Shoes, my first real boss and such

Jobs

The year was 1985, I was out of money for college, tired of working all the time to pay tuition, tired of being tired so I dropped out of St Ambrose College at the end of my junior year and started looking for full-time work in order to save money. After 3 years of working all the time to pay for school while trying to maintain romances and friendships and drinking too much, I wanted a break to just work, save money, and have some to spend. I wasn’t looking for a career or something long-term, I was looking to make money. I didn’t have a plan except to finish college eventually (and then what? I was not sure and you could argue, still am not any closer even 30 years later). My high school friend, Todd, worked as an assistant manager at a women’s only Thom McAn shoe store in SouthPark Mall Moline, Illinois. He recommended I come to work there. He helped me get an interview. I actually don’t remember interviewing for the job, but I’m sure I did and likely it was with James P. the district manager. I do remember getting hired very quickly. Dad was pleased that I got on with a big company.

Just typing James’ name has me reminiscing about shit leaders I’ve known and how I learned from non example or said differently, what not to do, because of them. He was like so many other leaders that I have seen in my working life and not in a good way. In fact he reminds me of the person who laid me off at the EE – someone faking it until it all catches up; a bumbling white guy who doesn’t really like women except in their place. Someone who is on borrowed time in their leadership role or they report into people where that type of leadership is status quo or both. He was dishonest in my mind because he said what he thought people wanted to hear, not truth, and this included outright lies like, “You are now my highest paid manager,” when I wasn’t. He talked behind people’s back and took short cuts. He honestly reminded me of a used car salesperson, as do many from the EE. Anyway, I got the job and was made manager trainee of a store in NorthPark Mall in Davenport, Iowa working for a man named Dwayne who, to quote a line from a movie, “made caffeine nervous”.

Dwayne was my first real boss, it was, after all, my first full-time job after years of working part-time. To this day Dwayne is on the short list of leaders I worked for that were really good that I learned positive things from. He really understood the job and he reveled in teaching people to be successful at the running of a store. Dwayne was short, skinny, had endless energy (even when hung over), was bald and had a mustache. He had a habit of bringing out shoes from the back room for people to try on at such a speed that he slid across the carpet to a stop in front of them. He was a fast talker and didn’t adjust his tempo for people who couldn’t keep up. No matter where he was standing in the long big store, he yelled, “Good Morning,” or, “HI!” to anyone who stopped or even looked like they were glancing at the shoes at the front of the store. I should note, he did indeed drink a lot of coffee with sugar. He once came whirling out of the back room with shoes and simultaneously almost ran into a little kid and without missing a beat yelled, “Whoa! Slow down little cowboy!” I still laugh when picturing it. I found him to be infectious and someone I liked being around.

Dwayne was confident, quick with knowledge and wit, and constantly busy. He freely imparted wisdom and opinions about how to best run the show. He followed the prescribed training manuals and added his own reinforcement or adjustments based on how he led and managed. I never saw him not be confident that he did a good job and his sales results certainly showed it. Regularly the store’s results exceeded the prior year by at least 10% often times doubling the prior years numbers. He demanded sales focus and you could focus on sales because the rest of the store was running smoothly as well, like stock being off the floor and in its place so you could easily find what the customer wanted. He regularly said something I have repeated over and over again in my own leadership roles, “This isn’t hard, you just have to break it down into manageable units.” A natural-born teacher who likely under utilized his skills being in retail, although one could argue that success in retail means success in many other places. Retail is tough, hard work, inconsistent hours and if you survive you likely are made of something. I think the same thing about food service work. As a side note, later my retail experience is what got me hired into a government job, not my background or my degree. Someone there recognized the value of retail experience since she too came from retail.

Dwayne didn’t hesitate to teach me how to do payroll (my first experience with accounting), even though it was something I shouldn’t technically learn for another 8 months. He showed me how to run shoes in a more efficient way and explained why it was so important (makes getting shoes faster for the customer), how to keep track of all actions happening on your register (trust but verify), how to manage your safe and how to be a better sales person and sales leader. I know he gave feedback that I was really good and needed to be promoted, I heard that from Dennis the assistant manager and I also heard from my friend Todd who said more than once when we were out drinking that everyone was talking about how great I was doing and how fast I was catching on. Dwayne gave me the credit for catching on so quickly and being so ready for promotion so soon, yet, here was a man who instilled in me the confidence to manage and lead the mechanics of running a store end to end, advised me on how to do well, how to be successful, and modeled good leadership and practical management. He let me loose to learn it as fast as I could handle.

Retail requires knowing a little bit of everything in a world where we tend to value over-specialization. I already had worked in retail and had pretty high accountability (I opened and closed Mr Neats Tux Shop on my own while in high school) but I was not in charge as part of leadership but now was a leader and I nailed it. I succeeded so quickly in part because that’s who I am and in part because I lucked into a great leader to train me on the first go. I completed the 18 month trainee program in two months.

