9-4-13 Why Week Part 2.

[Niveous]

QotD: Why do you work where you do?

For me, I have no particular love of immigration. I didn't study law nor did I have any prior interest in it. I got the job because I need a steady job when I became a dad. Why do I stick around? A good steady paycheck in a time where jobs can be hard to find; an excellent benefits package; a serious amount of job security; a good boss who trusts me; and the ability to be myself while at work. I can be here at work, write a Songfight post while listening to Kanye West while wearing jeans and an Austin TX t-shirt and no one will bat an eyelash as long as I got my shit together when they need it.

[fluffy]

I seem to keep on ending up back here, because the work is interesting enough, it pays well, and I love Seattle.

I keep ending up in software engineering because I'm pretty good at it and I'm not good enough at any of the things I'd rather be doing to make a living at them.

Also, usually when I'm unhappy with software engineering it's because I'm unhappy with politics that come from having too many stakeholders who each want to twist the new product development in a particular direction. The products I work on now aren't things that give any room for that to happen, because they're not customer-facing products, but they're customer-impacting, in ways that have objective, measurable goals and provide a clear, simple API that is not subject to interpretation or "wouldn't it be cool if"-ism.

I also get to learn a lot about a space I hadn't worked in before and which seems really trivial on the surface but actually has a LOT of interesting complexity underneath.

[Billy's Little Trip]

qotd: I got into swimming pool maintenance in high school. I was at a friend's house getting stoned one day after getting home from the beach. My friend's sister's bf was there and had the.best.weed.EVER! He always had the danky dank, drove a bad ass Trans Am, like on Smokey and the bandit and my friend's sister was smokin' hot. I asked him how he could afford all the cool stuff, plus able to surf everyday and he said he is a pool serviceman. I put down my bag of Doritos and said whoaaa, cool. Then asked him to get me a job.

So my quest to be a pool serviceman began. I was only 15 at the time and I'd need a driver's license because I'd be driving. I was in driver's ed and had my permit, but that's not good enough. So I asked Mat (my friend's sister's bf) if he could get me a job as his helper. A couple days later the owner called me and said I could start as Mat's helper as long as I'm 16 and have a social security card. I had the ss card, but only 15. So I did what any self respecting stoner guitar playing surfer would do, I lied and said I was 16.

The next day I started, what would become my life's career, as a pool boy. I LOVED it. Mat and I would take our surfboards on the truck and we worked mostly off coast highway, so we'd surf a bit in the morning before getting to our first pool, then at lunch and sometimes after work. We'd smoke weed, clean pools and surf everyday. I wasn't making the money he was yet, but it was more than I made mowing lawns. I was finally able to get a new guitar and a small PA and speakers for my little band at the time. We were the only garage band in my hood that didn't have a mic plugged into a guitar amp for vocals.

Then the day came that would change things forever. One of the pool men quit and the owner said, Chris...today is your lucky day. He gave me the keys to a truck, gave me the speech that it's up to me to wash it once a week, my company gas card is in the glove compartment, etc etc. I was still a couple month from turning 16, but I really wanted this opportunity. Mat just told me to keep it quiet because I'll have my license soon. So that's what I did. It was great! I had my own route, making more money than I ever have and still met up with Mat to surf a couple times a day.

My luck ran out! I came in to work one day all happy go lucky as I usually am and the owner said, hey Chris, I need your driver's license number for my tax man. I felt like I just found out that the world stopped making sandwiches. My heart sank. He said, dude, what's wrong? I told him I'm only 15 and don't have a driver's license. He looked at me kind of mad, then said this is a problem. The customers love me as there pool man and he could get in big trouble for not checking to see my license before putting me in a truck. So he spoke with his wife and they decided he would run with me until I get my license and his wife would run the store until then. Chris and Pam were very nice people and really cared about their employees. He was such a cool guy, because he could have just fired me. Maybe because we had the same name, who knows.

One thing that we had to do is stop at a few extra stops to do some repair work between cleaning pools and I was his helper, so no more surfing lunch breaks, no more smoking weed during my work day. But I gained something even better as it would turn out. The owner was at one point the only guy in the company that did repair work. He was a licensed plumber and electrician before starting his pool company 20 years earlier. So he was incredibly knowledgeable. But he started having severe back problems and operations and the company was growing. So he had 3 other repair men. He would just pick up the slack and only do light work, like motor replacing, etc. I've always been mechanically inclined, so I picked it up right away. So I started doing the repairs so he didn't have to bend over or get on his knees and he instructed me as I did the work. Plus he gave me a 25% of the labor. So I was working a lot but making killer money at that age.

