heading towards the new car lot.

The job was commission-only, and with several of us salesmen
working at the same time, we would take turns approaching
customers.

My job was not so much selling, negotiating, or closing as it
was just getting the customer interested enough to go inside,
sit down with a closer, and talk about it. I was the one who
got to take them out on test drives, demonstrate the car, and
find out what their interest level was.

Once I got them to go inside the dealership and talk with a
manager, my part was done...and that was fine with me. I had
done enough sales so far to know that I really wasn't in the
mood to try to talk them into a sale or discuss pricing.

Once the deal was closed, I did get my little commission for
getting things started, I think it was about seventy-five
dollars to me if it turned into a sale. That wasn't really too
bad of a deal, I was able to get a few turns done per week,
the people I worked with were all pretty cool, and I didn't
have to do any hard labor for a change.

I did find out a few things about car dealerships, though.
Amazingly, I learned that they really don't make that much
profit on a new car...whatever they have on the sticker is
what you are going to pay, even with that sticker price, the
profit they make on the car after buying it from the factory
is only a few hundred dollars. That's not a lot of profit when
you are talking about a price tag of 20-40 thousand dollars.

They don't go inside the dealership and start haggling about
the price of the car...what they are discussing is financing.
As you probably know if you have ever bought a car from a
dealer, they are going to make their money on interest, length
of loan, and whatever kind of 'extras' and maintenance
contracts they can load onto the deal.

If I had stuck with the dealer, I could have eventually become
one of these pro 'closers' and made the real money...but I had
no desire to do that, nor did I agree with the morality of it.

So when one of my past buyers offered me a job with his
company as a Real Estate Appraiser, I accepted the offer. It
was normal daytime work, weekends off, and since I had a little
bit of real estate knowledge, I figured this would help me.

After I quit the car salesman job, I found out that this person
had only just started his company, and was still building it up.
He wasn't really in a position to pay anything as yet.
(I guess I should have discussed all this before I jumped in,
but the guy was pretty persuasive with what he promised me).

But it all worked out in the end, because there was a liquor
distribution company I had been trying to get into for some
time, and one day, out of the blue, I finally got a call from
them!

So near the end of 1986, at the age of 30, I secured what was
going to be for me one of the best jobs I have ever had!

Peace be with you.

My Illustrious Career...Part Seventeen

Near the end of 1985, after having crashed and burned from
spending all summer working every day in a high-pressure
direct sales job, I found myself in need of another job.

If it hadn't been for me blogging, I never would have tried
to research and remember all of these. And some of the specifics
may not be 100% accurate, such as the exact years that I
had these jobs, but mostly I remember them because I can
recall what movies or songs were out when I held a particular
job, and that always jars the memory.

It is not actually WORKING that I dislike, but the fact that
you HAVE to work, if that makes any sense. Going to work may
be a necessity, but the part that really stresses me is thinking
that I MUST NOT LOSE this job, or I will not easily find
another one.

So when I finally retire, I will sit back, relax, and think
to myself that I don't have to freaking WORRY about trying
to get another job!

Anyway, to continue...the rest of 1985 was a whirlwind of temp
jobs secured through a job placement service. I worked in
various warehouse and light manufacturing jobs, random jobs
involving physical labor, and delivering pre-made sandwiches
to liquor stores.

Also, thanks to my dad teaching me things when I was a kid, I
was able to pick up some various jobs doing carpentry, painting,
and even some wallpaper-hanging.

I did a few sessions for some talented musician friends of mine
in a recording studio, and that made me a few bucks as well.

I then latched on to a more steady type of job in a factory
that manufactured glass lenses. This was decent, low-stress
work during a normal day shift, and I existed right through
the end of the year doing that.

I recall I must have still had this job at the end of 1985,
because they actually passed out hundred-dollar bills to all
the employees for a Christmas bonus! Not only was that very
welcome for me, but it was pretty unusual for a company to do
that for the 'flunky' employees...at least, that has always
been the case in my experience.

However, this job still did not pay very much, and I was not
going to be able to afford to stay in my Orange County apartment
any longer...in fact, I was not going to be able to stay in
Orange County at all. I ended up moving back into the San Gabriel
Valley where I had grown up. Got myself a cheaper little
apartment, and that wasn't too bad, since I knew more people there.

But again, I needed to find a job...

Peace be with you.