Prime, priming, and primed

When deciding where Sam was going to be for New Years, Jess mentioned that the friends' party she was going to was going to feature a flaming punchbowl. 2010 has been a rough year for many, especially among our group of mutual friends. The idea, apparently, was that 2010 was a year that deserved an ending involving something being set on fire. And a punchbowl was the largest thing they could do without a permit or potential property damage.

I agreed - 2010 had indeed been that sort of year. And agreed that Sam should go to the party to see other friends' kids. And the flaming punchbowl. No five year old should ever miss that opportunity.

My initial reflection was that 2010 was a year that deserves to be beaten senseless by the empty champagne bottles that rang it in with such hope and optimism a year ago. However, on further reflection, most of my own issues with 2010 were the final "hangover" pangs of that apocalyptically Foul Year of 2009. There needed to be a year of adjustment, of changes, and of alterations. 2009 had legs, I tell you.

My final act of 2010 is to prime the bedroom of my apartment. I'd finished painting the rest of the place back in the summer, and declared that I could live with the bedroom in its current state. But I realized I was suffering from some chronic exhaustion, lack of spark, and occasional recurring bouts of leftover depression.

I blame the bedroom. Bed placement, looking at the holes in the door and the wall, the scarred, dark, and depressing paint job. New Year, new bedroom to get strength from. So over the past week I've finished patching, and today I coated the walls and trim with Kilz primer. Not sure what color I'm going to paint it - probably some sort of blue, though much lighter than the Dark Night Of The Soul Blue it was before.

I have no flaming punchbowl, but there will be fireworks on the bridge at 9. And there's a band down at the Eagle. So, a shower, a few shots of Jagermeister to drown the dregs of 2010, and a bottle of champagne in the fridge to cheer on the New Year when I get back.

And I'm going to hold on to the wisdom of Red Green in his Facebook status: "[2011] is a prime number, so it should be a prime year!" Indeed. Raise a glass.

Adding to your folklore

"What do you do when you've got nothing to do? Grow lemons. Germinate them by hand. Become a farmer of big-ass monster-sized lemons. Add it to your folklore."

-Keith Richards

We all have our own personal folklore - a listing of crazy things we've done, wide ranges of strange, interesting, and out of the ordinary. The guy at the store counter who boxes on the weekends. Your co-worker who runs an illegal sports booking agency in the basement of his uncle's restaurant. The electrical engineer who fronted a punk band back in his 20's, and rejoined the band when he took early retirement. (That being James Williamson, guitarist for Iggy & the Stooges. His story still cracks me up.)

This being the end of the year, I'm seeing all sorts of articles on websites about "How to Improve for 2011!!!!!!!" and such. Better finances, better job, better quads...etc. Lots and lots of advice that always seems to come around every year.

For my how to improve for 2011, I'm going to consider my folklore. I've had a pretty good run so far - an odd and eclectic range of stuff I've done, lots of different friends (though in the age of Facebook, I do a piss-poor job of keeping in touch), and an odd array of skills from all the experiences.

But what brought me thinking about it again was talking with a substitute teacher who has also led a very eclectic life. He asked me if I felt "limited" being a librarian, and I told him I didn't - as a librarian, I am a licensed "professional dabbler". I am expected to be a font of odd information and to know a wide range of different things.

Lately, I've been doing very little dabbling and a lot of healing. I now have a space I'm almost happy with, back in a job I'm learning to enjoy again, and making peace with the consequences of past actions that will not be changing in the forseeable future. So it is time to look forward to 2011, and what I can add to my folklore.

I've been listening to Mr. Richards and his fine album "Exile on Main St." a lot lately. Right now the album is wrapping up on what I thought was always the natural ending - "Shine a Light". Mick Taylor's soaring solos, and the other Mick wishing favor on the listener "May the Good Lord shine a light on you - like the evening sun."

So I'll take Mick's evening sun, and I'll hope to add to the folklore. I have some ideas, but I'm feeling optimistic that whatever happens, 2011 will be an adventure.

Watching baseball and fixing stuff

I broke down and bought the post-season package on MLB.com. I may be without cable, but there will be baseball. I wonder if I can order a team package to catch all the Sox games next season...

One of the things I've tried to focus on over the past seven months has been repairing things. The argument could be made that one of the things I found attractive about the apartment was the potential for repair for the place. There was so much that could be done, and the repair to the apartment would be comparable to the repair to myself.

I also took on a few other repair projects. I picked up two bicycles from the Geneseo transfer station to repair. I picked up a Deco-style vanity that needed veneer work from a curb. I had a 1994 Mercedes station wagon that, with some work, could probably be a show piece again. And I bought a 12-string guitar that needed bridge repair - something I always saw listed as "leave to trusted professionals".

Initially I threw myself into the apartment, painting most of the rooms, and transforming the place. I hesitated on the bedroom for a variety of reasons (don't mind the color, isn't necessary, brings scary finality to things), and also considered the various other projects, along with updates to Gymboree.

But as far as fixing stuff, the time has come to start shedding some dead weight. Time to make some decisions about what will and won't get fixed, and moving on.

I shed one bicycle around June, and the other one went to the curb this weekend. I rode it once. If I get the urge in the spring, I can buy a new one. It's gone.

I will never get the impulse to re-veneer the 20's vanity. It's on the curb right now. Hopefully will be picked up soon by someone else.

Mercedes - gone, and back to Geneseo. Father-in-law says it is salvageable and could be sold - the bearings, contrary to my belief, are fine. Whine is something else. I like my new Civic - have to remind myself that it is an improvement and was a necessary cord to cut.

This leaves the only two projects left as the 12-string and the bedroom. I peeled the bridge off the 12-string, and re-attached it with wood glue after some sanding this evening. I'll pick up strings and pegs tomorrow afternoon and we'll see how it goes. With any luck, I'll have a functional 12-string I can post pics of.

And the bedroom. I've found with the removal of the vanity, it is now a room screaming for a makeover. We'll see how it all works out. There is a small bit to patch, and then large sections (okay, the whole room) that need to be primed and painted. Which hopefully will be gotten to sometime very soon. Next couple of weeks, if nothing else.

And that's about it from here. More ruminations later, with any luck. And maybe even more focused writing.

Taking the time

My friend Eric has started a new blog called "How to Be a Better Man" after watching The Social Network. The focus is on the reinvention of his life - taking stock with the "what have you done lately" deal.

I understand where he's coming from. I've been living on my own for the last seven months, and getting used to the change of finding my own motivation and what makes me tick. An evaluation of my own place in the world.

And I've made some changes. Two jobs, including a return to the career of librarian. New car. Updates to apartment to make it a comfortable living space. Taking the time to pick up guitar again. Trying to figure out how to best be a "weekend warrior" Dad.

Right now I'm sitting in the corner chair that Sam uses for a bed when he's over, and listening to "Exile on Main St." My landlord invited me over to watch NASCAR this afternoon, and I'll go over for a little bit. Also have to install a new computer at Gymboree so Jess can actually do work there.

Today is one of those great fall days where it feels great to be alive. I'm just basking in the quiet, having gone out and smoked a cigar while sitting next to the creek. Not bad at all.

Class action lawsuit over time nine years ago

I got a letter in the mail from a law firm out in Minnesota, asking for my participation in a class-action lawsuit against Guitar Center for wage violations during the time I worked there. One of those "we don't admit wrongdoing but we'll pay a few million to make it go away" kind of deals. Based on the couple of months I worked there, I think my take will be about 45 bucks before taxes.

Guitar Center was an odd place to work, to say the least, but I can't say I didn't enjoy it. I met Skip Lefti there, and went on to run sound for the band he played with, King Domino. It led to the first revival meeting I ever went to - the only white person in attendance at a hotel in downtown Rochester over two days (no idea how I got talked into that - just felt that SOMEONE should accompany about ten grand worth of sound equipment we'd lent out for reasons that made sense to my manager).

I suppose I should do a run on those stories, but as I'm sitting here drinking coffee alone on a Sunday morning, I have one very happy memory.

The store staff was a bunch of guys (with the exception of the payroll clerk, who was drop dead gorgeous and an amateur boxer not to be trifled with - but I digress), and as with all fraternal organizations, there were stupid crap we did. And one was a "call on Line 9" in your department.

The phone extensions only went up to 8. "Call to Pro Audio on Line 9" translated to "there is a fantastically hot chick headed to your department, you lucky bastard".

