I don’t make minimum wage. I make the “effective minimum wage of about $13.00 per hour. It’s strange to say that I don’t actually know how much I make. I don’t work for the money.
That’s not true. I work so that my lovely wife doesn’t have to work as hard. But there is a strong disconnect between my work and the compensation I get.
It wasn’t always that way. My previous job I earned well above six figures. It was a comfortable salary but a very uncomfortable job. I HATED it. Well, again, that’s not entirely true. I really enjoyed the job. But my coworkers, and the president of the company, made the job nearly intolerable. I say nearly because, hey, I stayed.
At my current job I earn in a year what I used to earn in a month. Strange to think about it that way.
Why? Have I lost the ability to be a successful Program Manager? Have I lost my Project Manager mojo?
No. I’m as good as I ever was.
I have lost something. I’ve lost the drive. I’ve lost the willingness to put up with crappy bosses, toxic coworkers, office politics.
I have never worked in retail. Until this job. I don’t want to think I judged retail workers. But despite my attempts, I did. I realized as I applied for the job at 7-Eleven. Do you want to know why I applied? It certainly wasn’t a desire to become a clerk. I joined because I used to go to that 7-Eleven every day and buy a large Cherry Coke refill. I never bought anything else. Just the $1.06 refill.
The owner always greeted me with a smile and a sincere “How are you?” When I got to the point that I needed to do something about work, I asked him one day, “Do you need another clerk?”
That was it. That was my application. He didn’t check my resume. He didn’t care about any of my precious IT certifications, or the books I’d written. “Can you work weekends?”
Add in a nametag and a not un-stylish black shirt and I had a job.
And the surprising thing was, I realized I enjoyed it. I get to meet a hundred people or more per day. And I have a chance, a very brief chance to brighten their day. And there is no stress. My job is pretty simple. There are some important elements, the first one being, “Keep track of the money.” But I know how to do the things expected of me. My boss is as low stress as I imagined.
And I don’t go to work every day planning to get fired. That was my mentality in IT. It had to be, getting fired, or laid off is an occupational hazard. My boss only fires people for one reason: stealing. I’ve never been tempted to be a thief. Besides to steal, you’d have to care about the money. And as I said, I don’t even know how much I make. I’m not doing it for the money.
I’m doing it for me mental health. . .and it’s working.
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Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren. Miscellany III A Collection of Holiday Short Stories, is an anthology that includes his latest short story, “You Can Call Me Dan”
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Today we celebrate the Civil Rights martyr, Martin Luther King. Did you know his full title is the Reverand Doctor Martin Luther King Junior? He gave many speeches, but his most famous was delivered at the Lincoln Memorial on August 18, 1963. It’s often called the “I Have a Dream” speech. And while the speech covered many topics, the most memorable line was the iconic, “I have a dream.”
Perhaps no line was more remembered and quoted than
I have a dream that one day my four little children will be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.
I wasn’t alive when Martin Luther King gave his speech. I came along about a year later. When my lovely wife and I were married we chose to build our family through adoption. I often looked around my dinner table and thought about King’s famous line. My family was a multi-cultural mix. Chinese, Indian, Columbian, Korean, Haitian; white, black and Asian.
When we first started adopting I asked my best friend, who was black, what advice he could give me about raising black kids. (My lovely wife and I are white, as are three of our children.) His advice was
Don’t teach them to be colorblind, because the world isn’t colorblind.
And we didn’t. It was a house full of love. With 13 children things were always busy. Our children eventually all grew up. The youngest just turned 21 last Fall. We now have 13 grandchildren. We all hope our children grow up to be better people than we are. We also hope that they will be people we can be friends with. We dream of going to soccer games to watch the next generation. We dream of being the “old folks” at the grandkids birthday parties.
Sometimes those dreams come true. But I doubt anyone has ever seen their dreams play out exactly as they imagined. Sometimes they are close.
Sometimes they aren’t.
Yeah, I’m being a little vague. Things are good. But this is not the dream I imagined.
Thank you Dr King. May we all strive to see your dream realized.