Something else that made Dwayne a great leader was that he knew the history of Thom McAn and Melville corporation. He knew it inside and out: how may factories we once had, how many we had left, where we started, who we were named after, how we grew, where we were growing. He knew it and shared it. He instilled pride in where we worked, clearly he felt some respect and even loyalty to a company that had grown the way Thom McAn had and he enjoyed talking about it. I repeated that history as a manager to my own teams.

I liked Dwayne from day one and he seemed to really like having me around. That may also have been because he saw in me tolerance and lack of judgment. Dwayne was gay. Dwayne was not the first (nor the last) gay person I knew or was friends with. I knew one of my closest friends was probably a lesbian. One of my oldest and still dearest friends from high school was and is gay. It was the 80’s and I understood that there was an entire culture out there that I didn’t see or participate in and I was ok with it. My friendships have always been based on more than a persons sexuality. Dwayne had a boyfriend he kept “hidden” that he introduced as his roommate. His name was Tommy and Tommy was quite traditionally more feminine in his demeanor, actions, discussions and so on than Dwayne. In fact, Dwayne didn’t really come across as someone who back then you would consider as maybe being gay, but Tommy, you would likely think he was gay and you would have been correct. I liked Tommy as well.

Tommy was sick often: flu, pneumonia, coughs, thin, pale but would regularly spend time talking to me in the store late at night, usually when he was there to pick Dwayne up after the store closed and while we were cleaning and running the books. Sometimes he came in early and just hung out with us, getting us coffee or soda and chatting while we worked. When it was just myself and Dwayne closing, Tommy and Dwayne seemed very comfortable with Tommy coming in and hanging out. I perceived that Dennis, the assistant manager and a really nice guy but also a Christian family man, being a bit stand offish with Tommy yet still nice to him, but stand offish. I don’t remember Tommy coming into the store much when Dennis was there, but Dennis and his wife kept trying to fix Dwayne up with their female friends, that probably didn’t help build relationships.

In less than a few months after starting at Thom McAn, I was promoted and working for Gordon at the men’s Thom McAn store at the Moline mall. I had known Gordon for years, since high school. The tuxedo rental store I worked at in high school, Seno Formalwear, and then Mr Neat’s Tux Shop was next door to the men’s Thom McAn store. We talked in front of the store often. After a month at that store I was promoted to be assistant manager at the women’s store down the mall from where I was. Odd that there were separate stores like that, but I actually think it was a great concept and something Thom McAn should have done more of to survive long-term, to include separate kids stores.

Pause – I just looked for Gordon online and found an obituary that said little to nothing in the Quad City Times in 2005 that may have been him. In searching in Davenport, where he lived, I can’t find him. Sigh.

Pause again – I found his wife on Facebook and after some stalking found an older post from the anniversary of Gordon’s death. It has hit me hard that he is gone and what a shitty friend I was to not keep in touch. Although, he could have kept in touch as well I suppose.

It wasn’t hard being an assistant manager, it was just long hours. Soon enough I was asked to move to Fort Dodge, Iowa as an assistant manager. It was the regions most profitable store because of low rent, not because of sales. I hated it there. I lived in a hotel and could not find a place to rent that took dogs. I was lonely. The people in the store looked at me like I was a freak because of how I dressed, my opinions, my assertion in getting sales and so on. In addition, I found out I was pregnant. The store manager, an overly religious person of little tolerance, did not like me (he had made it clear he didn’t like Dwayne either so likely didn’t like that I was a product of Dwayne’s training – sound familiar? common fucking story in corporate America today – hate the history of who someone has worked for despite how they perform. I didn’t like him either. I didn’t like close minded people, still don’t. I was homesick, not sure about a future with the baby’s father, hated small town Iowa, and just wanted to leave. I didn’t fit in. Eventually I told James I was pregnant and wanted to go home, without missing a beat he said I could go back to Davenport as an assistant manager, so I was back with Dwayne again and he was wonderful about me coming back and being pregnant.

Dwayne and Tommy and the rest of the people in the store rallied around me and were so excited about me being pregnant. When I had a miscarriage they were all heartbroken but yet Dwayne’s strength and maintenance of my privacy about what had happened was something else I learned from. He just didn’t gossip and he didn’t talk about things that he didn’t think were his story to tell. I’ve tried to remember that. Some day I will write about that pregnancy, but for now, suffice to say, I was heartbroken that the baby was gone and yet things were going to change quickly.

Dwayne was from Colorado and always talked of wanting to go back there and eventually a store came open there and Dwayne and was offered the move. This set in motion a store manager opening in Davenport which was not the most profitable store but it had the largest sales volume. A manager from Sioux City was offered the store which left his store open and next thing I know I was being asked to move to northern Iowa.