So one particular day, announcement comes over the system, "Pro Audio, you have an urgent call on Line 9. URGENT CALL, Line 9."

Someone's head got spun...let's see who this hottie is...

And she was. Jaws dropped, heads spun. Long red hair, curves for miles, legs to die for.

And she came up and kissed me. :)

"Hey dear, just wanted to stop by and say hi and find out when you were coming home."

"I'm closing tonight, so I should be home by 9:30 or so."

The department was dead silent as she walked out, with all the other clerks staring at me. And I just smiled.

I don't know why that memory came up when I got the mailing, but it did. And I'll have to write up some other GC stories - it was an eventful couple of months.

Fear and Loathing in Le Roy

Bad Craziness in the town of Jell-O. I am camped out in my bedroom with a quart of rum, coffee on standby for the morning, and the Gurkha knife I smuggled out of Germany as a degenerate sixteen year old twenty years ago. The doors are locked, but that will merely slow them down with their offers of A Friendly Beer and Just Wanting To Talk. The bastards are closing in, and I fully expect the room to be lit by the flames of my burning car any moment now. At least that will give me the light to see the fuckers and make some sort of desperate escape...

And it all started by just wanting to do my laundry over Labor Day Weekend...

Photographic evidence of the degeneracy and foulness of the laundry area is available on my Facebook page. I would like to state, for the record, that the photographed condition is the rule, not the exception, though I am usually able to stagger over the trash to do my laundry. However, with my new position requiring a veneer of respectability (or at least dress pants), I declared at top volume my annoyance at the state of affairs and the need to do my laundry at the laundromat, which required actual money. This resulted in the thousand-yard “fuck-with-me-I-dare-you” stare of the wife, and the “oh” of the husband.

As I filled two washers at the laundromat with $2.25 each (incidentally, the price of a draft beer at the local bar, where I was informed this weekend that I was eligible for a Medal and Commendation if I remained in my current apartment for over six months, by local legend), I seethed over the domination of my life by the downstairs Harpie wife, the “neighbor Sarah” incident (some know, and that is a tale worth telling all its own if you haven’t heard it), and the constant diatribes by the Beck-head husband about the Evils of Progressives and the oncoming Rapture. I was angry. I was enraged. I found my spine straightening. And I Brought the Hammer Down.

I called the landlord to tell him the laundry area was unusable, and to tell the full tale of the “Sarah Incident”.

(This may not seem extreme, or even unreasonable. But, the wife downstairs specifically pulled me aside when I moved in to let me know they were Decent and Reasonable People, Good Americans, and that any issues I might have I could happily take up with them without involving the landlord, who was a known Crude and Degenerate Man, not to be bothered by Trivialities.)

(Another side note - the landlord asked me to drop off my rent in person this week, not only due to it being three days late, but he wanted to chat. He had heard rumors about the “Sarah Incident”, and wanted to assure me to not only not take any guff from the downstairs neighbors, but to please let him know if any Bad Craziness was going on, as they were “inches away from eviction” as it was. So I was under an Obligation.)

Upon my return from doing laundry and getting a haircut (the less said about that the better - a wretched butchery deserving of its own rant), I informed the husband about my conversation with the landlord.

“Ohhhh...not good...not good...”

Whatever, I thought. Not my fucking problem. Buy the Ticket, take the Ride, and let the Chips fall where they may. And I slept well. Which might just see me through until tomorrow, as there is no sleeping tonight...

Returning home his evening, I found the foyer had been superficially cleaned. Swept. Bag of trash gone. Other, deeper foulness remaining, of course. Amazing what a call to the landlord accomplishes, I thought.

I was greedy - drunk on the recently successful campaign. I wanted more. And, after an unrelated phone call that put me in an evil and foul mood on top of the crazy, I confronted the husband in front of the house, in the presence of the kids (a fatal error in judgement that will haunt me in this exchange, and much of the reason for the Bad Craziness resulting in locked doors and blades for protection).

I informed him that I was scouring the hallway on Thursday evening. Anything remaining in the hallway Thursday morning would be tossed on the curb for municipal trash pickup after I tagged it. And the hallway was a common area, not their storage area. It was to remain clean.

Following that, all complaints regarding their behavior would result in a call to the landlord. This included the wife roaring into the driveway at top speed with rap blaring loud enough to shake the windows, having to climb over bags of trash to exit my apartment, or Screeches by the wife at Top Volume at Ungodly Hours threatening to Kick Someone’s Ass. I had tolerated enough, and I was done.

“Yes,” the husband informed me, “you are, in fact, Done.”

An uncomfortable silence followed. Having seen no evidence of Spine previously, I was caught unprepared. This was not part of the Plan.

Then it dawned. Ah yes. The Children. Teenagers, but still. Or perhaps, especially. The Children. My fatal error. I had Spoken Ill of the Absent Parent in front of the Children. I had ceded the high moral ground. I was fucked. It was now merely a question of degree and depth.

“The fact that you called the landlord rather than talking to me tells me she was right about you. Slinking around taking pictures of the hallway. What kind of shit is that?”

(I considered telling him that the photos were not to show the landlord, but were instead for the shock and amusement of my friends and associates on Facebook. However, realizing this would not exactly strengthen my position at this point, I remained silent.)

“So I ask you - since I have to clear my shit out of the hallway, are you prepared to deal with the trash can every Thursday?”

I was stunned. I had vacated the moral high ground, prepared for a royal reaming for redemption in the eyes of the children, and this petty shit is what he comes up with?

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll even buy a new trash can.”

“And are you prepared to purchase your own snow shovel, since you told me to clear my shit out of the hallway?”

Again, the mind reeled. “Ummm...sure....”

“And are you prepared to kick in for part of my electric bill, since the light for the hallway is on my meter?”

This crossed the line of sanity - I could take no more . “I will buy a fucking flashlight,” I informed him, and headed up the stairs, turning out the light and ascending in the pitch darkness. Fate smiled on my key selection in the blind shadows, and I quickly opened and closed the door.

I fired up the stereo. Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers, “Can’t You Hear Me Knockin” followed quickly by “Bitch”. No sense in beating about the bush. Good Mick Taylor riffs, drowning out the bad noise of the downstairs - sixteen year old threatening to leave the house (bad flashbacks - where’s the rum...ah, rum....devil rum...), wife coming out, ranting about her Unfair Position as the bad guy, that she never DID anything to deserve it, and maybe I just needed my Fucking Ass Kicked to prove how innocent she fucking was.

Pizza. Rum. Stones. “Dead Flowers.” Clear the air. Clear the mind. Make it go away. Bad noise about calling the landlord about ME. But what had I done? What could they possibly say? More rum. Nothing. I was innocent. White sheets straight from the washing machine I couldn’t use this weekend due to the foul and filth....

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

On edge, immediately, like I’d been hit with a cattle prod. NO ONE ever knocks on my door in this town.

“Who’s there?”

“It’s me.”

“Who me?”

“It’s me - you know which me. I want to talk with you over a beer. Got ‘em right here...”

Sure. Along with your crazy-ass wife and a fucking shiv...

“I have nothing to say to you tonight.”

“C’mon man, I thought we were friends...”

Sure - I listen to you rant about the Evil Progressives who want all your hard-earned unemployment money while you drink my beer. Still not worth a shiv in the spleen, fuck you very much...not tonight...

“I have nothing to say to you. Maybe later. But not tonight. Not now. Go away.”

A sigh. “I’m really disappointed in you, man.”

“Likewise.” I don’t know if he hears. I doubt he would admit it even if he had.

Silence as I’ve typed the following words, and the lack of flickering from my windows tells me my car is not on fire. It is likely soaked from the recent rains and open sunroof, which was not enough of an incentive to go outside to brave the possibility of either having my Teeth Kicked In or suffer the Offer of a Friendly Beer. (Frankly put, the Friendly Beer is the more terrifying possibility - Teeth Kicked In is a simple and uncomplicated assault charge.) It is early enough that I don’t dare fall asleep - I will get merely an hour, and it might be best to remain awake with the assistance of heavy stimulants. Or perhaps just an hour of uncomplicated sleep before the hammer comes down tomorrow. Hard to say. Either way, tomorrow promises to be highly interesting, in the sense of the ancient Chinese curse. Good night and good luck.

Painting

“What are ya painting up there, the Sistine Chapel?”