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Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren. Miscellany III A Collection of Holiday Short Stories, is an anthology that includes his latest short story, “You Can Call Me Dan”
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One of the biggest things I’ve learned while working at a convenience store is that jobs have a lot of things in common; schedules, deadlines, coworkers, bosses. Throughout my career I’ve made a lot of money. I don’t make a lot of money at the convenience store. But that’s not the point. I’ve often said that if you hated your job, or your boss, and then your boss doubled your salary, you’d still hate your job. I’ve discovered the corollary: If you love the job and they cut your salary you’ll still love your job. . . probably.
One of my jobs at the store is to make sure the cans of energy drink are properly stocked in our Energy Cave. Think of a beer cave, but with Monsters and Rockstars and about a dozen I’d never heard of. The cans get loaded from the back and gravity helps them flow to the front.
It’s a pretty simple task. The cans stacked next to each other keeps them all upright. The plan works great unless one of the cans falls over. This happens when there is too big a gap between cans. When that happens I have to reach back can stand it back up.
It reminded me of a saying from Benjamin Franklin,
We must all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.
He, of course was talking about the signers of the Declaration of Independence. But it applies to us as well. We do better when we come together, as a team, as a family, as a workforce.
Even if we are drinks in the Energy Cave
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Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren. Miscellany III A Collection of Holiday Short Stories, is an anthology that includes his latest short story, “You Can Call Me Dan”
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I work at a convenience store. It’s a great job. Mostly I’m talking to customers. Ringing up sales or cooking taquitos. When it’s slow I have other duties to get to. Sometimes I have to stock shelves. Sometimes do cleaning.
But the most common, and frequent, task is called “front facing.”
Think about the last time you went to the grocery store. Or, even to a 7-eleven. A typical walk through the store and you can see everything you want. You could buy crackers, energy drinks, chips. American stores are typically well stocked. Things are easy to find.
The reason they are so easy to find is that someone goes through the store and makes sure things are forward facing. It means you turn things so that the labels face forward. It seems pretty simplistic, doesn’t it? What’s the big deal?
You typically don’t notice that all the labels are front facing. . .until you do. If the products are not front facing you would notice immediately, like a library with some of the books turned spines inward.
Front facing reminds me that we don’t often notice what’s done right. But we very quickly notice what is not exactly right.
No great philosophical point. Just something I was thinking about.
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Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren. Miscellany III A Collection of Holiday Short Stories, is an anthology that includes his latest short story, “You Can Call Me Dan”
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My “workstation” faces a wall of windows. As a clerk in a 7-Eleven, visibility is important. Visibility of the store and the 16 gas pumps outside. It’s not a bad view, honestly. And today it was gorgeous. Utah got snow for the first time in a month. From my spot behind the counter I watched it come down all day. It started at 6:00am with a few flakes and got stronger and weaker through the day.
The weather wasn’t too cold, so most of the snow collected on the grass and the tops of cars. The roads were in decent shape.
My job is very low stress. I enjoy talking to people and I have a great boss. And, as I said, a pretty good view. I enjoyed the snow all the way up until about 3:30 this afternoon. It was still snowing. It just was less appealing to me.
My shift ended at 4:00.
Yeah, suddenly it wasn’t so peaceful and pretty. Fortunately the roads weren’t too bad. But my house is up on what’s called “the benches.” It’s about 500-600 feet higher than where I work. That slight elevation change was enough to drop the temperatures to a level where the snow stuck. . on my driveway. . and my front steps.
And now I have to shovel it.
Stay safe
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren. Miscellany III A Collection of Holiday Short Stories, is an anthology that includes his latest short story, “You Can Call Me Dan”
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(c) 2024 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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My “workstation” faces a wall of windows. As a clerk in a 7-Eleven, visibility is important. Visibility of the store and the 16 gas pumps outside. It’s not a bad view, honestly. And today it was gorgeous. Utah got snow for the first time in a month. From my spot behind the counter I watched it come down all day. It started at 6:00am with a few flakes and got stronger and weaker through the day.
The weather wasn’t too cold, so most of the snow collected on the grass and the tops of cars. The roads were in decent shape.