I almost didn’t move to Sioux City. I was interviewing for other jobs and was ready to take one selling investment services when the store came open. I can remember talking to dad about it and he said I needed to take the manager position so I would always have it on my resume because, according to dad, while it came easy to me that I got promoted in under a year to manager, it was not an easy feat. People worked for years to get to where I got in a short time. I would find out later it was absolutely true that people waited for years to get to that promotion.

I won’t spend much time on my success in Sioux City except to say that starting the week I took over, I increased sales at least 20% in a store that was a bit of a mess physically and how it was trained and run. I knocked performance out of the park. The former manager, now in Davenport, had once said to me that he felt the Davenport store was going to finally “take off” with him in charge. In the next breath he was saying, “No offense, but you will struggle to beat my numbers.” I just ignored him. Then I proved him wrong. He also didn’t meet the prior years numbers let alone exceed them in Davenport. I was good at getting my team to do a good job and we quickly had a reputation in the mall of running a tight ship that customers liked.

Dwayne stayed in touch calling me for shoes to be shipped to his store to make sales and I did the same with him. It was actually one of my tricks that I knew him and he had a much larger inventory so I was able to get special orders from him. I had heard through the grapevine that Tommy had passed away. Dwayne didn’t tell me but he had stopped calling and I let it ride. I knew they were more than friends and roommates and I assumed he was grieving. I was also finally making friends in Sioux City (meaning drinking too much) so was busy all the time.

It was announced we would have a meeting of all districts in our region in Denver. I think it was in 1987, but could be wrong – I have a mug somewhere still from the meeting that I hope has the date, since it will bug me that I don’t know for sure the year. James and everyone else in our group of managers joked before hand at our district meeting that they would not shake Dwayne’s hand or go near him so they didn’t “catch AIDS”. They spoke and joked about it openly in the business meeting, at dinner, and while having drinks. When we all got to Denver the first night they were still joking about how they would stick their hand out to him then pull it back or shake his hand then disinfect their hand in front of him. Everyone was laughing and showing how they would do it – I can still picture the bar and all of them laughing and showing each other “funnier” ways to humiliate Dwayne. I was about 6 months sober having quit drinking earlier that year so watching the jokes and the cruelty come out of everyone’s mouth was more disturbing as time ticked by and as they drank more. I do remember one person staying quiet and that was Dennis P, a big old teddy bear guy who loved running a shoe store. He was the master at selling what was called fronts – the higher commission non-shoe items, like purses and socks. He was a lot like Dwayne so I considered him my friend as well. The reason why it stuck out that Dennis was quiet is not that it surprised me that he didn’t participate but rather that Dennis talked ALL the time. I once on a drive from the Quad Cities to Sioux City fell asleep while he was talking and woke up two hours later and he was still talking – it was just him and I in the car.

Dwayne walked into the bar area and ever the class act, came up to say hello to everyone. I stepped back into the shadows embarrassed by what may happen and wanting to distance myself from these idiots. No one did what they said as far as actions, but they didn’t shake his hand either. There were some side eye glances at each other as they waited for each other to do what they kept saying they would do, but it didn’t happen. Everyone including the blusterous District Manager, James, were cordial yet short with Dwayne. Hot air. You can say it’s locker room talk, I think it’s just wasted oxygen.

I was standing back behind a table and chairs and when my eyes met Dwayne’s he had a huge smile and I walked over to him and gave him a hug. We stood and talked and then ended up standing at the bar where Dwayne talked, finally, about how much he loved Tommy and how Tommy’s death had torn his world upside down with grief. He swore it wasn’t AIDS and I told him I didn’t care and that I was sorry he was sad. When I glanced around James was glaring at me as were a few of the other managers. Surprisingly some of the other managers later told me that they admired me for not playing along. One manager used the word “courage” to describe my actions, I think I was just being a decent human. Yet, some of the others never forgave me and treated me like crap from that moment forward. Little did I know that this was the beginning of my M.O. of not following the basic corporate “unwritten” rules which meant following like a sheep in the behavior, bullshit, and immorality and shallowness of people in charge. Eventually some would say it was my downfall as a leader at the EE. I would say it’s what made me the best.

I find myself wondering why people didn’t like Dwayne. There certainly was an undercurrent from some of the other managers that they didn’t like him, including Gordon, the manager of the men’s Thom McAn in the Moline mall, who I considered my friend. There was also outward disdain and dislike, but why? Dwayne didn’t suffer fools gladly and like most places when you are surrounded by other leaders, there are a plethora of fools. Was it because he was all business and didn’t hide his brain? Was it because he didn’t suck up to our boss, James? He certainly didn’t act like James was smarter than him or look to him for advice (Dwayne could have run circles around him). Was it because his store was successful even more successful than others with better merchandise and locations? But why didn’t people like him or why were they non inclusive of him? I used to think it was because he was gay, but I don’t think that is the case now that I’m older, although I do know for some of the other managers, that was absolutely part of it.