Probably comments deserved from your neighbor when you paint in your boxers with an open window from the heat, and also when you’ve been painting your apartment for four months. The kitchen is the last bit that I’m going to paint (the bedroom I’m calling good and not worrying about it - I can live with the dark blue, and I have no idea what other color to paint it).

My personal tastes in apartments have always gravitated to the bottom line - cheapest rent possible while retaining some sense of livability. Usually this means older houses or adaptations that give a place “run-down character” and “fading style”, as I like to think. Or, as a friend referred to my previous apartments, “shitholes - all of them”. She hasn’t seen the new place, but her assessment was the same.

“Dude, you rented it. Therefore, it’s a shithole. As long as it’s safe for Sam - not like that one place in Vermont with the misfiring gas heater, or the one with the rotting slate shower, or the one...”

Safety for Sam did send me running from a few places I would have happily taken back in my bachelor days, but calling the current apartment a “shithole” when moving in would probably have been generous. The carpets were a combination of beige and ground-in dirt, along with some burn marks. The landlord mentioned a mark on the wall from when he’d put in replacement windows five years ago. Most of the walls were a glossy beige, but the kitchen was a dirty primer white with cabinets covered in dust and falling wallpaper in the back.

However, for a range of reasons, I was anxious to move, and the apartment had two qualities I was desperately searching for - cheap rent and a month-to-month lease. I wasn’t expecting to stay long. This was temporary.

The landlord was great - he’s a DJ, and we talked shop for a while. He was very upfront about the place’s shortcomings, and about the ramifications of dealing with them.

“I could replace the carpet, but I’d have to raise the rent and it would take a couple of weeks.”

I can live with the carpet.

“I could paint the place, but it would take a couple of weeks.”

I can paint it - I’ve painted places before.

“Okay - just keep track of your supplies and take it off your rent. I’d prefer you went with beige, but I am giving you the place with a dark blue bedroom, so I guess I really can’t say much about color.”

My plan was actually to go with pretty neutral colors - actually mostly beige. My energy levels were up and down, so even getting the place primed took effort, room by room. The plan was to repair the apartment as a way to repair myself as well, and leave a well put-back together apartment after six months or so.

By the beginning of June, however, it was apparent that things wouldn’t be going according to plan, and I was going to be here a lot longer than six months. I’d done much of the priming and repair to the cabinets in preparation for color, but now I had no idea of which direction to go. Shitholes had always been temporary - I moved about once a year when I lived in apartments, and never did very much with them. Financially, I knew I wasn’t likely to move for a while. And Sam was going to need some consistency about things. So I was here. Time to settle in.

The taking five months has been finding out I care about what the place looks like. (Not that anyone’s seen it besides Sam, and I don’t think he really cares that much.) It’s been more than patching holes and throwing up paint. It’s been a careful selection of color choices. It’s been buying stuff to put on the walls. Installing venetian blinds. Carefully painting the inside cabinets. Changing out plastic towel racks and paper towel holders for metal and bamboo.

I went with a flat enamel finish - flat enamel is much more forgiving of uneven lathe and plaster walls. So the painting required a coat of primer and two coats of color to get anything looking good.

It’s also been picking out furniture, which has been kind of an odd thing as well. My yard sale luck has been phenomenal this summer, as I found a good fold-down table, good kitchen chairs, and a nice rocking chair. Again, the idea that I care what the place looks like is kind of odd.

Might be because I’m 37 and no longer the 20-something who stuffed the shitholes of yore with whatever crap I could find. Or who only painted one of them (the Winthrop apartment) due to a drunken “discussion” that involves a brushstroke of primer across the wall at 2am. (Painted white - landlord just about fell over in shock when I moved out.) Post-30, maybe I just need a certain level of civilization and refinement.

Though more of it seems to be the apartment as a metaphor for where I am. A place to be repaired and restored. Maybe, if I could get this place looking respectable again, there might be hope for me to regain a foothold for where I was. Though now, with everything finished, I have to move on to other things. I have repaired the place. Time to move on to repairing other things.

Overtime and Thanksgiving

One of the things that appealed to me most about working in collections (aside from promises of making ungodly amounts of money) was the strict 40-hour week. This was something that had been emphasized over and over in training - the idea that vast sums of money could be made while working only 40 hours, with no overtime at all. You have your time - make the most of it.

Having working in various professions that were very time-demanding (teaching, theatre tech, and law school), I thought that part of my own healing process (aside from paying back debts with the promised ungodly amounts of money) would be a job that was only 40 hours. I would have time at home, time with Sam, and time to reconstruct my life.

The distaste for overtime within the company was dramatic and down to the minute. Sometimes, while on a call, you would have to stay past your 8-hour shift because you needed the extra time to get a borrower to finalize payments (which was a challenge on west-coast hours, since the computer systems shut down automatically at 12:30 am). This was not overtime - this was to be kept strict track of and taken off of another day.

So the first thing you did on Friday when you got in was figure out how many hours you had to work to round the week out at 40 hours. To the minute. Then you wrote that time on a Post-it note and stuck it to your monitor. And, as your manager was making the rounds, he or she would remind you of the time to make sure you were out by the specific time.

The only time overtime was available was on mandated holidays. The company was committed to giving you the possibility of 40 hours of collection time every week. So, for example, the office was closed on the 4th of July. But that week, you could squeeze the 40 hours into the other six days, and get paid overtime for the holiday pay. At standard time-and-a-half overtime rates. Needless to say, most people took advantage of the additional time.

The first holiday I was able to take advantage of for this was Thanksgiving, and on that holiday I was grateful for it. Due to a variety of circumstances, Jess was taking Sam to visit a friend of hers out of state over the long holiday weekend and spending Thanksgiving with her friend’s family. Not wanting to really explain the situation to anyone (explaining meant I might have to face certain truths and deal with things), I decided to spend Thanksgiving alone. And aside from getting through the day itself, that would give me some structure to the other days.

The day before Thanksgiving was spent on the phone calling every reference and relative I could find on all of my accounts. My senior collector recommended this, and he was absolutely right.

“Yes, hi - I was trying to reach John Smith.”

“Oh, he doesn’t live here - this is his mother.”

“Will you be seeing him soon? I’ve been trying to get a message to him.”

“Well, yes, he’ll be over for dinner tomorrow, obviously. I can take a message...”

The question was how much good the messages actually did. As the Poet said, “It’s not like they can call back tomorrow or anything. Did you get any phone numbers? Those would be useful.”

Nope, no phone numbers. Probably made a couple of uncomfortable moments over the Thanksgiving table, but the result was zero callbacks on Friday for Wednesday’s efforts. The rest of the weekend was equally useless, and the month ended with my only accomplishment being a need to start writing about collections to stave off losing my mind.

December had three holidays - Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day. So this meant for the week preceeding Christmas, collectors could cram 40 hours into the five days available, and for the week following could cram 40 hours into the six days following.

I went round and round with my manager over taking the last week of the month off. I had the time, and I desperately needed to get out of town - the plan was to take Sam to Maine to see the relatives, and I hadn’t been out there for some time.

“So you’re basically blowing off any chance of hitting goal for the month of December.”

I shook my head. “Not at all - I just have to hit goal before Christmas.”

And Christmas is a whole other post by itself.

Life's Little Victories

One of my favorite cartoonists is a guy named Keith Knight, who does political commentary, and also an occasional strip called "Life's Little Victories". It's a brief look at the little accomplishments in life we should be grateful for. For example:



Often we pay no attention to the little things that make up a life - the small things we should be grateful for. So, with everything that has been going on, I am going to take a brief moment to be grateful for the small things of today:

* Sam got his cast off today

* I found the pool noodles for Sam's birthday party after an epic struggle at way too many stores. (It is July - this should not be a hard item to find.)

* The trim in the hallway is finished, so three of the five rooms in the apartment are now painted

* I will have fresh bread in about an hour

And those are just the small victories for today. Not bad for a Tuesday. Not bad at all.

So I will try to focus on the little victories, and put them together as I can.

First call

After practicing on a call simulator program, practicing with each other, and going over federal and state regulations again and again, the day finally came for live calls.

"All of you are going to screw this up," Becki said. "I'm not saying this to make you feel bad, or because I don't think any of you can do this. But this is your first call. It's not an indicator of how well you'll do. I know one girl who actually got someone to pay on her very first phone call. She was gone in three months - never hit goal once."

Mark raised his hand. "So what happened on your first call?"