After a couple months I got my license and now I was legit. I was going to miss all of the repair training I got and the extra money. But that's when things would change again. The owner had to go to the hospital for his back again. This time very serious. He was completely out of commission. He was in a back brace for a while, so he couldn't do anything but work in the store. He asked if I want to pick up some of the light overflow repairs with my pool route and that he will pay me the starting repair pay of 50% of the labor and 10% on parts. I said hell yeah! It was mostly the stuff the repair guys didn't like doing, like filter repairs, which is messy.

After a few months of doing the pools service and repairs, the owner was feeling better but couldn't do any lifter and was limited to only a couple hours on his feet before having to sit on his special chair at the store. He said he was really impressed with my repair ability and I've been giving the other repair guys a hand on some of the big equipment and commercial jobs. So he wanted to teach me more about plumbing, electrical and gas, as they are all three very important to this job. So we did heater replacements, installed new electrical sub panels, ran new gas lines, etc. I LOVED it. It was so much more challenging than cleaning swimming pools. I remember asking my friend Mat why he didn't do repairs, because the owner always offered extra work to anyone that wanted to make extra money. He simply said he's not good at it and doesn't even change the oil in his own car because he'll just do it wrong, lol. I remember at that time thinking that seemed odd, it's just common sense. It wasn't until years later it finally occurred to me that not everybody is mechanically minded.

So after about a year, one of the repair men quit to start his own company. So the owner asked if I'd like to give up my pool route and become a full time repair man. The money would be great, but I liked all my pool service customers and didn't want to give up my cushy work days of lunch time surfing with Mat. But Mat said he's going back to school full time, so he won't have time to do anything and I should go for it. So I did, but wanted to train the new guy on my route and if I don't think he's right for it, I can pick the pool man who takes over for me. The owner said that would be fine.

A couple years of working now for Vally Pool Supply. I gained a lot of pool knowledge. I was a senior in high school and about to graduate. I was set on going to the community college to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, keep working and at this point my band was playing a lot more at house parties. I was busy, but very happy with my life and friends. But shortly after starting at the community college, I was quickly interested in a entry level business class and the professor was awesome! He was an investor as well and molded my mind to think different almost immediately. Then one day asked what everyone did for work. I told him I service and repair pools. He asked me how much I made and put the numbers up on the board for the class to see. After showing rough profit margins, taxes and how that money is dispersed, he did the figures aqgain cutting out expenses. One of the formulas was cutting out the owner of the company I worked for. It wasn't that much after his expenses, then he multiplied that by all the employees at the company. At the time there where around 12 if I remember right. He then asked me a question I had no answer for. He asked why I don't own the company? Why don't I have my own pool service company? I finally just said because I can't, I'm only 18 and know nothing about running a company. He told me I know everything, I just don't know how to apply it and that by the end of the semester, I'd own my own company. It was an awakening as I thought about it. First I thought of the pride of owning my own company, then how cool to be my own boss, then the MONEY! Money has never been a driving force for me. but it sure makes life easier.

"BLT starts a business". Be sure to look for book two the the 50 shades of BLT trilogy at a Song Fight QotD forum near you.

Sorry, I didn't intend to write so much. I couldn't stop once I started. You know, like running down a steep hill and your head starts going faster and your feet can't keep up and you fall head first? Like that.

Cliffs:
BLT gets a job he loves.
He learns stuff.
He makes money, gets stoned, surfs and rocks out with his Spock out.

[Niveous]

Good story, BLT.

[fluffy]

I was expecting it to end with a dumb shaggy dog punchline like "Better Nate than lever" or something.

[Billy's Little Trip]

But "rock out with my Spock out" was my choice of a literary conclusive fiesta for the eyes.

....and I love the ubergeek emoticon.

[Niveous]

Is that supposed to represent an ubergeek? I thought it was Front.

[Billy's Little Trip]

Yes.
And please don't tell me that you miss out on all of my wonder and delight by only seeing the font version of the colorful smileys I carefully choose to represent my ever changing roller coaster emotions.

.........that sounded like a long winded line from Randal Graves reading a Kevin Smith script, lol.


...so did that.

[roymond]

Luck. And timing. And friends of friends in the right places.

Well, this wasn't supposed to be a bio, but why I work where I do. Retracing the steps through unlikely or unplanned circumstances it seems I found a way back into the arts through technology and consulting. I started out in music performance, got into databases and typesetting, got sick of the professional performance world and went back to school and moved into publishing tech. When that evolved I got recruited into consulting, which I never thought I'd want to do but it allowed me to learn and get more into broadcast and back into music in a more interesting way. I totally overstayed consulting and happened to land somewhere that sort of ties things together from all angles. Dumb luck.