Dwayne didn’t appear to be ruled by his ego. Other managers and his own boss couldn’t rattle him because Dwayne actually appeared to be ok with who he was. Were they jealous? Was he a threat? Was it because his knowledge was superior to them? I sometimes wonder if other leaders don’t like people like Dwayne and me because we remind them what they could be if they didn’t care what inconsequential people in their lives thought or if they dropped their biases, had tolerance, took a deep breath, continued to grow, learn, listen, be interested and be interesting versus simply settling. Thirty plus years later, and not being driven by an ego is something I am conscious of, mentor people towards becoming, something I value, and something I easily recognize in the positive and negative. Dwayne was a model of this.

Dwayne is someone who I credit with making me a good leader in part because he was no-nonsense, a good leader himself, a great teacher and trainer, kind, ego was removed from who he was, and also funny. He also did not hide that he was smart. I don’t remember hearing him say negative things about other people, his comments were simply factual and sometimes that was viewed as criticism. I wish I could go back now, knowing what I do after 30 years of successful leadership and ask all of them why. I wonder if some of them think about how they treated him and feel regret? Maybe. And Maybe not.

Whenever I think about Dwayne and I’ve thought of him often in the last 30+ years, I’m never sure if he taught me to be a good leader or laid the foundation (in addition to my dad) or if it was that we were so in tune to each other. By this I mean that my style was already like his so he reinforced my style exponentially. I liked him and I know he liked me.

I’ve searched for Dwayne a number of times online but can’t find him.

An Opinion That Might Matter

Dad

I was running errands tonight after dropping Caitlin off at Hollywood Studios and suddenly a question hit me upside the head so hard that I almost had to pull over. What would my dad have thought of me walking away from my job and not trying to get a new one at the company?

Dad was always my biggest supporter, my counselor, and the person who thought I could be more than I thought I could be. He was also the person who constantly, during my college years, told me to take business courses and to major in business (I didn’t take a single business course and to this day, never have). He told me it was the way to make a living and he didn’t know or think I could earn money as a graphic designer or a zoologist or a psychologist. I can remember getting into pretty heated fights about it with him and feeling like he was not supporting me or not proud that I could be more than a business person. I could be an artist or a biologist or a psychologist. To me, those were challenging majors that required critical thinking skills, outward problem solving and actual creativity. I felt heartbroken at times that he wanted me to take classes that to me seemed so boring and were not challenging either. I viewed those majors in business as the ones that people took because (in my mind) they weren’t creative enough or smart enough to do anything else. It was a default major for people who didn’t think or were not creative. That may seem harsh, but it was how I felt. I read the descriptions of what business majors did and read the class descriptions and thought, “Really? They go to school for this? Why not just go work in a business and learn it there?” I had been working at businesses all through high school and into college in some capacity, especially retail, it didn’t seem that hard. I think dad knew what I could not see at the time, that I could apply my creativity, critical thinking skills, problem solving skills in business and do some real good and be more successful than most. It would take me years to realize that that was what I was doing.

Dad had retired from the military and jumped around from job to job afterward before finally landing at leading newspaper circulation – something he was very successful at. In retrospect, he should have went to school to, believe it or not, become a counselor (he was, after all, a great counselor to me). People who worked for him, looked up to him and he mentored many. He also would have made a great photographer or photojournalist. Years later when I look at his photos I am overwhelmed at his spot on capture of people or of scenery or of airplanes. That said, he was an excellent business person for someone who didn’t work in it until military retirement and he didn’t go to school for it. I wonder if he went that route because it was easier and safer, like I did? He knew once he got a job, he would progress up the chain and he had more of the skill set needed than most would ever dream of having. He was a natural leader, quiet, smart, listened, found solutions quickly, accurate, critical thinker and good at solving problems. It was safe.

I used to go visit dad at work and even worked for him part-time at the Daily Dispatch in Moline, Illinois. We would chat about what he was doing or what was going on at his work and again, I thought a lot of what he did seemed like common sense and he didn’t disagree. Treat people well, talk to them, listen, understand numbers and math, use critical thinking, apply short and long-term solutions, and understand what meant success for the business owners. Common sense. I didn’t realize that what I thought was easy, was for others not natural, intuitive, or even a skill set that they had. No wonder people went to school for it, they hoped to book learn what people like myself and my dad (and many others) found so easy. God knows I worked for leaders at the EE (Evil Empire) that clearly not only didn’t learn these skills in business school, they didn’t learn it on the job and it was not a natural skill set. They could spout book learning, get by with applying what they learned, but they were never going to be extraordinary.