Becki laughed. "Honestly? I hung up on them as soon as I got a positive ID by name. I panicked. So as long as you don't hang up, you're doing better than I did. So let's see who gets someone on the line first!"

I opened up my desk of accounts, and starting looking at them. Examining addresses, previous work...

"Nick - stop thinking so much and just call."

I looked behind me, and Becki was standing there. "You are procrastinating."

I shrugged. "I'm getting properly prepared for when I get them on the phone."

She shook her head. "You're going to get an answering machine or a wrong number 90% of the time. Stop thinking and call that number."

I pushed the dial button, and the phone rang, rang, rang - finally the system hung up on the call after the legally allowed 8 rings.

"See? Now just keep at it. Get into a rhythm." And she went over to help someone else.

I pushed the next button, a guy out in Florida who was marked as having been in prison a few months ago by our records found the previous day. Number's probably not even good at this point.

"Hello?" Gruff, male voice on the other end of the line.

"Uhhh...this call may be monitored or recorded. Can I speak to Jimmy Smith?"

Sigh. "Yeah, this is Jimmy."

My mouth went dry, and I swallowed hard. "Mr. Smith, I believe I have a business matter of yours in our office, but I need to make sure I'm speaking to the correct person. Are the last four digits of your social security number 1234?"

"Yeah, that's me."

Must. Remain. Calm.

"Ummmm...Mr. Smith, my name is Nick and I'm calling regarding your defaulted student loan debt of $2,000."

Another sigh. "Aw, shit."

Click.

I stared at the screen for a moment, turned and saw Becki looking over my shoulder.

"Not bad," she said. "You'll do just fine here."

And that post vanished too - sorry

I attempted to write something about the concept of broken things, but it ended up being way too personal for me to want to post. So it sits in the hard drive - better to have written it, but even better not to have posted it.

I also realized from looking at the listing that I've posted absolutely nothing of substance for a solid month, which is about 5 years in blog time. It's been a roller coaster of a month. I'm hoping some of it settles out this week, but I'm not holding my breath on a lot of it.

In the meantime, I'm still working as a substitute textbook clerk at a Rochester area high school due to the RCSD hiring freeze - no one can move into the position until the freeze is lifted. Kinda odd, but there it is.

More later.

Thoughts on broken things

Yeah, I'm a slacker and I haven't been posting. It has been a hellish couple of weeks since coming back from reunion, and the post about what I got from reunion isn't going to materialize since most of it got dashed on the rocks as soon as I came back. Sometimes we realize things too late, and there isn't much one can do but watch the train pass on by.

This post is a placeholder for a longer piece about broken things. Broken bones, broken relationships, broken dreams and the healing process that sometimes needs to happen without other broken parts and pieces.

In the meantime, I leave you the blues. So wish I'd seen this show.

More later. Now sleep.

Halls of ivy, paths of beauty...

...we drink rum and stay outside. (It fits to the tune, y'all.)

This should come as no surprise to those who knew the miscreants of the Middlebury Class of 1995, or at least a certain subset of that class. As we lined up for the parade, Jim Rodda was passing around the rum bottle, and I took a big ol' pull from it right as someone says, "Isn't that President Liebowtiz right over there?" Oh - hi.

And as we processed toward the chapel for the convocational service, most of the Class of 1995 peeled off to stay outside and chat and socialize - all except the one poor sucker who was at the front, and was the sole representative when classes were announced. We had no love of old tradition, but fought like hell against any changes. (One of the deans told some of us outright about changes that they just had to wait until we graduated - we would be gone, they would still be here, and they would win. And they did.)

It is amazing the reversions of returning to reunion for those of us who came without children (those who did come with children remained adults for the duration). Friday night we got lectured by event staff for climbing over the event ropes, attempting to leave the event area with beer, and for climbing over the ropes on our way out. (Yes, we knew where the exit was that time - we just didn't care.)

Saturday night, rather than attend the sanctioned events after dinner, we passed around a bottle of Old Grand-Dad and talked about old times, where we were in our lives, and mourned friends no longer with us.

Later on we got kicked out of the lounge by event staff (since the accomodation plans two of us had made were too far after the Old Grand-Dad, we'd planned to sleep there), and we crashed in the third floor study lounge instead.

The next morning, heading down to the lounge in search of water to stave off the oncoming hangover, there were three fraternity brothers passed out in the lounge, with the strong scent of cheap beer in the air. Pretty much the way Hepburn Lounge smelled EVERY Sunday morning I remember.

There is a much longer and philosophical post in the works, with further detail of people and happenings. I did get the reflection I needed, and answered many of the questions I'd been asking about my life and what direction to head in. That will come later.

But this post I will leave with the amazement at how quickly we all fell back in together and how little our basic characters had changed. And waking up Sunday morning, hung over in the third floor study lounge, wrapped in a tablecloth, next to a smokin' hot blonde, means that at least for a time, you can go 'home' again.

Disclosure - any interactions with the aforementioned hot blonde were purely platonic due to both of us being in relationships. I just had to end with that image of resumed debauchery and return to college days.

Heading off to the halls of ivy and paths of beauty

Note - reunion was actually LAST weekend. I thought I had posted this before I left, but I hadn't. Actual reunion post to follow later.

So this weekend is my 15th college reunion. I waited until the last minute before deciding to go, as this would be the first one I've been to. 5th reunion was the weekend my brother got married, and 10th reunion Jess couldn't travel because she was pregnant with Sam (and we'd been through enough issues I wasn't leaving the state while she was told to 'take it easy').

Two years ago I had visions of 15th reunion at Middlebury. I would be there with my beautiful wife, and two amazing children. I would be able to say my wife ran a successful small business, and I myself had just completed my second year of law school. My younger son would enjoy playing in the mountains and by the streams up at Bread Loaf. My older one would enjoy the college atmosphere, and we would go to the seminar with admissions on how the college admissions program worked, looking at technical schools like RIT or MIT that would challenge him. Definitely introduce him to a college friend who was now creative director for a video game company. And at the evening parties, I could introduce Jess to everyone (secretly enjoying the envy of classmates at the brilliant beauty I somehow managed to marry) and just have a wonderful time. A coming out, if you will, of success and being on top of the world.

Yeah...not so much.

On the plus side, I still have all my hair, and am relatively trim. I've aged pretty well. So I have that. But I'm going by myself, with life in a whole lot more of a shambles than I thought it would be at 37. Off to go chat with the lawyers, doctors, and captains of industry - "So, Nick, what are you up to these days?"

To be perfectly honest, I left college with absolutely no plan of what I was going to do. I had applied to a couple of MFA writing programs (rejected by all of them, in hindsight thankfully) but had no real direction. Everything I've had so far in my life I've stumbled into through sheer dumb luck - the blind pig finding truffle after truffle. Eventually the truffles became dirt clods, and now I'm here.

What pushed me over the edge for reunion was an old friend calling me up and telling me that her parents had a timeshare up in the mountains and were really pushing for her to go to reunion. "But I won't know anyone there - I haven't kept in touch, and it even took some digging to find your number. I've gotten old and wrinkly and haven't done anything. I need to know at least one friendly face will be there."

I told her the friend who gave her my phone number also sent me a recent pic, and that she was definitely overexaggerating on the old and wrinkly - still stunning, actually. She laughed at me. "That's you - you would say that."

So I'm going. I'm heading out a day early to spend some time with my mother in eastern Vermont, and possibly try to catch up with some other friends there. And for reunion? It will be good to go back, and try to remember pieces of who I was. Maybe find some direction I didn't have when I left at 22. Find a recharge in remembering good times and reuniting with old friends.

And what am I doing? I'm writing a book. That's a good Middlebury answer.

Best job I ever had

The first time I ever walked into a temp agency was during a summer home from college after sophomore year. I didn't have a summer job nailed down yet, so I went down, resume in hand, to see what I was qualified for. I was thinking some sort of office position, or maybe manual labor.

The woman asked if I was looking for something full time, or for individual project stuff. I told her I would take either one. "Hmmm....well, looking at your resume, I see you've done some theatre work. And you look about the right height. I think I might have the perfect job for you. It's a one-shot thing - two days worth of work. Would that be a good start?"

Absolutely, I said. What does it entail?

"Well, you would be Tony the Tiger."

"Wait - the Frosted Flakes character?"

