My friend David Brady has some excellent thoughts on company loyalty. Well worth the read.
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Hello?
Rodney, this is your mother.
What’s up?
Your dad and I have given your situation a lot of thought. . .
We knew that living in the barn was not a permanent solution, and in hindsight it almost seemed funny.
What, were you raised in a barn?
Ah. . .
While we looked for housing, I got busy. It gave me something to do. I started consulting. (Your Bill Is HOW Much?) I went to work as a satellite dish installer. (I Let Him Walk All Over Me…Until I Called the FBI) I delivered the Tacoma News Tribune. That’s got to be one of the hardest jobs ever.
You get up at 2:00am so that you can be at the warehouse at 3:00 when the papers come in. You bundle them, and since this was Seattle, you also bag them. Then, you put them in your car and drive a specific route.
The more routes you took on the more papers. The more papers the more money. But, there was a limiting factor. You had to have all the papers delivered by 7:00am. Sunday’s were the worst.
So, what do you do when you’re a software guy and no one is hiring in software? You do whatever you can.
We weren’t totally out of the woods. While we had some money coming in it wasn’t nearly enough to keep our kids fed and pay all our bills. You prioritize right? You pay the car because you have to have a car to deliver papers, but you stop paying the credit card, or pay them a portion. Unless. . .
We had a credit card and our car loan with the same bank. There is fine print in those unreadable “These are our polices, please read them” pamphlets, that says they can use assets from one account to settle another one.
Hello?
Mr Bliss this is your bank. We have dispatched a repo truck to repossess your car. Even though your car payment is current, you are behind on your Visa. If we get a payment of $346, we will recall the tow truck.
Now we kept the credit card current too.
Being a man of faith, I believe that God has a plan for us. It doesn’t overtly influence my business decisions, but it’s part of who I am. I realized that my life would be so much less complicated if I simply didn’t have any debts. I resolved that if I ever got out of this mess. . .no, wait. WHEN I got out of this mess I would get out and stay out of debt. Without any debt my income requirements were low enough that I would have many more employment options. Perhaps that is what God had for me to learn.
Sitting in the empty barn that was our current house I talked to my mother.
You know that was a pretty stupid thing to do; moving to Wisconsin, right?
Yeah. It seemed like a good idea at the . . .
No. It was stupid from the beginning. You just got in so much of a hurry for a job that you ended up taking a bad one!
Yes, mom.
I think we can help you. Tomorrow I’ll swing by with Karen, our realtor, and pick you up to go look at houses. I’ll buy it. You rent it and Karen will manage it.
Thanks, mom.
Try not to make any more stupid decisions.
This ends my five part series on my attempt to run a rafting company in Northern Wisconsin. I learned a lot of lessons from it. It was an incredible learning experience. Like an athlete whose muscles grow back stronger after being broken down, I came out of it much more determined. We spent years paying back every one of our creditors. This story happened years ago, but the lessons stayed with me. My wife and I no longer buy anything on a credit card. If we can’t pay cash (or use a debit card), we don’t get it.
I’ve also learned that there is always a tomorrow. During the worst of this time people asked me how I managed it. First, most of the credit goes to my lovely wife. For me, I took advice from Tom Hanks in “Sleepless in Seattle.”
I’m going to get out of bed every morning and breathe in and out all day long. Then, after a while, I won’t have to remind myself to get out of bed in the morning and breathe in and out. And then after a while, I won’t have to think about how I had it great and perfect for a while.
And just like Hanks’ character by the end of the movie, I’ve recovered. It was by the grace of God, family and great friends, all of whom have been thanked many times over, but again: Thank you.
This is the fifth in a five part series on an experience I had trying to run a rafting company in Wisconsin and the aftermath. Monday I explored why sometimes “Following your Bliss” isn’t exactly the best choice. Tuesday I described a really dysfunctional company and how quickly the lies started to appear. Wednesday I talked about how my former partner fired me after 23 days. Yesterday I questioned the Worst It Can Get.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, blogger and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children.