I worked full-time while I was in college and kept a pretty full social life in addition to keeping pretty good grades. It was a grueling schedule though and one that during some semesters went like this:

Get up at 2:30 a.m. to drop newspapers for USA Today into machines
Come home and get ready for school (or take a quick nap if there was time)
Go to classes
Work in between classes at the school (college work-study)
Go to part-time job after work (Mr. Neats Tux Shop)
Go out drinking with friends or sometimes study
Come home and crash or crash study for a test or paper
Get up and do it again (amen) (that’s a song reference that I hope you get)

It was not a sustainable schedule and I eventually burned out and went to work full-time and quit my other part-time jobs that totaled more than 40 hours a week and quit school. A friend worked as an assistant manager at Thom McAn shoes at the mall and got me a job as a manager trainee. It was a quick win to get this job that paid enough to allow me to save and to get caught up on expenses and for the first time ever, have extra money in my pocket to spend on me. In no time at all I was promoted to assistant manager since there were three stores in the vicinity and eventually promoted quickly to manager.

I never asked why they promoted me over others in the district, I assumed it was because I was the best but in retrospect I know it was also that I had a manager who promoted me well, without ego, and for the right reasons to our boss. This is something that is not stressed enough in work places, having a sponsor who promotes you for the right reasons. Interestingly enough, the man who was my supporter and internal promoter to the company was a gay man. He knew I knew he was gay and he loved that I treated him no differently than others because that was how he was. This was in 1984 so acceptance of gay people was still very low and HIV/AIDS was starting to show up in the news. He was a good person and nice man who didn’t get a fair shake on his sexuality within Melville Corporation. That is another story for another time.

Don’t get me wrong, it was not just that he promoted getting me promoted, I was also very good at what I did, caught on fast, didn’t make mistakes and when I did, I admitted it. I worked hard and learned the business quickly and accurately. Even with support, I wouldn’t have been recommended if I didn’t do the work very well. The man I worked for was smart and fast and he expected the same. He liked me because I could keep up. At the time and even now, I didn’t think anything about running a store end to end for a corporation was hard, in fact I thought it was easy. I was also good at sales and increased sales at every store I worked at which was 5 stores in the 4 years I was there. I was good at routines and getting certain things done in an order that made it easier, fast, and accurate and often had controls to double-check myself. The other thing I learned, in working for a gay man who was almost openly mocked by the district manager at the time, was that you likely were not going to get a fair shake if you were different. How little did I realize how much that would be the case even after decades of top-notch performance. For all the leadership books and management books teach people, meeting numbers and exceeding them doesn’t always cut it. Again, that is likely a topic for a later post.

I took the job as a means to an ends, I needed to work for money for school and this job was available and easy to get. In spite of all those arguments with dad about studying business, here I was working in a business role and I was really good at it.

The store that I became an actual manager of and ran for the parent corporation, Melville Corp, was in Sioux City, Iowa. It was the first time I moved away from home and I was still young and I was the only female manager in the district and was taking over a store that the local assistant manager thought he deserved. I was unsure but ready for the challenge and I was definitely home sick.

I was living in the Howard Johnson hotel for months while looking for a house that I could afford that also took dogs. I wasn’t going to move without Tasha my Siberian Husky. She was important to me and the first of many dogs I’ve had in my life. In the first week of taking over the store my assistant manager showed up at the hotel with his wife and quit but not before insulting me and telling me everyone was ready to quit. I was shaken but in retrospect I would hug that person sitting in the lobby of the hotel that was me and whisper in her ear, “Now tell this misogynistic asshole to fuck off.”

From the first week I took over the store we increased sales and increased them by a lot. I demanded that the team clean up the store, get it organized so the job of selling shoes would be easier. I expected routine and I wanted shipments ran into the walls quickly, displays set up per the company marketing guidelines, boxes to look neat when opened for customers, everyone greeted when they walked in and so on. I also demonstrated what I wanted. I ran my fair share of shipments into the walls (I liked the challenge of finding space and counting how to get the shoes in the wall). I worked quite a few hours but did try to watch them (advice my dad had given me in a letter to me after I moved- the only letter he ever wrote me).

My hard work paid off. I won awards for customer focus and for leadership development of myself and my team. I was constantly outpacing the competition of the other stores and when I didn’t I kept my head down and worked on how to get more sales. People liked working for me or they didn’t and left. There was really no in between. I was clear on expectations and ran a tight ship but also left room for innovation and most importantly fun. Fun we did have for sure.

When I left Thom McAn to stay home with Joshua my dad was disappointed. He thought I should go back and leave on better terms but I couldn’t go back to Sioux City and work and raise a child on my own. It felt too iffy in a world where I needed assurances that Joshua would be safe, especially after spending 6 months in bed to have him. I was filled with joy that he was here and could not imagine my life at Thom McAn with an infant. But once Joshua got a little older, dad often said he thought I made the right decision to stay in Springfield with him and mom. Joshua was important to dad.