She nodded. "It's a promotion that's going on at a couple of summer camps over in Oakland. You show up at breakfast, shake hands, hug kids - takes about three hours for each day. The representative will be there with the suit - just make sure you where light clothing, because the suit will get hot."

"Do I need to start working on my "They're..."

She cut me off. "No, you don't. If fact, you aren't supposed to say anything. It will 'ruin the magic' if you do."

Got it. Show up at the summer camp, wear the suit, get paid. Sounds like fun.

"Oh, and the dates aren't until late July."

OK, fine. I marked my calendar, and in the meantime I got a job distributing books for the Maine State Library. But I got the reminder call, made arrangements (the guys at the warehouse got a kick out of why I needed the mornings off), and I drove to the camps.

I was met by a woman probably only a couple of years older than I was, smiling and cheerful. "So, you're all ready to put on a fur suit and be animated and cheerful in 90 degree weather?"

"The weather was a lot cooler when I agreed to this, but sure."

She nodded. "I'm Barbara - I'll be with you the whole time, guiding you around, since you'll have limited visibility in the suit. We'll only be in there for about fifteen minutes at a time, and then you'll get water breaks - don't want Tony the Tiger passing out from heatstroke and traumatizing the kids, now do we?"

I laughed. "No, that wouldn't work out well."

"I also have to stay with you anywhere you go because the last guy who did this said he just had to go to the bathroom, and he took off with the suit." She laughed. "Not into the bathroom with you, of course, but still standing nearby."

I had a mental picture of Tony the Tiger sneaking off into the car, and then hightailing it for the highway. Hard one to explain if you got pulled over, I'm sure.

I started putting on the suit. It was actually sort of soft on the inside, but I could feel the sweat starting in as soon as Barbara zipped up the back of the costume. I took the head, and looked at it for a moment.

"Fifteen minutes only - you don't have to put it on until we get into the dining hall."

Barbara opened the door to the dining hall entrance, and found only a counselor standing there. "Kids are all in?"

"Yep - should I annouce the guest of honor?"

"Sure - we'll be here on your cue."

The counselor went in, and I heard her say, "Remember when i told you today we were having a special guest?"

Barbara nudged me. "That's us - pop on the head."

I put the head on, and instantly the sweat started pouring down my neck. My glasses fogged up, then cleared.

"And here he is!"

I walked through the door, shuffling since I really couldn't lift my legs in the heat in the suit. I heard a wave of applause and deafening roar of shouting kids. Out of the eyeholes of the costume I could see the frantic waves of arms and legs. I was a rock star - the myth, the legend, the breakfast cereal.

I waved, opened my arms up, shook my hands around. I even did the "They're Grrrrrreat!" fist pump, which got HUGE applause. I felt running thumps onto my legs, followed by pressure - kids running up to hug me. I gave high-fives to the older kids, patted the kids who hugged me on the head. "I love you, Tony!!!!!" I heard over and over.

After just a few minutes, I felt Barbara tug my arm, and we walked out of the dining area and into the hallway.

"Okay, no kids, you can take off the head."

I pulled it off, and nearly fell over from the rush of relatively cooler air. "Oh wow - how long was I in there?"

She laughed. "About 20 minutes. I should have pulled you earlier, but you were having so much fun hamming it up in there I gave you a bit longer."

"Felt like about five - that was fun!"

She handed me a bottle. "Here - drink water. Lots of it. But slowly - we'll take a few minutes, and then go back in for another round."

I nodded. Now that I was out of the head, I could feel the sweat, and that my clothes were soaked. I felt light-headed, a bit swimmy. After a moment, everything went clear, and I felt ready to put the head back on.

The next 20 minutes were a repeat of the first - roaring crowd, hamming it up, hugging kids. The woman at Kelly didn't need to worry about my talking - I could barely breathe, let alone talk.

At the end, I stripped out of the costume, dripping. Barbara smiled at me. "So, you all ready to go for it again next week?"

"Sure."

She signed my time card for three hours, despite only an hour and a half of work. I cranked the windows for the drive home to dry out. I could definitely get used to this.

Apologia for a debt collector

Some variation of this will be the beginning of the book:

"If you walk into a kindergarten and ask the kids what they want to be when they grow up, none of them are going to say, 'I want to be a bill collector.' You're going to hear 'astronaut', 'firefighter', 'teacher' - none of them are going to say 'I want to sit on the phone all day and call people to tell them they need to pay me money.'"

Mark Hendsbee, the managing director, had just cracked open the door to the training room, and told the trainers he 'just wanted to say a few words' to the training class. So far, he's the only guy I've seen around the office who wears a tie. He also caught the rapt attention of everyone the moment he started speaking, including the trainers, who must have heard this speech dozens of times by now.

"This is nobody's dream job - no one has their heart set on being a bill collector. It's a job that people fall into - maybe you have a friend who works here and told you it's a decent place to work. Did anyone here get recommended by someone who works here?"

One hand went up in the back. "Yeah, my cousin Jim."

Mark smiled. "You do know he gets recruitment bonus for that, right?"

"Yep."

"Good - tell him he owes you dinner." Laughter.

"Because in the end - that's why people are here. They've either heard from friends or advertising or some other way that this is a place where you can work and make really good money. And that's why you're here - to make money, to provide for your family, to get the sports car or whatever other stuff you want. And, like with the referral bonus, there are an insane number of ways to make money here."

He paused for a moment, then smiled. "Let me ask you another question - how many of you have gotten grief from a friend or a family member when you told them you're working here?"

A few hands went up. He nodded. "Okay, how many of you haven't told friends or family where you're working yet because you know they're going to give you a hard time about it?"

A few more hands went up, including mine. "Let me let you in on a little secret - 90% of people in this country are working for a paycheck. If they won the lottery and didn't need that paycheck, they would walk off the job the next day. Anybody who works in sales is working for the commission check. Anybody who does factory work is doing it for the check at the end of the week. Waitresses are working for the tips at the end of the night. For 90% of people, at the end of the day, it comes down to the paycheck and nothing else.

"There is a need for what we do - there is no shame in being an ethical member of this profession. If everyone paid their bills, we wouldn't be here. Every person we are trying to collect from signed a piece of paper promising to pay back money that they borrowed, and now for some reason are choosing not to pay it back. And that's always been kind of my mentality when trying to collect. Now, part of that may be my nature - as you may have noticed, I'm a short guy. I may have a bit of a 'Napoleon complex' about having to always be the best at what I do.

"But if I get someone on the phone, and he's refusing to pay on this just debt that he owes, he is taking the food off my family's table. And that mentality is no different than the car salesman who is trying to talk you into the premium sound system, because he knows if he doesn't, he may not be going to Cancun next month.

"So if someone asks me why I do what I do for a living, I tell them I do it to feed my family and provide them with the highest standard of living I can. Why do you do what YOU do? Are you curing cancer? Are you saving the world? I didn't think so."

"This job is not for everybody. It is high stress. You will deal with a lot of angry people who will call you all sorts of names. You will hear every sob story imaginable for why they can't pay this bill. If you can't take it, there are a lot easier ways to make the base salary we offer."

"But if you can, there is money to be made. There are collectors who routinely bring home thousands of dollars in bonus money every month. You look in that parking lot, you will see Mustangs, Lexuses, Mercedes, Harley-Davidsons - and I'll tell you what, they don't all belong to upper management. They belong to people who come in, work their forty hours, and get the job done."

"Every single one of you is capable of doing that. If we didn't think you were, you wouldn't be sitting here. And if you didn't think you were capable of it, you wouldn't still be sitting here either." He turned to the trainer. "Have they done any live calls yet?"

She shook her head. "No, they start with that tomorrow."

He laughed. "Perfect timing then. You'll get to see what you can do. And if you find you can do it, I look forward to seeing your pictures up on that top performers wall. Good luck."

Time to collect the thoughts on collections

53 posts about collections so far - I really didn't think I'd have so much to say on the matter. Though the idea of a book was suggested fairly early on by someone, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

At this point, I need to collect together what I've written, and try to figure out how to assemble it in some sort of order. The easiest way to tell a story is in chronological form, but there are some of the essay concepts that don't lend themselves to a chronological telling. "Collecting from the Dead", for example, is a concept issue that involves stories from several different months. Spread out, they do not speak as clearly as assembled.

I also need to make sure I've covered everything, and I'm not re-telling stories. As my wife has pointed out to me, I have a habit of re-telling the same stories without realizing that I've told them before. I've tried to be mindful of this, checking stories to make sure I haven't gone over territory before in other posts. Mostly I've been surprised to find I haven't told a story before - after 53 posts, I thought I must have repeated myself somewhere.