Follow him on
Twitter (@rodneymbliss)
Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbliss)
LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or contact him at (rbliss at msn dot com)
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Hello?
Yeah, Mom? It’s me. There’s no easy way to say this. . .well. . .
(crickets)
Ah. . .you know the Crazy Man Ranch thing didn’t work out. . .just like you said. Ha ha.
(more crickets)
Um, anyway. . .I’m stuck. I could really use your help. . .or even just your advice. . . . . . Are you still there?
What is the hardest thing you would do for your kids?
For me, it was going to my mother and asking for money. That was hard enough when I was 17 and wanted to take a girl to the prom but had no money. It’s infinitely worse when you’re 40 years old, have 12 kids at home and just got done making one of the biggest business mistakes in your life. . .Oh, and mom said she didn’t think it was a good idea at the time.
It became clear that staying in Wisconsin was not going to work. It did me no good to complain about my former “partner” and the lies he’d told me. I may have been a mess emotionally, but I’ve never been one to look back.
We held a yard sale before we left. We didn’t sell stuff we didn’t want. We sold stuff we didn’t want to move. We used two semi-truck trailers to move our stuff to our house in WI. We were definitely slimming down on the way back. The talk with the kids was hard.
Kids, you know we are moving back to Washington, right? Well, we aren’t going to have a lot of room. We’re going to rent a UHaul trailer and we’ve got the tent trailer. It means that each of you can take one box of clothes and one box of toys. If it can’t fit in the box, it can’t go.
Can we take our stuffed animals?
If you want to take that instead of a pillow, yes.
Can we take our bikes?
Yes. You can take your bikes. I think I can secure them on top of the tent trailer.
Okay.
Telling the kids was tough on me. They took it reasonably well.
The other thing we had to arrange for was housing. We were moving back to the Seattle area. We had lived there several years earlier. Luckily we found a friend who wanted to downsize. We arranged a “rent to own” deal that started with a very low payment and increased as the months, and hopefully my paychecks, increased.
Not that I had any job prospects. The plan was to start up a small business consulting company. The thought terrified me. But, then most things terrified me at that point. I applied to large companies as well, but the responses I received were lukewarm at best.
The day came that it was finally time to go. Although our time in Wisconsin had been short, we made some very close friends. I was sorry to leave the house.
It sat on 7 acres and had several outbuildings. Amazing what you can get for $116,000 in the middle of nowhere. My daughter never was comfortable with it since the staircase had 13 steps. I’m not superstitious, but we still lost the house.
We tried to turn it back to the bank, but ultimately simply locked the door and drove away.
I like road trips. I really do.
And while this one was certainly under duress as we headed for the Wisconsin Minnesota state line, I started to relax. . .just a little. It was about that time that the tire on the tent trailer blew out.
Our trip just got more interesting. Hours later it was finally towed to a repair shop. The tire had damaged the wheel housing in its death throws. The mechanic bent the housing back in place and put a new tire on.
This is a lot of weight for these little trailer tires.
Oh?
Yeah, with all those bikes on top, and with what you’ve got packed inside, you’re probably going to blow the tires again. They just aren’t rated for that heavy of a load.
So, the bikes are overloading it?
Yeah.
He knew someone who refurbished old bikes and donated them to needy children in the area. I didn’t want our kids to see the bikes get unloaded. We took them out the back of his shop and leaned them against the wall. Fourteen of them in all.
The kids were aware enough to not even ask when we pulled around the now empty trailer. It was a somber trip across Minnesota.
Somewhere in North Dakota my wife’s phone rang. We were in different vehicles, so when she finished she called me.
She can’t do it?
Who?
Sandra can’t rent us her house. Something about her mortgage and subleasing.
So, we need a place to stay.
Yeah. I talked to my brother, Bob and he has an idea, but it’s not ideal.
Bob is the one with the horses?
Yeah.
We pulled into Enumclaw, WA the next day and pulled into Bob’s driveway. The light drizzle so common to Western Washington fall weather made little puddles in the gravel driveway. We drove past his house and stopped in front of one of the smaller stables.
The port-a-potty had already arrived. Inside, the tack room was converted to a small living area, with a microwave and a refrigerator. The stalls had all been freshly mucked out and lined with black plastic. But, the smells were as powerful as ever. The five boys went into one stall, the 7 girls into another, and my wife and I into the third.
Lying on a mattress in the dark next to my wife that first night, I considered how had I ended here? Could it get worse than this? Probably, but I was having a really hard time figuring out how.
Mom? Are you there?
This is the fourth in a five part series on an experience I had trying to run a rafting company in Wisconsin and the aftermath. Monday I explored why sometimes “Following your Bliss” isn’t exactly the best choice. Tuesday I described a really dysfunctional company and how quickly the lies started to appear. Yesterday I talked about how my former partner fired me after 23 days. Tomorrow I’ll talk about how when things are at their worst, it does get better.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, blogger and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children.
Follow him on
Twitter (@rodneymbliss)
Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbliss)
LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or contact him at (rbliss at msn dot com)
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Rodney, it’s not working out. I brought you here to take over for me and you’ve put this company into a tailspin. I don’t know if I can recover.
Alright, Will.
And I’m just here. . .
I know exactly why you’re here Paul. You’re the witness in case I say or do something crazy.
The worst part? The people who knew and had worked with Will weren’t surprised. People who had worked with him for years had seen him make rash promises and then break them without a second thought. They somehow thought that me being from out of state would make some difference.
It didn’t.
Twenty three days. That’s how long from my first day to my last.
I’ve lost jobs before. But, this time things were slightly different. While I was at Crazy Man Ranch to try to focus on rafting, my background and training was in computers and software development. There’s none of that in Northern Wisconsin. Job prospects were slim.
And there was the added embarrassment factor. I had made a big deal of telling my friends and family goodbye as we set out on this cross country trip. Now, I had to tell them that the ones who objected were right.
The worst issue though was the money. We’d carried some debts into the move. And then there was the cost of the move itself. And we’d bought a house. I BOUGHT A HOUSE BASED ON HIS RECOMMENDATIONS!
I couldn’t even plan on staying in Wisconsin without shelling out a ton of money. It was only August, but winter was coming and our house had a new furnace, but no heating oil tank. To buy and fill the tank would cost about $1,000. It was money that I didn’t have and now was most likely not going to get.
I admit that I didn’t handle it well. We each see ourselves as the hero, I think. We imagine that if we were put into a hard situation we’d rescue the princess, or storm the cockpit, or face our challenges with square set shoulders. At least I always did.
That’s not how it worked out. While I started looking for jobs, my world started collapsing around me. I sign off this column everyday with the comment about “my lovely wife.” It’s not just pretty sentiments. As I was falling apart, she had to keep the house running. You can’t stay in bed all day when you have 12 kids to take care of. You may not have money to pay all the bills, but you have to decide which ones you are going to pay. Food became really scarce, but you still have to prepare meals.
The time was just as tough on her as it was on me. She’s just made of sturdier stuff.
I got up each day. Got dressed and went to my home office to look at job prospects. The fall weather was beautiful in the Upper Peninsula area. But, my days were dark and filled with an unrelenting dread.
It’s probably for the best that I didn’t know it was going to get worse before it got better.
This is the third in a five part series on an experience I had trying to run a rafting company in Wisconsin. Monday I explored why sometimes “Following your Bliss” isn’t exactly the best choice. Yesterday I described a really dysfunctional company and how quickly the lies started to appear. Tomorrow I’ll talk about hitting rock bottom.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, blogger and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children.
Follow him on
Twitter (@rodneymbliss)
Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbliss)
LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or contact him at (rbliss at msn dot com)
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(Photo Credit: Silvercliff.com)
Hello, Mr Dugan? This is Rodney Bliss with Crazy Man Ranch. I was just calling to follow up on the outstanding balance we have listed for you.
You’re new there aren’t you?
Yeah. Just this summer.
That bill is a result of . . .
From behind me
Rodney, put him on hold.
. . .you guys refusing to refund a trip after telling me it was refundable. I tried talking to. . .
Rodney! Put him him on hold
. . .the girl you had there working before, but they said that she didn’t work there. . .
RODNEY!! PUT HIM ON HOLD. RIGHT NOW!!
Sorry, Mr Dugan. Can you hold on just a second?
To say that my start at Crazy Man Whitewater Rafting Ranch was sort of rocky, does a disservice to rocks. In hindsight it was my own fault. I assumed that everything my partner Will had told me was true. In fact very little of it was. He wasn’t ever even really my partner.
Things started off okay. He decided to have me work in the reservation office to start. Our role was to book reservations for cabins, rafting trips and, as in the case of Mr Dugan, track down outstanding payments.
The problem. . .no problems. . .were that no one knew I was supposed to be a partner, especially Will’s wife, Sarah. Sarah was running the reservation office. I wasn’t her partner. I wasn’t anything more than one more employee.
We also had a guide named Matt who would routinely announce that certain scheduled trips were full. This wasn’t Matt’s job. Matt’s job was to guide the raft down the river. He quickly discovered that dumping your guests into the river and then heroically rescuing them earned him much higher tips than keeping them all in the boat. I was seriously worried that he was going to drown one of them. The Menominee River had a short run, but often ran at Class IV level.
Rapids are graded on a six point scale. Think of it this way: Class I is your bathtub. Class II is minor ripples. Class III is 2 to 3 foot crests. Most commercial rafting is Class II and III. Class IV is pretty much continuous whitewater and 4 to 5 foot swells. Class V is mostly for seasoned kayakers. And Class VI is theoretically impassible.
Part of the reason Will hired me. . .I mean took me on as a partner, was my customer skills and business skills. I didn’t really get a chance to use either one. But I tried. For example, as one group came off the river, the dad approached me.
This trip has been terrible!
What’s been the problem?
Your prices are totally out of whack for rafting.
Have you done much rafting?
Well. . .we went rafting with Echo Canyon on the Arkansas river in Colorado last summer.
Yeah, Andy Neinas, the owner is a friend of mine. Echo Canyon is a great outfit, and I know Andy really takes great care of his guests. I’ll let him know when I see him that you guys remembered Echo Canyon a year later. How have we failed to live up to your expectations?
Well, the food for one thing. We had hotdogs for dinner. I hardly call that gourmet cuisine like your website said.
I’ll make a note of that. We try to serve a variety. Tonight we’re serving a homemade chili. It’s one of our signature dishes. I think you’ll like it better than the hot dogs. Please let me know. And as you find other things you’d like to see us improve on, don’t hesitate to let me know. I’d love to have the reputation that Echo Canyon has. So, your perspective would be really helpful.
He wasn’t thrilled when we finished talking, but he was certainly happier, and he wasn’t going to ask for his money back. And I really did want to know what he thought. I was working hard to learn the business. I might have saved my efforts.
Sarah didn’t bother to apologize for yelling.
Rodney, Dugan bought a non refundable package. He chose to pay the full amount rather than just a deposit. It was his choice. I want you to get back on the phone and tell him that. I’ve already told him, but maybe hearing it again will finally convince him! Do it. Now!
Mr. Dugan, I’m sorry. The package you bought was non refundable. we’re going to have to ask you pay the entire $800.
I’ll see you guys in court.
I’m really sorry you feel that way, but I certainly understand.
A salary of $36,000 a year was not enough for this abuse. In fact, $36,000 was enough, period. I’d been promised $50,000, and that was not really enough to pay the bills without lots of prayer and rice and beans.
I decided that I needed to talk to my “partner.” I sent an email so I could properly lay out my concerns. I needed the salary we’d agreed on. I needed people to understand that I was a partner and had his backing. I needed to figure out my relationship with Sarah. The response was short and direct.