Dad was proud of me when I went back to school during that time of being a full-time mom. He had also told me to get it done in that letter 5 years earlier. Something I didn’t do like I promised I would mostly because of drinking problems and relationship problems. I didn’t make the time to go to school in Sioux City, I really did just drink a lot and spend time with my boyfriend living his life with him. I thought I was happy doing that, but I lost myself doing it and later, after our son was born and I was on my own, it took time to get me back. It wouldn’t be the only time I lost sight of me or lost myself completely. In fact, it wasn’t the first time, but in retrospect I tell that younger me, “I get why you think you should do this and not do this other thing, but hold on, it’s not the right path for you anymore to live someone else’s life.”

Dad was proud when I went to work part-time at Wal-Mart to get extra money while in school. I found myself constantly being asked to work full-time and be a manager trainee. I eventually quit because they couldn’t keep my hours low enough to balance school and being a mom. He was happy when after much job searching I was hired by the city to be a counselor in a federally funded program. In that role I got to teach and train – something I loved and was good at. I still love it.

Dad was proud when I left the city and went to work at UnitedHealthcare as a trainer. He thought it was an amazing opportunity and he was right, it truly was – stressful but good. I had been promoted once when he passed away. What would he have thought of me making it to Vice President? I can only imagine how much he would have loved my success. Despite what the powers that be thought of me when I left, I was successful and hugely so. He would have really loved that.

I know I could have kept my mouth shut and likely not gotten laid off or found another role had I really pushed hard with people during my two weeks prior to leaving but my ego was hurt that this was happening and I honestly just wanted the money and a break to write and read and travel. I went back and forth about wanting to stay out of fear and wanting to leave to have a good full life. I still have my moments where I feel like a failure. So you can see why the question of what dad would think of this comes up.

As I’ve written this and relived a thousand moments that I didn’t write about in this post, I honestly think he would have told me to quit on my 55th birthday when my stock was mine to keep. I don’t think he would have liked the stress or the bullshit of people speaking to my work as if were their own all the time. He likely would have said, “Enough already, Lynn. Go enjoy life.” He would have recognized that what was happening to me was the stupid people were winning and it was time to start my own game with smart people only.

The bottom line is that dad was often proud of me if not always. It says a lot that even 18 years after he died, I still wonder or worry about what he would have thought. He was so important to me.

I started this post weeks ago and part laziness has kept me from finishing and part the recognition that this is such a rich topic for me, my relationship with my dad. Couple that with an ongoing emptiness and yearning for just one more day with him. Layer on top of THAT that I think there is also a rich story of how I got to where I am today. Yet on top of all that is the amount of things I have to process through to get to a place of really answering, “What would dad have thought?”. It is complicated with emotions, memories, dysfunction of beating myself up, sadness, and so much more. At the end of it though is the knowledge that dad would have told me to walk awhile ago and to write a letter afterwards to the leaders explaining my experience. I have not done that, I probably should, but doubt I will. If dad were here, he would push me to close that loop.

Courage to be Joey Ramone

Courage

Am I courageous? I’ve often had people tell me I am because I do things like eat out by myself, travel somewhere new on my own, and step outside of perceived comfort zones. But is that courage? I don’t think it’s courage for me because those things, while they can produce anxiety, are not things I outwardly fear and am fearful of doing. Would I prefer to eat out with others? Sometimes. Would I prefer to discover new places with someone special or with my kids? Likely. Right now I don’t feel courageous as I find myself without a job to go to every morning that was predictable. It was also soul sucking and didn’t use my full talents, but it was predictably always there and I knew how I would spend my days. I didn’t want to be there, tied to the chair in front of my computer each day on the phone doing the same thing every day – trying to create understanding with people on how to make things better for the company and for our customers when they were perfectly happy with their status quo and repackaging it over and over and over again. But I’ve had doubts today that I should have just kept my mouth shut and kept showing up because the doubts and fear are overwhelming me today or at least I am giving them more energy than the sense of freedom and possibility that should be flowing through me instead.