The two items I haven't really covered yet are initial training and colleagues (with the exception of the two in "The Unintentional Poet"). Colleagues I think will fit better in an overall "arc", and initial training seems to be a good place to start the writing of the actual book. Therefore, it is time to begin the task of writing the book and assembling the blog posts.

So to anyone who has been following the series, I have a couple of questions. Are there any areas you thought were unclear or needed expanding on? Anything you feel was left unanswered? I have one former colleague who has been reading this, and she made me promise that she could read the book when I wrote it. But if anyone has any suggestions, I'm more than open to them.

This is also to say that future posts probably won't have a whole lot to do with collections - I think for blog posting, I've mined that vein about as far as it will go. Future ones will probably still have to do with various past jobs, as I'm enjoying reflecting on them as I try to figure out where to go for a profession at this point.

Oooooh...yeah, bad call

Through a credit report, I tracked down a borrower's place of employment - we'll call it Haven House. I looked up Haven House, and found two numbers. I call the first one, and she picked up the phone directly.

She said she was at work and couldn't talk very long, but we went over a brief financial statement and got references. Haven House was run by a state agency, she said, though she didn't work directly for the state. She gave her position as "counselor", and I didn't press for details. Looking at the financial, she seemed a good candidate for a hardship program (spouse unemployed, recent medical issues - LOTS of medical bills, etc.).

The senior collector on that evening (it was a late night, and just the two of us on the team that night) decided otherwise, and pressed for payment arrangements. She said she would have to discuss options with her husband and would call us back.

A week passed, and all attempts to get ahold of her on her cell phone were futile. I had tried her work number a couple of times, but it went straight to voicemail identifying her by name. I left vague, general messages with my name and phone number, and kept trying to get through.

Finally, one late night, I called her at work, and got her voicemail. Since the message identified her specifically, I decided to leave the computer message instead of my general voice message, which we can only do in a case of positive identification that the phone belongs to the borrower.

I hate the computer message - affectionately known as "the FOTI bomb" (don't ask me why - I can't explain for legal reasons). Its tone is rude and condescending. It is blunt. It states that we are a collection agency and we are calling you (by computer phonetic pronunciation of name) regarding your defaulted student loans and to call us back to discuss arrangements. "This is an attempt by a debt collector to collect a debt. ANY information obtained WILL be used for that purpose." It is a very intimidating message.

But I was annoyed. So I left it.

And she called back, and asked to speak to the manager when she got on the phone with the collector who answered. Katie, our then manager, picked up the phone, and the borrower went off on a rant. I didn't realize it was her until I overheard Katie say, "Yeah, I apologize for Nick's behavior - he was completely out of line."

I looked over at Katie, who waved her hand, paused the phone, and said, "I'm selling you down the river to get you a program. I'll explain later."

Katie wrapped up the call, and turned to me. "It's going to be a hardship program, but she'll definitely send it back, and she never wants to speak to you ever ever ever again. I told her to ask for me directly any time she has to call."

"What did I do? I was never anything but polite with her."

"I know - you are always polite with anyone. But...Haven House is a battered women's shelter. And apparently, you dropped 'the FOTI bomb' on the Rape Crisis phone line last night."

I felt my guts drop. I couldn't come up with anything to say.

She smiled. "I know you didn't know, so it's okay. It's got just her name on it so that if an abusive husband checks phone records and calls there's no identification. She'll return the paperwork, you'll get credit for the hardship program, and it's all good."

I'm not sure what was worse - the idea that I'd dropped the bomb on the line, or the idea that I'm sure everyone in that office who checked messages thought I was an abuser checking up on the phone records of my victim. I'm pretty sure I'm going to Hell for that one.

Training and how to be a better collector

Once you were on the collection floor, there was some continual training beyond the initial training weeks. Training happened for one of two reasons - to keep current with knowledge as required by federal and state laws, and to sharpen your abilities as a collector. There were also the optional seminars about moving cheese, getting what you want and other positive motivational seminars, most of which were offered during regular business hours when I wasn't there. Besides, I know where my cheese is - it's in the refrigerator.

Knowledge training happened via computer modules. You logged in, and read through essentially power-point slides of information on keeping client data protected (shred everything), updates to laws and regulations about lending as changes happened, and company code of conduct (don't ask your colleagues if you can suck on their toes - seriously, that happened). There was a simple quiz you had to click the correct answers to, and then you passed and could go back to collecting.

Ability sharpening training became a serious issue about six months in. There were a few class-action lawsuits involving the parent company and non-disclosure of all calls being monitored and recorded, so there was a threat of a docking of bonus if you failed to announce that at the beginning of the call. That led to a further examination of collection practices, and finally the director decided he was going to sit down with all 400 or so collectors in small groups over the space of two weeks to go over calls and how we could improve as collectors.

He sat down with us in the executive conference room - a group of about fifteen of us. He smiled, and started right in. "Frankly, listening to the phone calls, I'm amazed we do as well as we do on the bottom line. Which I don't mean as a down note - I'm not here to tell you that you all suck. What I am here to tell you is that there is a huge room for improvement, which means everyone in this room has the potential to absolutely crush your goals every month. And honestly, that's why you come to work every day, right? You want the bonus check. Let's listen to some calls, and see what we can to do help you get there."

Listening to your own voice on a recording is a very strange experience, and I don't like the sound of my own voice. Most people don't. And that's what made this method of training so effective - people were already in that critical "oh-God-that's-my-voice" mindset, and therefore willing to see what problems were there.

The call of mine was pretty good - I got very good at giving the monitoring and recording disclosure as a reflex when answering the phone (my mother had to inform me once that I better NOT be recording her calls), so that part was fine. What amazed me, for someone who was a theatre major and then a teacher for five years, was how uncomfortable and weak I sounded speaking on the phone. I apologized, I ummed, I errrred.....

"She ran you over," he said. "She controlled the conversation the minute that you got on the phone with her. And that's a problem I see with everyone. We're so desperate to hang on to borrowers, we just don't want to let them go, and we'll say anything to keep them on the phone.

"We need to come at this from a position of strength. We control the conversation. The worst they can do is hang up on you, and if they're going to do that, they're not serious about this debt and you are wasting your time talking to them anyway." He turned to me again. "You got a place of employment with that call - can she be garnished?"

"I'm not sure."

He nodded. "Why don't you check on that when you get back out there. If she can be garnished, set her up, and I guarantee she will call you back begging to make payment arrangements when she gets that letter."

He looked at everyone else. "That said, don't start in with the garnishment on first contact. As a matter of fact, I don't even want to hear the word 'garnishment' on a first contact. Some of you have the opposite issue in that you're scaring people off. Don't show your ace on the first throw. Cause if you scream garnishment in the first breath, when you take that statement of finances, they're not going to tell you where they work. And we need all the information we can get in case they fall out of a program three months down the road."

He thought for a moment. "You know, you can even ask them straight up at the beginning of the call if this is something they have good intentions about. After you tell them what the call's about, what the balance of the loan is, ask them straight up if they have good intentions about it. Do they intend to pay it back? If the answer's no, then that's really the end of the call and you just follow up with a garnishment if you have their employer, or their taxes will get seized. Nothing you can do. If the answer's yes...that's something you can always get back to if they're giving you issues with references and financial info. 'You said you have good intentions.'"

We went through everyone else's phone calls, and most people were in the same position I was - weak, letting the borrower control the conversation, hesitant to ask for information, lots of umms and errs. He went through a lot of the same talk with other collectors, and them summed up.

"Too many people go in with the mindset that we are 'asking for their money'. We are not asking. Every single borrower in our office signed a piece of paper when they took out these loans stating that if they ever fell into federal default, the balance in full would be due on demand. Any arrangement we are willing to make beyond that is a courtesy. Ask for balance in full. Ask if they can pay if off in thirty days. Let them know this is a serious obligation they need to take care of. We are here to help them if they are serious about taking care of these loans. If they aren't serious, move on to someone who's going to pay you."

What came to mind as I was walking out was a line from "Get Shorty" when John Travolta is explaining 'the look' to Danny DeVito: "What I'm thinking is, I own you. But what I'm NOT doing is feeling one way or another about it. You are a number in my book. That's it."

And that really is the key to success in collections. Being able to hold that mental state - not compassionate, not aggressive monster. Just a hum of "you owe this debt, and we need to settle it". It's just a fact, a number in a book that needs to be resolved, and then we will go on our way and never cross paths again. Whatever the circumstances in the borrower's life (in the case of my phone call, five kids and a useless drunk of a husband), there needs to be resolution.

It is a surprisingly hard mental state to retain. I think I came close to it the month I hit NPV, though I was only able to express it through people in impossible situations that I kept on the phone to get into hardship programs (no bonus money in that direction, Skippy). And perhaps in different personal circumstances I could have held it and eventually hit goal. But it is enough for me that I know, understand, and was capable of it. And to move on.

That is some HOT salsa!

One of the stranger jobs I did was assembly line for a food processing plant. This was straight out of college, while I was teaching night school English, and trying to cover the rent on my first apartment. It was walking distance from the apartment, and it was something different to do from the other temp jobs.

The company made bottled marinades and salsa under their own imprint, which are still available throughout Maine. The first day I put tops on the marinade bottles, which basically meant just slapping a cap on them - no automation for a lot of the system then. Mind-numbingly boring, but not too hard.

The second day I was put on salsa jar duty. I was handed a pair of heavy rubber gloves, and told that what I had to do was put a cover on a jar of salsa within seven seconds. So from when the salsa was poured into the jar, I was to slowly count to seven and get the top on. If I didn't get it on within the seven seconds, then the salsa would have cooled enough to possibly be "contaminated", so I would set that jar aside. And please don't set aside too many.

I did okay for the first half hour, and then I noticed my left thumb was really starting to hurt. After another fifteen minutes I could barely hold on to the jar, and I went on cigarette break to see what the damage was.

There was a blister about and inch long and a half inch high on my thumb. I had calluses on the rest of my left hand fingers from guitar, so they were only a bit red, but this was an angry painful blistering burn. Throbbing.

"Son of a..." I said as I headed out and joined the pair of women smoking out back.

"Oh yeah - you're the new guy." One of them pointed to the medical kit. "Just drain it and throw a gauze pad on it - band-aids will just melt if you use those."

I bit the end, drained it, and put on the pad. It felt like it was on fire, but the bottle of anti-burn cream was long gone, so I just went with the pad.

The women were still out there when I went out again. "How do you put on the jar tops without getting burned?"

They laughed. "Ya don't. Eventually you just build up the calluses till you don't feel it anymore, and then that's okay. Once you get the calluses you won't ever lose a single jar. Ruthie knows that, and she'll cut you some slack the first couple of weeks while you build them up."

The one woman checked her watch. "Well, time to go back in." She took a last puff on her cigarette, and then crushed it out on her left thumb. "See? Just takes time."

I quit three days later when I got the convenience store job. It took my thumb two solid weeks to heal.

Son, do you know why I pulled you over?

The company office is located in a smallish town, and in their ads they vigorously promote how much they pay and the idea that the sky is the limit for what you can make. This creates some partnerships that are positive for employees, such as car dealers who are willing to put their name out there offering a discount when you decide to buy that sports car you've been visualizing. And there are some negatives, mostly to do with local law enforcement.

One night coming out of a midnight shift, I had just pulled on to the public roadway into the parking lot when I saw flashing red lights behind me. I couldn't have been doing more than five miles and hour, and I didn't think any of my lights were out. What's up?

The officer came over, and asked me what I'd been doing there. "Working - I work the west coast shift - three to midnight," I answered.

She nodded. "Did you realize your registration is overdue?"

I looked at my sticker, and indeed it was. She wrote me a ticket for the expired registration, and went on her way.

Small question. It's midnight. It's dark. And she had clearly been waiting for me where the parking lot becomes public road. How did she see my sticker?

I got my answer from someone at work the next day. "Saw you got busted on your way out - what happened."

I told them it was for registration, and he nodded. "Yeah, any car in the parking lot here after 10pm, the town cops come and run all the plates to see if there are outstanding warrants, and all that crap. They'll look at inspection stickers, too."

"So how come she didn't hit me in the parking lot?"

"Ah...that's private property. She can only cite you on a public roadway. They have permission to go into the parking lot from the company, so that way the cops will do overnight patrols on the property. But yeah, you want to see the real fun, you should see the speed traps at 8am, 5pm, and 9pm for the east coast nights. Looks like a damn Christmas tree some nights."

I went to court to see if I could argue down the ticket, and found four other people I knew from work were there arguing speeding tickets or other violations. I talked to the prosecutor, and paid my fine.

Two weeks later, I got busted for speeding on the way in to work (late). So a month later I'm talking to the same prosecutor, who's laughing at me this time. We talked about law, and law school, and he told me to get out of collections and get back to school. Speeding reduced to failure to obey sign, no points.

For the rest of my time there, I strictly obeyed the speed limits. A friend of mine at work had a truck that was uninspectable, but arranged with someone else for rides home at midnight when the town cop was waiting right there for him. It made for a very surreal situation, to say the least.

In the end, I should be grateful my license survived collections, along with so much else.

Office environments

At the moment, I'm writing this from the basement of a high school in Rochester, NY. I was out of work for four days before I got a call from a friend who teaches here, and he told me that the school needed a substitute textbook clerk for the rest of the year. As this is the same system where I'd been a librarian, I knew the cataloging system (as well as the librarian here), so I started right up.

The air handling units for this side of the building are in the ceiling above this room, so there's a constant rattle at about normal conversation level. It's also right next to the door to the cafeteria, so I've got the noise of students shouting, ranting, and all the other normal things that teenagers do.

However, when I get tired of being down here, I have an office up on the second floor, and there are four other book rooms I'm responsible for (though the majority of the work really needs to be done down here).

And if I think it's too much, I just have to remember that I could be back in the cube farm of collections.

The tools a collector needs are a phone, a computer, and a place to write notes and on forms. Given this, the best setup to maximize floor space and building space is cubicles.

The building itself is a pre-fab warehouse-style building - very non-descript and meant to blend in. (Though the building is sealed and the windows are bulletproof, just in case it doesn't blend in well enough.) Which means the inside has high ceilings, along with sound baffles and dampeners to keep the noise to a dull roar.

There is also background music. Usually classic or modern rock, with occasional switches to country.

The cubicle walls are greenish/grey, on which I was supposed to have tacked up various important lists and documents - fax numbers, policies, training scripts and notes, etc. In the middle of my time there, there even was a memo that came out documenting exactly how everything was supposed to be posted in the cubicle, and what lists were supposed to be where.

We were encouraged to put up pictures on the walls that weren't covered by official paper, especially anything related to our "visualization" of what we were working for. This didn't take hold so much in my area as it did in others - if you looked at other teams, you saw pictures of motorcycles, cars, boats, vacation spots, and other such things.

The computers took up the bulk of the desk, along with the phone. For ease of calling we all had headsets, and the dialler was run through the computer. The cord connecting the headset to the phone was about seven feet, so you had a bit of an ability to stand up and walk around.

Looking back after only a couple of weeks out, it does seem strange that I was essentially tethered to my desk for eight hours a day. And in the final month it was one of the things that became unbearable about the job - I got jittery if I sat down too long, and needed to move a lot. Which meant putting my dialler on pause. And dialler status statistics are viewable by management from department manager on up.

The ritual of sitting down and putting on the headset did give you a sense of grounding - a sort of tunnel vision, Matrix-style, of you, the computer, and the person you are trying to reach. Collectors who can achieve that sort of focus are praised - my manager often told me that was his mindset when he'd been a collector, as did the manager of the next team over. Not hearing everything else, just disappearing into the zone.

It sounded very much like some creative zones I'd experinced in writing, reading, and music. I did manage to find that zone a couple of times, and it scared me a bit when I did. Which is probably another reason I was not successful at the job.

The first day after I got fired, I waited until my appointed time when I would normally be plugging in to the system, and I went to sit down by the creek out behind my apartment. I listened to the rushing water, the noise of the village, and a passing train. It was a far better day.

If you're hiding, you're not very good at it

Several times I ended up talking to people who claimed to be in hiding from people. Ex-husbands, family, and people who wanted to do them harm. I even had one guy who claimed to be in super-secret hiding from the mob - for him, I had a simple answer: If you're hiding from the Mob, don't list your phone number in the White Pages, cause that's where I found you.