My job is very low stress. I enjoy talking to people and I have a great boss. And, as I said, a pretty good view. I enjoyed the snow all the way up until about 3:30 this afternoon. It was still snowing. It just was less appealing to me.
My shift ended at 4:00.
Yeah, suddenly it wasn’t so peaceful and pretty. Fortunately the roads weren’t too bad. But my house is up on what’s called “the benches.” It’s about 500-600 feet higher than where I work. That slight elevation change was enough to drop the temperatures to a level where the snow stuck. . on my driveway. . and my front steps.
And now I have to shovel it.
Stay safe
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren. Miscellany III A Collection of Holiday Short Stories, is an anthology that includes his latest short story, “You Can Call Me Dan”
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or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2024 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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Today I attended a Masons meeting. Free & Accepted Masons of Utah, Story Lodge #4. It was a pretty typical meeting. It is held at the Provo Public Library. I live about 15 minutes away in Pleasant Grove. When I’m going to or from that meeting, I take a route that I’m very familiar with. It’s a semi-rural highway that is two lanes for much of the way and then expands to four lanes.
When you are on a two lane road you have no choice expect to go as fast as the car in front of you. If you want to go faster it can be frustrating. I feel that ways sometimes. But I also understand that even on a four lane highway, everyone is going to go the same speed.
You probably don’t believe me. But if you have stoplights it’s true. Geneva Road, the highway I’m talking about, has several traffic signals. For the most part they are synchronized. So, if you drive the speed limit you can catch every green light. At least in theory.
In theory practice and theory are the same
In practice they are not
The best position at a stop light is to be at the front, wouldn’t you agree? You are right there next to the crosswalk and when the light goes, so do you. And I had several instances tonight where I was the first in line.
I should also mention that I tend to pay attention to the specific cars around me and “pace” (or race) against them. They don’t know we are racing, but I’m using them to see if I’m gaining or losing my overall position. (Don’t judge. The trip isn’t that interesting!)
When you are the first in line, you can accelerate as fast as you want. I don’t typically speed, but I’ve been known to jump up to 50 mph quickly. Here’s where going fast makes me slow. My jackrabbit start screws up the timing. I end up at the next light while it’s still red. In the meantime, the guy next to me, whom I was racing, took a normal acceleration off the start line. . .I mean the green light. Guess when he catches me at the next intersection? Yup. Right as the light is turning green. He continues on through the light at 50 mph, while I have to start from zero.
In my rush to get ahead, I actually get further behind.
Pretty sure there’s a business lesson in there somewhere.
Stay safe
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren. Miscellany III A Collection of Holiday Short Stories, is an anthology that includes his latest short story, “You Can Call Me Dan”
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What’s the most important thing in your life? Maybe you haven’t had an occasion to consider that question. I participated in a therapy exercise where I was presented with a list of ideals or priorities. I picked 30 of them. Then I was asked to pick 10 from those 30. Next, I had to pick 3. And finally, I had to rank them in order.
What do you think came out first?
Writing is important to me. But “career” didn’t even make my top 10. I’ve travelled all over the world for business and pleasure. I’ve been to Greece, Dubai, India, Scotland. I’ve found things to enjoy at each location. But travel didn’t even make the top 30.
I’m a man of faith. But faith or religion were not my top choice.
I love music. It didn’t make any lists.
I’m told that I often share too much on social media. And yet, looking back through my blog posts, tweets, comments, I don’t think I’ve ever addressed it.
The item that took the top list for priorities was matrimony.
Surprised? Initially I was too. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I’ve been married to my lovely wife for 36 years. Our anniversary was last month. I met here when she was a kid of 14. We started dating when we both went to BYU-Provo. She was 18. We married the following year and have been together ever since.
It hasn’t all be rosy, of course. We’ve had our ups and downs. More ups than downs. In all that time, decades, years, a lifetime, I’ve never regretted the decision for a minute. I’ve never even looked at another girl or woman. My biggest fear is living my life without her.
