Karma is a Freakin' Boomerang

So it was at the fry store that I first got a taste of management, and while I'm not super proud of it, I very quickly learned how and when to wield the many powers of a fast food manager.  Split-shifting people I didn’t like; back to back shifting; making people work Sundays; late nights; early mornings; and the best weapon in the arsenal of a fast food manager when it comes to getting your staff to comply, the threat of having to clean the dreaded grease trap.  If you haven’t worked in fast food, the grease trap is where all the nasty gunk that goes down the drain in the sink resides.  It’s smelly, it’s gross, and cleaning it is just about the worst thing you can make somebody do.  Like I said, I’m not proud, but I used my power.  Frequently.

They say that karma is a boomerang, and one night working alone I was paid back in spades for all the nasty stuff I made people do.  I was doing something extremely important and managerial after the mall closed (ketchup package inventory).  The mall was dead empty, and on the way home, I decided to stop off at the mall washroom.  In the more information than you need to know category, I'm normally not a fan of public washrooms as I have a bit of a bashful bladder, and certainly making a number two leaves one fairly exposed, but since the mall was closed, I figured it would be OK.

So I went on in and sat right down to go about my business.  Before I knew it, some thug came over the stall wall with a knife and he was standing facing me as I was sitting there.  It was a good thing my pants were already down, or this story would have an additional messier, smellier component.

He was pissed to learn that I actually had no money or anything else of any value.  He did take a ring that belonged to my grandfather and decided that since he had the knife, he was going to get something after all.  He had a friend waiting outside the washroom, and together, at knifepoint (well I guess the knife was in his pocket at this point) they escorted me to the bank machine where they forced me to draw out everything I had, which for me was a lot, since it was payday, and by that time, I was earning at least six bucks an hour in excellent management compensation.

I’m sure I could have run (well maybe not…chubby fast food managers are not known for their puma-like speed), but I’m not too proud to say that I was scared shitless (I guess the pun is intended), and I was embarrassed, to boot.  If not for my friends, I never would have even called the police. 

 

Ultimately, I called the police, swallowed my pride and told them that I got mugged while taking a dump, and made a report.  Surprisingly, they caught the guys, and I got to experience a police line-up, which is exactly as cool as it is on Law and Order.  I even got my ring back as the bonehead was wearing it when he got arrested.

My bosses did nothing.  They completely blamed me, and were most concerned about whether the mugger had relieved me of the bank deposit for that night (which he had not).  No offer of counseling or support, no offer of time off, no new policies about working alone.   Twenty years have passed and taking a dump in public still gives me the shivers.  You'd think with my career in the EAP business I'd have found a counsellor to help me with that one.

My First Brush With Fame

Life was progressing at the fry store, and once I had recovered from the scathing comment by the old dude about wasting my life in a shit job, I settled into a nice routine of work, spend, home, work, spend, home, work, spend, and home, that somehow involved very little school.   I barely recognized that I was squandering an excellent chance for a great education.  If I thought the library coin was good, fry cash was excellent.  

So one day at the fry store, when I should have been at school,  I met the most famous person I had met to date in my life.  Country music legend, Conway Twitty.   

At this point, it’s important to share another reason that I never got laid in high school:  I was a huge country music fan.  Not just country music, but Loretta Lynn.  I don’t know why, but I just loved her, and if you know anything about Loretta Lynn, you’ll know that she and Conway Twitty did some pretty excellent duet work together.  If you want to know what I mean, check out this Youtube by Conway and Loretta – As Soon As I Hang Up the Phone.  You’ll see what I mean.  This is quality stuff, not like Rhianna and whoever happens to be the flavor of the day-not that I have anything against Rhi Rhi, of course.  

Click here to go to Youtube for Conway & Loretta's biggest hit

Now Conway and who I can only assume to be Mrs. Twitty walked up to the counter, and I knew it was him from the diamond encrusted CT ring on his finger (well before rappers were covering their entire fists and their teeth in diamonds spelling out their names), and ordered some fries.   They had never heard of our company, and wanted to know why we were special.  So we chatted for a while, me, star-struck, him, hungry, and eventually I released him to go sit with his wife and eat his poutine, which by that time was a congealed mess of cold gravy, fries, and cheese.  

I was extremely surprised to see the Twittys come back the next day.  Twenty years later, I still remember Conway’s words…”Sean, I like them fries.”  With that, another order of fries, and Conway Twitty exited my life for good.  And sadly, shortly thereafter, in 1993, he exited life.

So the fry store, like the library, much to my surprise, became my next career.  I worked for a couple who owned two french-fry specific food court outlets in Ottawa, and a couple more in Thunder Bay.  I rapidly moved up the corporate fry ladder, becoming a supervisor, then manager of one of the Ottawa locations, and before I knew it a few years had passed and I was the king of food-court based gourmet French fries.  My parents were thrilled.

You Mean I Need To Pay Rent?

I was very, very lucky.  My parents paid for me to go to university.  They paid tuition and for my rent.  Somehow, after dreaming for the entire time I was in high school about moving to Ottawa to go to Journalism school, it never actually occurred to me that this would entail moving away from home.  It also never occurred to me that perhaps some savings would be a good idea, so I had managed to blow all my big library coin on things like burgers and movies.  

September of 1988 came around, and I was personally penniless.  Not a dime to my name other than the money my parents had given me to pay my rent for the first semester.  Because I had never been a budgeter or saver, it will be no surprise to hear that a full semester’s worth of rent was gone in the first few weeks of living on my own.  Shit.

To understand the gravity of this situation, you’d need to know my father.  He is a meticulous budgeter.  He can tell you where every dime of his money is at anytime.  He’s a saver, and he’s a worrier.  If I wouldn’t have inherited his good looks I’d be sure that I was adopted.  After a couple of calls home to top up the bank account, it became clear that the only thing to do was to get a job.

In 1988 I was introduced to the world of fast food.  To be sure, I had experienced it, but always from the other side of the counter.  I got a job selling french fries at a store that only sells french fries.  I may be the only person who has worked in fast food that has never had to ask the dreaded question, ‘Do you want fries with that?’  

In the previous four years of my sheltered library existence I didn’t have to do any heavy lifting, cleaning, stocking, or dealing with customers.  Customers add a whole new dimension to the world of work. 

I had some interesting customers at the fry store.  I remember one day, early in my tenure I was working an afternoon shift, and an older man and his wife who were regulars came up to the counter and we were chatting as I prepared his order.  I was complaining that I was always working (excellent form, I might add, bitching about my job to a customer) and didn’t have an opportunity to experience nice days like we were having that day in Ottawa.  He launched into a tirade about how if I only would have stayed in school that I wouldn’t have to work such a shit job and that maybe I’d be able to enjoy life, and that I should be prepared to miss lots of nice days because I’ll be working in low paying jobs for the rest of my life.

To this day I don’t know why I didn’t jump over the counter to kill him where he stood (imagine a chubby fast food guy trying to pull a Dukes of Hazzard move like that anyway).   I guess the amount of nerve that you possess is directly proportional to the side of the counter you're standing on.

This is Not One of Those Warm & Fuzzy Tim Horton's Commercials...

When I was in university, I worked for a car rental company.   I loved the job.  I lived in Ottawa, and occasionally, with work, I’d be able to return a car to Toronto, and pick up an Ottawa car to bring it back to town.  I’d leave really early in the morning, hit Toronto by noon, grab my car, and shoot over to Hamilton to see my family, returning to Ottawa either that night, or the next day.  Not only a free trip home, but imagine this, I got paid for doing it.  Excellent work.

One March day I headed for Toronto nice and early, and arrived in town on schedule, about noon.  They had a brand new Pontiac 6000 for me to return.  It’s first rental was a one-way from Ottawa to Toronto, so this baby had about 1000 km on the dial.  Pontiac 6000’s were pretty suave cars in their day.  I headed to Hamilton with my tunes blaring (cassettes, of course) and spent a great day with my folks.  

I had to work the next day, so we ate dinner early and I took off for Ottawa sometime around 6pm with my belly filled with mom's cooking.  There was no traffic, so I was making excellent time and got through Oshawa and stopped at Tim Horton’s sometime around 8pm for a bio-break and a snack pack of timbits.  The weather was starting to get a little sketchy, so I didn’t waste too much time.

By this point it’s completely dark, and I’m pretty alone out on highway 401…there wasn’t a lot of traffic, and while I wasn’t speeding too much, I wasn’t doddling either.   It had started to rain, but nothing crazy.   Somewhere between Kingston and Gananoque, I came around a corner and over a hill to find a sea of brake lights.  I completely freaked out, and immediately jammed on the brakes.  At which point I learned a life lesson about freezing rain.

