My Post-College Flailing

Something I don't tell people very often is that I've had a lot of jobs. The last time I listed them the count stood at 30 or so. This list included everything I had ever done for money, so I included the day I moved furniture for a Weight Watchers office and the time I was a valet for an hour before walking out. When I wanted to stretch the list out, I included the time I applied to be a sperm bank donor and was rejected. I'll write more about that at a later date.

Most of these jobs happened when I was young and it seemed like a very Kerouac-ian thing to do; amass loads of 'real world' experience by working a series of dead-end, low-paying jobs while I put off life and career. I was very Gen X, very "Reality Bites" Ethan Hawke, at least that is what I told myself.

The picture of success

In reality, I was lazy and, deep down, scared as all hell. Like all underachievers, I disguised my fear as laziness - "Of course I could take on the world, if I were so inclined, but I much prefer living in a hovel. It's more real." All my friends graduated with definite plans on what they were going to be and I was left with a nebulous English degree and a fading interest in journalism, where deadlines were tight, pay was low, and sometimes people shot you.

In contrast to myself, my friends went straight from college to the career track. While I was working temp jobs with the misbegotten, a friend of mine, Brian S, immediately secured a position in the billing department of a hospital. He earned $30,000 a year and I thought, "That's all the money in the world," without irony or bitterness. I was in awe that someone could earn so much.

The jobs I held are a blur now but I met a lot of interesting people. And I deluded myself into thinking I would work these characters into a novel someday that would make me famous. I haven't gotten around to writing that novel but I did get a funny blog post out the man nicknamed "Squirrel" (random fact #6 about me in this post). The big downer was girls weren't all that impressed with me - "Wow, he's a borderline alcoholic temp worker? What's his number?" - and those who were quickly lost interest when they realized they weren't going to save me.

There were some particular low-points during this time. I never told Shane this but I was fired from the Prudential job where I made an hour-long, long distance, recorded call to his house in LA. We talked about a lot of things on that recorded line. It included this dialogue:

Shane: "What's that beeping noise?"
Dave: "We're on a recorded line."
Shane: "What! Aren't you afraid you are going to get caught?"
Dave: "Don't sweat it. These people are so clueless they wouldn't know if the building was burning down."

When I got a late-night call a few days later from my temp placement manager, I knew it was not good. The call closed with him saying, "And they wanted you to know, they would know if the building was burning down."

Ouch. But as painful and humiliating as that was, to say nothing about losing steady $8 an hour employment, it made for a funny story that has gotten me laid a number of times. Just kidding, it has never gotten me laid. But it was funny.

Now before you write me off as a loser who should never work for your company, let me assure you, I eventually straightened out. I started hanging out with some smart people working in Harvard Square before having this conversation with a guy at a dinner party:

Man with glasses: "So what do you do?"
Me: "I'm looking for a job. What do you do?"
Man with glasses: "I work for a man named Omar who owns a plane. You seem like a nice fellow, we're hiring if you are interested."

And, with that, my career at Viaweb was born. And they never even asked me about my disgraceful end as a temp at Prudential Life Insurance.

Early on at Viaweb, the CEO took me aside and said, "This is a great opportunity and I hope you seize it." It struck me so hard I still remember where I was sitting when he said it. I did and my life took off like a rocket ship thrill ride to the moon.

Because that is the key to success really; enduring the crap situations in whatever manner (ranging from detached amusement to seething rage) and recognizing genuine opportunities as they present themselves and grabbing them with all your might.

This post originally started with me intending to write about my worst birthday. Isn't it funny how life works when you go with the flow? If I had never gone to that dinner party, I'd never gotten hooked up with a sweet job, landed a beautiful wife, and  lived in California. And I never would have had that opportunity if I had not been fired from Prudential. Out of our most painful moments, flowers can bloom.

Comments

[communicatrix]

Beautiful. You express so simply and heartfully something a lot of us have struggled with.

Plus, I'm a sucker for a happy ending. (Not the icky kind; the real kind that existed forever until the p0rn industry co-opted it ironically.)

[Dave G]

Communicatrix - thank you so much. Your blog is one of the models I follow when writing for this thing (keeping it personal, insightful, etc) and without it, this thing would be a hopeless mess.