A man working on his car asked his wife to come out and press the brakes while he had his head under the hood. As she slid into the car she accidentally leaned on the horn. Her startled husband banged his head. As he was rubbing the bruise he asked in exacerbation: “How can you be so beautiful and yet so dumb?”
His wife responded with a smile, “I’m beautiful for you’d marry me. . .and dumb so I’d marry you.“
It’s an old joke and no longer socially acceptable. What I take from it, in addition to a smile, is that my wife was both beautiful and smart. Although, honestly, I couldn’t tell you why she chose to marry me.
I’m just glad she did.
Stay safe
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren. Miscellany III A Collection of Holiday Short Stories, is an anthology that includes his latest short story, “You Can Call Me Dan”
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I used to know what this meant. I even thought I practiced it pretty good. I’ve had some very demanding jobs in my career. I’ve worked 80 hour weeks, I’ve travelled on a moments notice. I’ve worked 48 hours straight.
Fortunately, I’ve enjoyed most jobs I had. And I’ve been paid very handsomely for my expertise and experience. That changed just after Thanksgiving 2022. I lost my job. Meh, I’ve lost other jobs. This one had more stress than some, but it also paid really well.
In the IT world, losing your job, (layoff or firing) is a pretty common occurrence. I wasn’t worried. I could get another job. Also, we’d been careful with our money and I didn’t have to get a job for several months. So, I didn’t.
You would think the life side of the work/life balance equation was getting major bonus time. It was, but not how you think.
Tragedy struck. I will certainly write about it in the future, but not today. Horrible tragedy stuck in March. . .and then again in August. . .and then again in December 2023. My life was a shambles. Sure the “life” side of work/life should have been paying major dividends. Instead it was in freefall.
About a month ago I did something kind of radical. I got a job. Not an IT job. Not a corporate job. Not even a white collar job. I got a job as a clerk in a 7-eleveN store. Partly it was to start bringing in income. But at $12/hour, I was not going to get rich. Previously the “work” side of my life brought in six figures, plus benefits. Now it was $12/hour part time on the weekends.
But it helped restore some of my work/life balance. It gave me something to do. Something to anticipate. And the funny thing was, I liked it. My first retail job ever and I absolutely enjoy it.
It’s brought balance to my life. . .at least a little.
Stay safe
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren. Order Miscellany III A Collection of Holiday Short Stories, an anthology including his latest short story, “You Can Call Me Dan” here
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It’s winter here in Utah. Sadly we haven’t had as much snow as we would like, but still, winter in the Rocky Mountains is winter. The temperatures are in the upper 20s to low 30s. Occasionally we have a day in the 40s. I start work at 6:00 am. It’s often the coldest part of the night just before sunrise. It’s part of that whole, “darkest just before dawn” philosophy.
I work at a 7 – eleven. I stand behind the counter right inside the automatic doors and greet people as they enter. Sometimes, if the wind is blowing a little it gets chilly standing there. It was that way last week. I wasn’t freezing, but I wasn’t warm either.
When things are slow (as they are on a Sunday morning at 6:00am when I work) I have other tasks I need to do. One of the most common is called “front facing.” Have you ever noticed that when you go into a store all the product lapels are facing you? That’s not an accident. Someone went through and rotated all of those ketchup bottles or Twinkie packages, or in my case, energy drinks. We have an entire closed off room called “The Energy Cave.” It’s stocked floor to ceiling with energy drinks. I had no idea there were so many different brands and flavors.
The Energy Cave is chilled. Of course it is. Customers want cold drinks. Sunday morning, as I mentioned, it was kind of chilly. Stepping into the Energy Cave made me downright cold. I hurriedly rotated all the Red Bull, Rockstar and Monster cans, constantly keeping an eye out for an early morning customer. When I finished, I stepped back out into the store. And an amazing thing happened. I was suddenly warm. The temperature hadn’t changed, of course. But my perception of it did.
If you want to get warm, sometimes it helps to get cold(er) first.
Happy New Year. Hope it’s a great one for you.
Stay safe
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren. Order Miscellany III A Collection of Holiday Short Stories, an anthology including his latest short story, “You Can Call Me Dan” here
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or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2024 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved