Timing
Dec/080
Sometimes it’s all about timing. Believe it or not I am a huge timing guy. I am really thinking about what I am doing right now or today, I’m always thinking about tomorrow and what I’m doing next. This is probably why I am so frustrated because I rarely complete those tasks I plan for tomorrow, but that’s just a part of life. I’m working on it. ANYWAYS, with all this drama going on at work a few things have worked out timing wise to really wake me up and take stock in some things.
In his never ending attempts to inspire me, Scotsman sent me some books for Christmas. The first one that I started reading was The Four Hour Work Week. It’s a guy who figured out how to work less, make more and have a bunch of free time. A lot of it is “too good to be true” type of stuff and a lot of it isn’t. I was enjoying reading it.
Then I got suspended from work. This turned out to be the most ridiculous thing to happen to me in a long time. Instead of just taking the suspension I attempted to fight it and requested a meeting with one of the owner/managers. As I said before the complaint about me had some validity, but it was simply not 100% my fault. The blame should be shared and I was not going to take the punishment like it was 100% me. The manager told me we could discuss things on Friday. I called three times and “just missed” him everytime and left my number asking for a callback. Did I get it? Nope. This didn’t do much for my belief that they were out to get me. Saturday morning I called back and got another owner/manager person and told him that I wanted to talk to someone. His reply to me was “So we should just go around giving people bad service and get to come back?” I simply replied that there was no way I would purposely give bad service and this is all a big misunderstanding. I got to come and have that meeting a few hours later and it became clear to me that I wasn’t that well liked by management. I found the situation to be very disrespectful of someone who has been there almost two years, trains most of the new employees and shows up with a positive attitude everyday. I know I am not perfect by any means, but I know that I am one of the better people that they have there. They don’t agree apparently and went so far as to ask me to sign an agreement saying this wouldn’t happen again and that I wouldn’t show up hungover for work (seriously!). I sat there and allowed myself to be talked to in a way that I never would have a few years ago. I did it because they were going to let me come back to work that night.
Then they called me back twenty minutes later and took it back.
After saying I was safe to come back for work I was called by the owner/manager person to say that according to the handbook “his hands were tied” and I must be suspended. This is why I had this whole meeting in the first place. I knew what the handbook said, I just didn’t think that it was correct in this particular case. I talked to the guy who has an ownership stake in the restaurant because I wanted him to overrule the handbook. He owns the handbook, there is no tying of the hands.
It was at this exact moment that everything became clear to me. I was exactly what I was reading about in the Four Hour Work Week. I was someone who chose to be unhappy because unhappy was safe. I have child support payments and bills to pay, but I am not happy. I am not doing what I want to do. Yet I’m not so unhappy that I hate my life. I’m caught up in my lifestyle because it’s comfortable and that has to stop. I need to be the person that I want to be. Not comfortable. This will change.
At that moment something else came clear to me too. The me of just a few years ago would NEVER let someone treat him this way. He would have stood up for himself. He would have told someone to fuck off. Go back a few years more and he might have even punched them in the face. My thinking has been for awhile that I have a kid now and that I need to be an adult and handle these things in a more mature manner. Somehow as time has gone on that has turned into me not standing up for myself and letting people treat me like crap. This will change.
There is a part in the book where they ask you to take stock in your life and ask yourself what the worst that could happen was. This was something that I have never done. It never crossed my mind and it’s really something I should have done a long time ago. I have very few true must pay bills each month. In fact, I could survive on less than $1,000 per month if I had to, INCLUDING MY CHILD SUPPORT. That’s insane and I can’t believe I just realized this. In fact it makes me kind of sad that I have been somewhat blinded by the money I spend drinking and partying with my friends. I have to admit that I have a lot of fun and I really love my life, but the bills to money to savings ratio is pathetic. This will change.
I don’t really know what’s going to happen with my work situation and I really don’t care either way. If I end up going back, that’s fine. I am not going to let myself be treated like crap though so we’ll see if that works out. If I don’t go back then I have more time to concentrate on the things I really care about. My son, websites and making my dad’s business rich. The plan has been all along to stop serving by the summer of 2009 and without this I probably wouldn’t have gone through with it. Now I know that whatever happens, I will be okay. This won’t change.
