In this era of unstable work security I have found myself blessed in finding a new gig and upgrade. Today is my last day at my current grind. I'm an office director/accounting assistant/IT/any possible thing that involves keeping the place together. I learned a lot at my job, but was unappreciated and underpaid. I thought though that given our current state on econ and the importance of my job, I should stay put for the long haul. BUT, also given the current state of econ I couldn't help but feel like I gotta look out for #1. (they'd drop my a$$ in a heart beat if they had to save themselves, so what do I have to lose looking for a new job)
Now I'll be doing the 9-5 a helluva lot closer to where I live, be a few blocks away from my wife and to top it off, paid more. I can dig it.
My resume reads a broad history painting a picture of a Renaissance man that hasn't really found his niche. In ways that's true... but in other ways I've probably been working on what I originally wanted to do subliminally. Like many people I started off in retail and the service industry. My 1st job was at a movie theater. Then it was a video store AND movie theater at the same time. Through college I went through both ends of the movie industry and finally found myself at JC Penney folding shirts. HAHA
Going to a liberal arts college where a lot of the kids there are your stereotypical treehugging hippies. I was of a small minority of kids there that actually had a job and despite my political views was looked at as "the man." I was out there actually slaving away for minimum wage working for "the man" and was somehow looked at as the establishment. Don't ask me because I don't phawking get it either. ...But, I didn't mind because I worked at a dope spot, so to speak, with a LOT of honeys. (so the joke was on them I guess)
I went to school to become a teacher, but after getting out of college, I found myself back in school on both ends teach and learning. Stressed and pushed up against the wall with my mind, body, soul and pocket book I found myself quitting my dream and folding the same shirts I did in college. I felt defeated, but at the same like a huge weight was lifted. I had always wanted to be a teacher, but due to the fact that the only real world experience I had to bring to the classroom were service and retail jobs, I was too young and too inexperienced with life and the world to teach these kids.
So I find myself in Seattle under the impression that in the "big city" they hand out decent jobs to people on the street. No phawking wonder I wasn't ready to teach, if I was that oblivious to the world. Post 9/11 and dot.com bust the city was laying off people that previously had 6 fig salaries. This glut in people looking for even just entry level work forced me to once again return to the old stomping ground of retail. Same company, just a different store and location. Instead of folding shirts I was a broke a$$ jeweler, hawking cloudy diamonds and fixing watches. HAHA
Time passes, sales isn't my shtick and I end up with what actually is one of my more memorable job experiences... tour gide, bartender, deck hand etc. with Argosy Cruises. This was honestly a dope job. How could you NOT dig working on the water during the summer months?! It didn't really pay the bills, but it kept our heat on and the tips helped us when it came to leisure spending.
Slowly but surely I find myself in an internship with Senator Maria Cantwell's office while Argosy was on hiatus due to the winter months. It was a great opportunity, but didn't pay and the part time gig at a record store didn't do much but pay my balance on my plastic. I thought after working for a US Senator, I'd come out a "made man" and once again walk the streets of the "big city" where they'd hand me some job. Well... after another tour with Argosy I was in a way. I did a brief stint for a crumbling dot com doing market research and then was basically offered my wife's old job at the Puget Sound Business Journal. There I was given my battle scars of office politics and finally was able to understand the humor of "Office Space" so much more.
After filling up on the 206 and thinking that we were never going to be able to advance in the highest educated city in the US, we migrated to Indy. So, here I am...
Funny... throughout all of these life experiences and jobs, the only constant has been the music. Although varied like my resume I went from working on my own music, to radio host, to DJ/producer, to DJ in a trip hop band to finally realizing that all along I ultimately wanted to do what I started out doing. (writing and producing my own music)
What's even funnier is that when people ask what I DO, I don't think of whatever job is paying the bills at the moment, I think of what I DO. The music. Although it has yet to pay the bills, the dream of this has always been with me and honestly the "dream" of being a teacher was only there because I though, "well... damn, music isn't going to pay the bills." HAHA
Who knows where the future will take my wife and I. But, when taking a step back from life I've found that somehow I've been doing what I always wanted to anyway, I just wasn't paying the light bill with it. I guess it just echoes what a friend of my wife said to her, "your job allows you to do what you want in life." True.