On slippery roads, a Pontiac 6000 can do magical things.  And to be clear, I was (and some would say I still am) a horrible winter driver.  If you don't believe me, check with my brother Dan, who was with me on the day when I was 16 when I put my Dad's car into 3 different snow banks because of my fondness for the brake pedal.  On this day in March, alone on the 401, all of a sudden in the middle of a traffic jam, I hit the brakes so hard I almost felt my foot go through the floor board of the car.

I immediately began to fishtail across the highway, when I cranked the steering wheel so hard I swung around and came back across the highway facing the oncoming traffic.  How I didn’t take anybody out that night is still a mystery to me.  When I hit the shoulder of the road, the car flipped side over side, then end over end, and I finally came to rest, upside down in the ditch.  It was spring, and it was raining, so there was water in the ditch.  I sat, stunned, hanging upside down from my seatbelt in a sexy new Pontiac 6000 that was beginning to fill with water.

I should tell you now that I’ve always been a chubby dude.  Those guys at GM make a strong seatbelt, that’s for sure.

I’m sure I was in shock, so it never occurred to me to turn the car off.  A bunch of concerned folks were outside of the car screaming at me, and all  I could think about was to gather up the timbits that were floating around in the water so it didn’t look like the chubby dude lost control of his car while going after a loose timbit.  Finally somebody broke a window, reached in and turned the car off, at which point I released the seatbelt and splashed down into the water, cutting my hand on some broken glass…thankfully my only injury.

I learned that night that when you total your car on the side of the highway late on a rainy night, that the Ontario Provincial Police shake your hand and wish you good luck before they drive away and leave you at the side of the road.  Luckily, I got a ride to a truck stop, where I met another guy who took me the rest of the way into Ottawa.  It was no easy feat getting a ride, as I hadn't noticed until much later that I had wiped a lot of blood from the cuts on my hand all over my face.  I looked like a refugee from a really bad horror movie.

So imagine going on a work trip, to return work’s car, and showing up at work without the car.   I was a bit worried for my job, not to mention worried about having to replace a Pontiac 6000.  When I arrived, followed closely by the flatbed with the remains of a rust-coloured Pontiac 6000 in tow, I’ll always remember trying to explain to my boss, Ray, a scrappy French guy, that there were hundreds of accidents on the 401 that night…his response, “there may have been hundreds of accidents out there, but there were thousands of cars that passed those accidents…why couldn’t you be one of those?”  Now imagine it with a french accent.

Welcome to the World of Work, Young Man...

I have always worked.  From the time I was about 14, I have never, ever been without a job for any significant length of time.  I’m addicted to work.  But in a good way (as all the addicts say).  In my next life I’m going to be addicted to sex.  I’ve decided.

My very first job was going door to door selling greeting cards and chatchkis from a catalogue.  I sure didn’t get rich at that, but it introduced me to cold calling and rejection, which was excellent preparation for the world of dating that was just around the corner.  

I had a flyer route, which was a horrific experience.  With no notice whatsoever I'd wake up on Saturday morning and a truckload of flyers would be sitting in my driveway and they had to be delivered that day.  Sometimes it was the typical grocery store flyer, which was no big deal, but every couple of months, the Sears catalogue.  This is certainly no reflection on Sears as a company, but holy crap their catalogues are heavy.  Reward for delivering Sears catalogues to my entire neighbourhood in one rainy or snowy afternoon?  $8.00.  The experience?  Priceless.

In grade ten, I secured my first real job, and it was the first evidence that there was some value in being the teacher’s pet (read:  total geek with no social life and no hope of ever getting a girlfriend).  I was hanging around the library  at Delta Secondary School during my lunch and breaks between classes, as all the really cool kids did.  Sometimes I would help the librarian, whose name was Mrs. Butt.  Yep.  Mrs. Butt.  I was kissing up to Mrs. Butt, and before you knew it, I became a paid employee of the Hamilton-Wentworth Board of Education.  That’s right…$3.25 an hour to shelve books during spare periods, lunches and after school. 

What I didn’t know then was that this would turn into my first career.  I worked for Mrs. Butt and Mrs. Heritage (now there’s a name for a librarian) for the next four years (easy now, we had grade 13 in those days, I wasn’t held back).  If you were on staff during the school year, you also got a summer job.  Who knew that people actually worked in the library during the summer?