I’ve had so many people say to me, “But you get (got) paid a lot?”. I can see that reasoning because when I didn’t earn anything or didn’t have money saved, I would have said the same thing. Let’s face it, back in those days, I worked wherever I needed to in order to earn the most money so I COULD save. My intent was never to stay, but I did and because I knew everything about the company or where to go to find out about something, I could do a lot with little energy. For many years that seemed ideal, I was raising two kids on my own, my dad was sick and then passed away, my mom was discovering life on her own, my ex husband made my life difficult and I didn’t have much time for friends or what interested me. Being able to do work almost blindfolded but still exceeding expectations, was ideal for my own personal balance. But then the kids got older, mom found her footing, I ended a relationship, and I was left thinking, “Is this all there is?” (a great Nanci Griffith song). The comfort of having saved and not needing to work at this particular place for the salary weighed on me. I kept thinking “tomorrow” but was acutely aware that tomorrow may never come or I may wake up and not have time to write, draw, take photos, design shoes, write a play, write a movie, design clothing … all those things I dreamed of doing when I was younger but was too afraid to do because I needed a steady income for me and the kids. I didn’t feel courageous, I felt like I was complacent and stuck and afraid of making a mistake or regretting that I left when I should have stayed. What if I was just not as creative as I thought? or capable of writing something worth reading? or designing shoes people would wear?

I chose the picture from my photo album of Joey Ramone Place in New York City because I find Joey Ramone or Jeffrey Hyman to be one of the bravest people I can think of. Here was a guy who suffered from crippling obsessive disorders, likely other issues as well in addition to health problems coupled with being tall, skinny, and wearing glasses. He became the lead singer of the Ramones and changed musical history forever. He was also funny and smart and helped other musicians. Every interview I’ve read about him stated that he was a nice guy and really knew music. He was intelligent and knew what he loved and found a way to do it despite set backs, like being institutionalized. I think he was brave. He is also one of the few New Yorkers to get a street named after him. He would have liked that. What if he had been afraid of making a mistake. What if when John Cummings (Johnny Ramone) had asked him to move out from behind the drums to being lead singer he had let fear stop him? We would have been denied his voice, a voice that to this day still makes me happy when I heard a Ramones song or one of his solo songs. What if he had listened to doctors that he would never be able to live outside an institution but instead did just that? What if when he and John did not get along about ANYTHING, he had not had the courage to keep going in spite of that tension? What if.

I have been crippled today with doubts that I should not be sitting here writing or reading or working on some other project versus working my butt off to get another corporate job (it doesn’t help that everyone else thinks I should be doing this as well, well at least people who seem to be speaking up right now) doing more of the same of what I was doing at the EE. I wonder if it is my ego telling me that all those people who don’t matter back at the EE need to be shown that I was able to get a better job leaving there. Yet wouldn’t having a book published or writing something really good do the same and be more soul satisfying for me and forgetting about these people that don’t matter, just better for the universe? Or my photos at a gallery? Will I be happier stepping out of my comfort zone and doing these things vs using up my time in a 9-5 (more like 6-6) making things better for people in corporations?

Duh.

Loyalty, time to exit and for good

New Beginnings

I wonder if I should exit?

During my last days at the EE (not it’s real name), I had someone tell me that there were so many places in the company that still needed my talent, drive, creativity, and execution of changes. This person, somewhat intuitively considering he didn’t know me that well, suggested that I had stayed too long working for someone who could not match my speed of thought, was conservative in all ways to include being risk averse, was a micro manager and not a leader, and simply was a bad fit and didn’t deserve my loyalty.

Loyalty and unswerving loyalty is, for me, a character defect that I recognize I have. I know I should take a deeper look at it, yet have not to the extent I should. It was certainly not the first time someone said this to me, my brother has said it to me more than once and he also can be like this. In my personal life I can be too loyal to people who don’t deserve it and in some ways I think it is a perverse action of my ego thinking I matter more than I actually do to others. What stung in the statement made to me by this acquaintance was that I should have been more conscious about staying with a leader that was mediocre and did not match my intelligence, who didn’t like that I led to get results vs micro managed, and should have taken action to take a new role, but I did not. I DID stay working for a leader who didn’t deserve my loyalty and in the end he proved in no uncertain terms that I had zero loyalty from him. I am, right now, angry at myself for letting the cards fall where they did and forcing a layoff that frankly satisfied him in a perverse way and left me happy to get the package vs quitting and not getting the full package but yet it still wounded my ego and reputation.

So let’s analyze THAT. Why didn’t I move on into a new role under a leader who respected me, wanted me on their team, and would be an advocate for me? In a nutshell, I think, because I didn’t really want to be there in the first place. I had been ready to exit for years and felt in my heart that if I pursued further advancement or moving to a new area, that I would find myself in a position of wanting to stay because of rewards, recognition, and some sense of comfort that outweighed the incessant nagging that while I was successful and exceeding numbers and performance, this was never the right use of my talents. I was complacent and using a third of my talent yet exceeded most of the people around me. I had extreme loyalty from my own leaders who reported to me (ironic?) and had cultivated a team that I truly liked. I did bring out the best in most people who worked for me. That said, they worked for me in an industry that I didn’t believe in, that I had no passion about, and that had an ultra conservative culture of mediocrity packaged as more than it was – just repackaging of the same things cycling around the mini planet that was this corporation.