Sure, let's meet. Tomorrow at 2:00pm between the first and second trips.
So, why did I have this sinking feeling?
This is the second in a five part series on an experience I had trying to run a rafting company in Wisconsin. Yesterday I explored why sometimes “Following your Bliss” isn’t exactly the best choice. Tomorrow I’ll explain why Paul was at our meeting and what that sinking feeling was all about.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, blogger and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children.
Follow him on
Twitter (@rodneymbliss)
Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbliss)
LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or contact him at (rbliss at msn dot com)
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Rodney, I’ve thought it over and I’d like you to come out and help me run Crazyman Ranch.
That’s great, Will. What did you have in mind for how we’d work this?
Well, I want to get out of the business. So, you come out and become a partner. You run the place. I think there’s probably $50,000 a year in it for you. Anything the business earns over the previous year’s returns we’ll let you own as sweat equity. We’ve been running at about a 12% growth rate.
Can you send me copies of your corporate returns so I can have my tax guy look them over?
Sure. No problem. I’ll FedEx them out today.
Looking forward to doing business with you, Will.
And just like that, I was the junior partner of Crazyman Whitewater Rafting company of Athlestane, Wisconsin. This was a big departure. I’d run software companies, but this was the first time I was attempting to run a rafting company.
It wasn’t just rafting. Crazyman also had a R.O.P.E.S course. They had cabins. They did snowmobile trips in the winter. But it was the rafting piece that was my connection.
Will and I had met through RESMARK. At RESMARK, we were developing a reservation software for rafting companies and Will was one of our customers. When RESMARK 1.0 shipped and the investors decided to take it in house, I found myself looking for my next position.
Twelve of our 13 children still lived at home. It’s no small task to move a family of fourteen people 2500 miles from Orem, UT to the North Woods of Wisconsin. The kids were hesitant. My lovely wife was hesitant. But, I was convinced this was the right move. I was the embodiment of “act in haste, repent at leisure.” But, I didn’t know it yet.
We held a garage sale as we started to pare down some of the stuff that you accumulate with a family that big. We had two pianos. . .we sold one. We had 100’s of feet of garden hose, we sold most of it. Still it took one and a half semi trailers to hold all our stuff. We packed up the trailers and the moving company would deliver them to our new address in WI in a couple weeks.
In the mean time, we took a family vacation from Utah to the Midwest. We stopped at historical sites. We stayed in motels occasionally, but more often we camped. We visited Nauvoo and Carthage, IL, where Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church was killed.
We visited Saint Joseph, MO, the starting point of the Pony Express. It was a fairly magical undertaking. We were completely oblivious to the cliff that we about to drive off of.
The first warning sign seemed like a blessing at first glance. I was taking over the operations role from a guy named Jay. Will figured it would be a win for both families if I bought Jay’s house. The closing was one of the quickest I’ve ever seen. In a small town, things can happen pretty fast.
It made sense, right? This way, we could move straight into a house and get settled. No need to move twice, from a rental to a house later.
One problem with Jay’s house. It used a wood burning furnace. We have people with allergies.
No problem, we’ll install an oil furnace as part of the purchase deal. You just need to get with the oil company to deliver a tank and fill it.
How much will that cost?
Probably about $1000.
The second problem was during my first meeting with my new partner.
I figured will start you at a slightly higher salary than Jay was making. Payday is every two weeks and you’ll be getting $3,000 a month.
Ah. . .we talked about more than that.
Yeah, I know. And if we have a good snowmobile year, you and I will split whatever’s left at the end of the year.
That didn’t exactly show up on the copies of the tax returns you showed me.
Don’t worry about those. There’s at least $50,000 that we take in that never shows up on the books. Oh and until I get some things worked out, it’s probably best that you don’t let anyone know you are a partner.
Uh oh.
This is the first of a five part series on my brief foray into the world of whitewater rafting. Tomorrow, I’ll explain how a bad situation got much, much worse.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, blogger and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children.
Follow him on
Twitter (@rodneymbliss)
Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbliss)
LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or contact him at (rbliss at msn dot com)
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There is a Hell. It’s when a man has a family to support, has his health, and is ready to work, and there is no work to do. When he stands with empty hands and sees his children going hungry, his wife without the things to do with. I hope you never have to try it.” ~ Bendigo Shafter
How could this be? How could I be living in America in 2008 and my kids are going hungry?
What have I done? How did I get to the point where I’ve managed to put my family into a position where not only am I out of work, but there’s no work to do here in Northern Wisconsin that I’m even qualified to do?
Just as having the Freedom to Fail is an important and vital part of our lives, the freedom to work is equally important and powerful. The above quote is from Louis L’Amore’s book “Bendigo Shafter.” And while the book is set in the 19th century, the lesson is as important for us today as it ever was.
Our country has suffered through our longest period of high unemployment (over 7%) in our history. Add in the fact that many people have simply stopped looking for work and you being to realize that there are many many people who are not working who would like to.
Yesterday I talked about The Busboy and the Gardener Are Doing Just Fine. My friend who runs the lawn care business keeps his employees’ wages low both so that he can afford to make a living, but also so that he can afford to hire people for the sake of allowing them to have a job.
A couple months ago I did a weeklong series of stories on “Leaving WordPerfect and Going to Microsoft.” At that point I promised I’d return to the that extended storytelling.
Next week is that time. 2008 was probably the worst time in my life. I ended up broke, deep in debt, stuck in a house that the bank was going to repossess and in a part of the country that definitely did not need computer skills.
It’s a tale of deception, betrayal, suffering, depression, redemption, miracles, and ultimately the understanding that we all fail and have to learn to forgive ourselves and forgive others. It will run all next week. I hope you’ll tune in.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, blogger and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children. He’s been in the Hell that Bendigo Shafter describes. It’s not as bad as you might think. . .it’s worse.
Follow him on
Twitter (@rodneymbliss)
Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbliss)
LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or contact him at (rbliss at msn dot com)
Tell your friends about this!
There is a Hell. It’s when a man has a family to support, has his health, and is ready to work, and there is no work to do. When he stands with empty hands and sees his children going hungry, his wife without the things to do with. I hope you never have to try it.” ~ Bendigo Shafter
How could this be? How could I be living in America in 2008 and my kids are going hungry?
What have I done? How did I get to the point where I’ve managed to put my family into a position where not only am I out of work, but there’s no work to do here in Northern Wisconsin that I’m even qualified to do?
Just as having the Freedom to Fail is an important and vital part of our lives, the freedom to work is equally important and powerful. The above quote is from Louis L’Amore’s book “Bendigo Shafter.” And while the book is set in the 19th century, the lesson is as important for us today as it ever was.
Our country has suffered through our longest period of high unemployment (over 7%) in our history. Add in the fact that many people have simply stopped looking for work and you being to realize that there are many many people who are not working who would like to.
Yesterday I talked about The Busboy and the Gardener Are Doing Just Fine. My friend who runs the lawn care business keeps his employees’ wages low both so that he can afford to make a living, but also so that he can afford to hire people for the sake of allowing them to have a job.
A couple months ago I did a weeklong series of stories on “Leaving WordPerfect and Going to Microsoft.” At that point I promised I’d return to the that extended storytelling.
Next week is that time. 2008 was probably the worst time in my life. I ended up broke, deep in debt, stuck in a house that the bank was going to repossess and in a part of the country that definitely did not need computer skills.
It’s a tale of deception, betrayal, suffering, depression, redemption, miracles, and ultimately the understanding that we all fail and have to learn to forgive ourselves and forgive others. It will run all next week. I hope you’ll tune in.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, blogger and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children. He’s been in the Hell that Bendigo Shafter describes. It’s not as bad as you might think. . .it’s worse.