Perhaps to use the word ‘work’ to describe this summer job is to give the experience too much of a formal flavor.  We showed up (the other geeks and me) each day, watched TV, talked, fixed a couple of busted up old books, alphabetized the card catalogue (yep, no computers), went to lunch, did nothing in the afternoon, then went home at 3:30.  What an introduction to the world of work.  

Mrs. Butt was off for the summer like all the other teachers, but Mrs. Heritage was there to supervise.  I’m not sure whether it was her punishment, or why she got stuck being the summer librarian, but she was, and she was awesome.  As a boss, extremely flexible, she was generous, and on occasion, tough.  She would remind us gently in July that the major project for the summer was ‘shelf reading’, which for you non-library types means making sure all the books are in the right order on the shelves, was due to be finished before Mrs. Butt came back at the end of August. 

In the first week of August the reminders came more regularly, and by mid August, the reminders became warnings.  By the last week of August, our super cool gang of summer library geeks was going cross-eyed because we were trying to do a full summer’s worth of work in one week.  No wonder nobody could ever find the Shakespeare they were looking for.  My very first introduction to project management.  Who knew that would lead me to a life of Gant charts and MS Project.

The library job kept me going all the way to university.  It sure didn’t pay too much, but it was an introduction and an experience I won’t forget.  

It also likely won’t be a surprise then, when I share the big secret that I never got laid in high school.

Thanks for checking out my blog...I'm new and I've never done this before

Working is something that most of us have in common.   For sure lots of serious stuff happens there, and it ultimately makes the world go round.  But in amongst the seriousness, there is some pretty crazy hilarious shit going on in and around our workplaces.  Stuff that makes me laugh. 

And if you’ve ever gone to work, you’ve had a boss that made you crazy.  You’ve had co-workers that are so political and cut-throat that they could just as easily be working for some sub-Saharan dictator (and who knows, maybe they are on the weekends).  You’ve wondered what it is that keeps you coming back to that place.  The money?  Perhaps.  It’s easier than finding something else to do?  Likely.  You absolutely love it?  Rarely.  It’s more plausible that it’s a combination of those things.  You’re used to it, and it’s better than the alternative.

In 25 years plus of working (which on many days feels like an entire lifetime), I would have to say that I’ve been lucky enough to have worked for some great organizations and some fantastic bosses.  Along the way I’ve encountered some freaks, to be sure, and where it’s the fantastic bosses and great organizations that have given me a great career, it’s the crazies that have really made it interesting.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I’m a boss.  I have been for years, and I don’t think at this point in my career I couldn’t be.  Now that doesn’t mean I don’t also have a boss, because I do, and it has often been my bosses that give me the best reasons to smile.  Sometimes they’re so on the mark it’s scary, and other times, they wouldn’t know the mark if they tripped over it.   I don’t subscribe to a particular management philosophy, or even a set of rules by which I manage my team or business.  To be certain, I like things open; I like the discussion frank; I appreciate the people that work for me telling me like it is; and I’ve been known to change my mind, backtrack on a decision, change a deadline, and yes, commit the odd HR violation (if I’m going to get in trouble it’s because words often exit my mouth without being cleared by my brain.  I’ve never groped anybody.)

So why blog?   I’ve had some experiences that make people smile when I share these stories, so that’s what this is about.  It’s about me being serious about work, but not taking work too seriously.  I take back what I said earlier.  I do actually have one rule.  I spend 50-60 hours a week working, so it has to be fun.  Not 24/7 life is a carnival kind of fun, but I need to like the people, I need to believe in what we’re doing, and I need to be able to be myself at work.  I need to laugh.  If those things aren’t happening, I have to go. 

My lovely wife doesn’t really ‘get’ me when it comes to how I feel about work.  She’s a nine-to-fiver.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but in a lot of cases, I’ve done most of my best work way before nine and long after 5.   She doesn’t understand what it is about work that makes me happy.  We’ve been together for almost 20 years, and while I’m sure she still doesn’t understand, at least she’s not bugging me about it anymore.

My hope is that in these stories, all of them absolutely true, you’ll find something that makes you chuckle, (because it maybe resonates a bit).  They are the experiences that have turned me into the employee, the boss, the husband, the father and the friend that I am today.  They make me smile when I remember them.  Some of the experiences weren’t so pleasant, but when I take a look back and consider them in fresh context, bad things take on a humorous light. 

I'm totally new at this.  I barely read anymore, let alone write anything.  I just like sharing the laughs.