I never planned on staying there for as long as I did, but did. I wish I hadn’t but am glad it is finally over. As I write this, reliving the choices I made, I feel stress. Maybe it is just time to consider the exit taken was the right move and not look back. Maybe this time writing needs to focus on what is ahead of me. Like that this morning I signed up to take a photography course in Ireland and plan on getting a LLC for photography and other small businesses that are doing things I love. Maybe that is where I focus. There will be stress, but stress for things I love and feel passion about, not things that I stay at just for the money.

Moments

Uncategorized

happy balloons

My daughter is visiting this month and we went to Disney yesterday and rode roller coasters and ate a pretzel and refilled our water bottle at water fountains while watching frustrated parents and too tired kids maneuver the walkways. Occasionally you see a “moment” where a family is sitting together laughing or enjoying each others company. For example, we watched a family of four laughing and sitting talking while sharing a snack and looking at their photos on a camera. They genuinely appeared to love this time together and were taking it all in stride, including the crowds and the lovely moist Florida inland heat. I spent yesterday looking for those moments amongst family and friends and was surprised that when you look for them, you find them and see them instead of seeing the screaming children, cranky parents, bored people, and people that seemed surprised that it is crowded.

As I took pause at the thoughts about seeing more happy moments and not the unhappy ones, I wondered how many times I really enjoyed my job in the last 21 years, 11 months and 23 days. I mean actually enjoyed the JOB. There were a surprising number of moments, like the time the Jeff’s (two grumpy guys named Jeff) had first person day and spoke in first person on all conference calls that day, no matter the audience. The time I challenged a coworker to use the words “oompa loompa” in a presentation and not only did he use them, but the executive he was presenting to latched onto the Willy Wonka theme and used analogies and comments based on the movie and books for the rest of the hour. There were definitely moments, but I’m not sure I enjoyed the actual work. Maybe, I wonder, did I enjoy the work (I did get to do things I was really good at) but not the environment or culture I was in? A broader question, to be addressed later is if I believed in the industry itself (I think I already know the answer).

The thing about the moments though is that they were all people based and mostly not work related. They were about relationships like when one of the Jeff’s called me just months after my own father passed away of swift moving cancer and told me his father had passed away of a heart attack. He was stunned, numb, and frozen. I told him to take a month off – I would cover his absence and to go take care of his mom. I had had time to prepare (although I wasn’t really, but at least got to say goodbye), but Jeff had not. People told me I couldn’t do what I was doing, but I did it anyway (it was what my own dad would have done). Jeff and I spent a lot of days later when he returned to work discussing the pros and cons of knowing someone is dying vs them dying suddenly. Sad times, but moments I remember.

There were so many other moments that I hope to memorialize later as I start to write about this journey of an unknown future and thoughtfulness about the past. There were new puppies, new babies, deaths, deployments, illness, divorces, alcohol problems rising, AA anniversaries, mental illness, kid problems, so much laughter, some sad moments, angry discussions – all moments.

Don’t get me wrong, I and my teams accomplished a lot. One thing I hope comes out over time in my writing is that I know I am good at solving problems quickly, accurately and usually when they are on fire. I get and got results and really good ones. Yet, in this early moment of leaving behind this life, those results are not what is on my mind (albeit, they ARE what is on my resume). What is on my mind is the moments, maybe the accomplishments and results will matter later. Maybe they never will. It depends on what I decide to do in the future and if those results end up mattering. Part of me hopes they do matter since it was after all, 21 years, 11 months and 23 days. If it ends up NOT mattering, then this writing may take a new turn, although, I think for others who have left lengthy corporate careers, not a surprising turn and set of insights.

buh-bye corporate life

New Beginnings

This morning is my first morning officially and permanently away from the day-to-day corporate life I’ve lived for the last 21 years, 11 months and 23 days of my life. I have a lot of emotions, many of which are varying degrees of frustration, anger, gratitude, and relief.

Frustration at how loyalty didn’t seem to exist (I know I had been told this, but it really is true).

Some anger at how corporate life devalued and even humiliated intelligence that dared to step outside the repackaging of mediocrity into a new Powerpoint each day for a person who didn’t understand the content to present on your behalf. There was so much more I feel I could have done to make our industry better.

Gratitude for everything I learned in my chaotic career, to include learning by non/bad example from others. Thankful for all the people who sent me notes, letters, emails, gifts to thank me for impacting them in a positive way over the years.

Relief that I am now free to do everything that time did not allow or that constant travel interfered in: writing, photography, travel, improv, and health.

Bear with me or join me as I sort through what I experienced in corporate life and where I am going with this new found freedom. Which promises to myself will I keep and which ones will fall to the side? working out? writing every day? photography classes? improv classes? Over time will it matter what happened in this now past life or will it become more important where I am going? <shrugging> will see.

ozarksvegan

Author: ozarksvegan