Follow him on
Twitter (@rodneymbliss)
Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbliss)
LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or contact him at (rbliss at msn dot com)
Tell your friends about this!
(Photo credit: Wall Street Journal online)
John, how are you doing?
Hey Bruce, I haven’t seen you in forever. Things are great.
No, really. How are things going?
Fantastic! Call me next week. We should go to lunch. Oops, I’ve gotta go bus that table. Things get crazy in here at lunch time.
Bruce can be forgiven if he doubted John’s claims of how good things were going. Bruce had worked with John at Intel in Seattle, where they were both financial analysts. Both were let go in a round of layoffs.
Now, Bruce sees John in a downtown restaurant bussing tables. What would you think? John is my younger brother. He told me during the conversation he didn’t even think about how it would look to Bruce.
What Bruce didn’t know what that John was actually the CFO, Chief Financial Officer for that restaurant chain. The executives thought it was valuable to occasionally work at the service jobs that made up the bulk of their workforce. Today John was bussing tables, tomorrow he would be back in his office on the 14th floor.
I had a similar experience during one of the times I was working as a consultant. I’ve explained that consulting is like Feasting on Brownies. . .Every Three Weeks. In other words, when you work, the money is great, but you have the down times between contracts. During one of those down times I was helping a friend who has a landscaping business. He spends a good portion of his time mowing lawns. He has these fantastic Husqvarna walk-behind mowers that practically mow themselves; easy starting and all wheel drive. I wanted to trade in my car on one, if I could figure out how to get seats for 13 kids.
Rodney, we’ve got some lawns to do in your neighborhood. That’s not going to cause a problem is it?
Not at all. Not unless we end up taking away one of my kids’ clients.
I just wasn’t sure if you’d be embarrassed if you ended up mowing the lawn of someone you know.
I appreciate your concern. But, if someone has a problem with the car you drive, or the clothes you wear, or the job you have, that’s really their problem.
It made me think about John and his busboy experience. Too often we label people by their positions. As Tevye, in Fiddler on the Roof explains,
It won’t make one bit of difference if I answer right or wrong. When you’re rich they think you really know.
I check myself on this occasionally. Do I give more weight to the opinion of people with more money? Or a bigger title? Or a nicer house? Do I discount the opinions of someone who works a manual labor job instead of works in an office? Or who drives a 10 year old car? Or who takes my order at a restaurant? I hope not. And I hope you don’t either.
Because it might be the company CFO bussing your table. And it might be a high priced computer consultant mowing your lawn. And even if it’s not, the people who are filling those roles are every bit as capable of having great ideas, or being generous or kind. And aren’t those the criteria we should really be evaluating people on anyway?
Rodney M Bliss is an author, blogger and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children. He has worked as a busboy, a gardner, a company president, an Executive Vice President, a stable boy, a Program Manager, a team manager, a trainer and a host of other jobs.
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(Photo Credit: Gas Lamp Post)
In 1998, Colombia was a dangerous place. I was going to Bogota to teach a Microsoft class for a week. The rebels were actively fighting the Colombian government backed by the US. It was pretty much impossible to drive from Bogota to Cali, a distance of a little less than 300 miles. The government held the cities, the rebels held the countryside.
A favorite tactic of the rebels was to kidnap business people for ransom. Oil field workers were especially vulnerable. As I was preparing for the trip, I approached a friend who was a Microsoft director. I knew he’d been to Colombia recently.
Sam, were you worried during your trip to Bogota at all?
Well, I had a security detail. My visit was announced to the media in advance. I told the security guys that whatever they planned, I didn’t want to know any of the details.
So, if I get kidnapped is Microsoft going to bail me out?
. . .Just don’t get kidnapped.
We weren’t really joking.
It’s a long flight from Houston to Bogota. I got to know the other passengers in business class pretty well. They were all oil executives.
Do you have someone meeting you? You know you shouldn’t take taxis, right?
Yeah, I heard that. I’m supposed to have someone meeting me, but it was all set up by corporate. I’m hoping he’s got a sign or something.
You’re staying downtown? If you don’t find the guy meeting you, we’ll give you a ride to your hotel. We’re renting a car, and it’s really not safe even from the airport to the hotel if you’re not familiar with the country.
I’ll admit it, they were scaring me a little. I consider myself as brave as the next person, but I’m also a realist. Anything could happen.
I stuck close to my new BP Oil friends as we cleared customs and collected our bags. Like many 3rd world country airports, Bogota’s was chaotic. And as I mentioned in “Do You Speak English?” my Spanish was poor at best.
Finally, I decided to take my friends up on their offer. Only after we were in their rental Range Rover did it occur to me to wonder whether I should trust THEM. My hotel was a brand new Sheraton in downtown Bogota. We arrived after dark and noticed the street in front of the building was under repair forcing us to stop at the corner. My new friend John didn’t like the look of it.
You’ve got to walk all that way before anyone from the hotel can see you. Tell you what, I’m gonna walk over there and check and make sure the hotel has your reservation. When you see me wave from the door, walk quickly straight from the car to the door.
Okay, now he was really starting to make me a little paranoid.
I managed to get safely in the hotel without getting shot or kidnapped. I thanked John, and went and locked myself in my room.
The next day I was talking to the concierge, who fortunately spoke perfect English and looked like he was from Nebraska or Kansas or someplace in the midwest.
Well, you need to be careful, of course, but the hotel grounds are perfectly safe. You can go anywhere you want, just don’t leave the grounds. We have our own security. If you need to go somewhere, let me know. We’ll send you in one of our cars.
I arrived on Saturday night and my class didn’t start until Monday. Sunday, I located a place to attend church and then hung out at the hotel. This is where I encountered the guy with the shotgun.
The hotel was new and they had spent a good amount on aesthetics. There were two towers about 20-30 feet apart. They were connected by a bridge on about the 30th floor. But, at about the 15th floor, each tower featured an oversized sculpture of a mermaid on one side and Poseidon on the other. Only the upper half of their bodies were visible, as if they were swimming out of the building. It really was very striking.
Sunday night as the sun started to set, it became obvious that the architect had created the hotel with an eye toward the evening light. A few minutes before sunset, as the sun was casting it’s last golden rays the entire side of the hotel lit up. The mermaid and King of the Sea were cast into stark relief and shadow. It was breathtaking.
Naturally, I grabbed my camera.
I hadn’t noticed the guard, so the Spanish words startled me.
No foto.
Excuse me?
No foto.
The first thing I noticed as I turned to face him was the shotgun he held. The barrel looked big enough for a grapefruit. I realized he wasn’t pointing it at me, but he wasn’t NOT pointing it at me either.
The light was fading. There was probably no more than 5 minutes of daylight left. I doubted that I’d be able to explain in my terrible Spanish that I had permission to be here.
The security guard simply stood watching me. He was neither threatening, nor accommodating. Would he have shot me for taking a picture of the hotel? I have no idea. And at the time had no desire to find out.
I watched the shadow line rise up the hotel as the grounds filled up with shadow. The guard faded back into the scenery. When the sun finally set on the top floors I headed back inside for a late dinner. I happened to pass the concierge desk staffed by Kansas Farmboy.
You said I could wander the grounds. A security guy, with a large gun, told me I couldn’t take pictures.
What? Of course, you can take pictures. I’ll go talk to him.
No, no. It’s okay. That’s what I thought, I was just checking.
It’s always great advice to listen to the man holding the shotgun. It doesn’t really matter if he’s right or wrong. A camera vs a gun is a poor matchup.
My driver for the week showed up right on time the next morning at 8:00am. Apparently there are two entrances at the airport and he was at the other one. Oh, and he didn’t speak a word of English.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, blogger and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children. He still cannot speak Spanish, but understands “I’ve got a gun” very well.
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Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbliss)
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or contact him at (rbliss at msn dot com)