I often felt bad for those who were in hiding from an ex-husband, because people who try to hide often aren't willing to go full out to do what it takes to drop off the map. So they still have searchable work, relatives, and other trails that bill collectors can find. And when we find them, they spook. I had one borrower who I was working with her mother on getting her a hardship program, but I have no idea what happened.

There were two interesting hiding cases I remember. A colleague of mine called a neighbor to pass the message on to the borrower, and she called back to give her an earful. And this is the approximation of it:

She was on the run from her abusive husband who had threatened to kill her and her children. We had actually called her mother's neighbors, as that was where she got her mail, but she was hiding even there. She didn't even KNOW the neighbors - they just randomly came over and handed her the message.

And now we had blown her cover, and put her children at risk, and they might all die next week just so we could collect a couple of bucks. And how did we feel about that?

My poor colleague was all worked up, but I asked her if the borrower was so stealthy, how did the neighbors know who she was to pass on the message? My colleague did say that the neighbors had nothing nice to say about her (and their kids played together), so she was obviously known. I also pointed out that if the threat really were that serious, one should consider relocating a little further away than 20 miles. Or getting police protection.

Or, when you are offered a hardship arrangement on your loans, you call back. Which is what she failed to do.

The other one was much more interesting. It was an 'open season' new buisness account on a Sunday, and a ridiculously high balance. I did some poking around with the databases, and found there was no record for the borrower after 2005. However, there was an associate who was supposely in his 80s who had no record prior to 2005, and had the same last name as the prior city the borrower had lived in.

It piqued my interest, and I copied the associates phone number...only to realize a colleague had called and left a message a half hour before. So it was a matter of a call back.

Which came. Apparently from a voice that sounded much younger than 80's, screaming that he didn't know anyone by that name, and there wasn't anyone by that name in the system - there couldn't be. The borrower was gone, had been for years.

"But I thought you didn't know him?"

"Ap...erp...don't call here again." *click*

I poked at it a bit more and found an address to check out the following day, and wrote down the number.

When I got in, the account was gone. Removed entirely from the system. Which is amazing, as any account being removed usually takes at least 24 hours to vanish. So I asked the manager.

"Yeah, I was told someone at the big office removed the account. No explanation - just said the account's going, and make sure you don't call anyone about the account. Never had that happen before."

And somewhere, someone is looking over his shoulder a little more carefully. Because if WE found him....

Wake the neighbors

Heading out into the really far realm of uncomfortable 3rd party is calling neighbors. These calls depend on several things, first being full knowledge of the person's address, and an understanding of geography:

"I've never heard of the guy. No, I don't live in Seattle - dude, you have the wrong fucking AREA CODE for Seattle. I'm in fucking OREGON. Moron."

The borrowers we're trying to track down often tend to be transient, so often they've moved on in the distant past, leaving only memories...and other unpaid bills.

"Her? Yeah, her and her deadbeat boyfriend skipped out on a couple months of back rent - ran out in the dead of night, and I had to fumigate the place before I could rent it again. You find her, you let me know, okay?"

"Oh crap, that was the guy who set fire to his lawn right before the cops busted down his door, wasn't it? Man, that was funny..."

Most of the time I never got any useful information from neighbors, but there is always that "collector's legend" of the neighbor who brings the phone over to the neighbor across the street, and they pay. So we keep calling neighbors.

I had one borrower I had pinned down to being self-employed and definitely at the home address. All other reference avenues turned into dead ends, so I decided to break down and finally call a neighbor.

"Hey there, I'm trying to reach Mrs. Jones."

"Nope, that's my neighbor. Who are you?"

"Oh, I'm calling long distance from New York and the other number I thought was hers in disconnected and I need to speak to her. Is there any way you can get a message to her?" (Neighbors will often leave messages - that's pretty common. Not that they ever call back, but still.)

"Hold on - they just pulled in. Let me see if the cordless reaches that far."

A rustling on the end of the line, and then:

"Hello? Who the fuck are you and why are you calling my neighbor to get ahold of me?"

"Well, I think we may have a business matter of yours in our office..."

"You're a FUCKING BILL COLLECTOR and you called my FUCKING NEIGHBOR? Listen here you miserable little shit...(slightly muffled) Stop your goddamn whining, and I'll get you your fucking animal crackers in a minute...(back in my ear) NEVER FUCKING CALL THIS NUMBER FOR ME AGAIN." *click*

Okay - just short of legend. Now if only I'd have gotten her to pay...

Relatives

I was never comfortable calling relatives. References that the borrower had willingly put down at one point was uncomfortable enough, but calling other relatives just opened up all sorts of other possibilities of uncomfortable for me.

We find relatives in a couple of ways. One is through a people finding database that lists various relatives and "associates". The other is through guesswork - if the last name is moderately uncommon, then most likely someone with that same last name in the same town is going to be related somehow.

Most of the time the reaction I would get when I called a relative was "Who? Nope, don't know her at all." Occasionally you get a gut feeling that they're lying to you, but there really isn't all that much you can do.

The discomfort levels come from the people who do know the borrower, and are more than willing to share a bit more than I'd like:

"Oh, that's my cousin. Yeah, we don't talk much anymore since she broke into our grandma's house and stole a bunch of money for her drug addiction. Couldn't help you."

"Why's that asshole giving out my number? He never calls unless he needs something - didn't even call me when I had the operation for my bladder cancer. Do you know how painful it is to have to use that bag to piss into? Well, let me tell you..."

"You want who? How did you get this number? He doesn't know this number. Oh shit, now I'm gonna have to change it all over again, you miserable..." *click*

"Now, who are you? What is this about? Well, if I'm going to get her the message, I need to know..." (Disclosure violation waiting to happen. Hang up the phone and run like your job depends on it.)

The truly entertaining relative calls are if they happen to be former in-laws. You either get the complete shut down, or all the information you could ask for. Colleague got a perfect hit on a 30K account hitting a relative who turned out to the be ex-wife who'd just filed suit for back child support and had all sorts of useful information.

And then you get the sob stories about the drug use, the losers, deadbeats, and other assorted dregs of humanity. You hear about the violence ("they finally locked his ass up for beatin' on my sister"), the scam artists ("she cleaned out my bank account years ago - haven't seen her since"), and the people who just wandered off into the sunset ("he's probably under a bridge somewhere drunk, stoned, or dead. Maybe all three.")

And I never got anything useful. At least not in a time frame to make the info something that would benefit me. And that's not even getting into calling non-relatives, which I'll leave that for another post.

Exit interview and confidentiality agreement

The paperwork was in my mailbox the day following my verbal notice of termination. There is the general letter stating my termination, the listing of paperwork and benefits I need to deal with immediately, and the request to re-sign a confidentiality agreement.

No, I don't think I'm being singled out. It's a standard document to make sure I don't reveal "trade secrets" or "confidential information" related to my employer. I signed it and put it in the envelope to send back.

They also sent me the original I had signed when I first started the job back in June. Apparently non-publicly known information includes "know-how, technical data, processes, techniques, developments, inventions, research products..." etc, etc.

This does give me some pause as I look over the weblog and think about some of the postings. But I don't think I've given away any trade secrets, or revealed anything that will damage the company. I suppose if I do get a cease and desist order, I'll know I crossed a line. But until then, I intend to finish out the posts I feel like I need to write.

There is also the "exit interview" regarding the rating of the company and how it was to work for them. I'm torn on this one. The reason for leaving is mostly just I couldn't do the job. I enjoyed the people, for the most part. In the end the job was just killing my faith in humanity, and I want a little bit of that in my life going forward.

So, two forms, drop in the mail (they paid the postage), and that's the end of it. I am now formally an ex-collector, and will move on to better prospects. My better prospects right now I think involve a walk to the post office, then sitting by the creek for a spell. Then back to other paperwork and continuing to settle in to apartment.

Further signs of comfort

One of the other signs of civilization I've always found relaxing is a good cigar. I've smoked various and varietal types of tobacco over the years - on and off the cigarette wagon, smoked a pipe in college for a while - but the cigar is a special sort of enjoyment. It's meant to be smoked leisurely, and often socially.

Through some mail-order sampler packs, I've found I have a taste for very expensive cigars - old Cuban seed such as La Gloria Cubana and Montechristo. All of which are way too expensive for my regular budget.

So, after the liquor cabinet, I ordered some sampler packs to be shipped here, along with a cigar cutter. I have a humidor from a previous housemate who gave up cigars, and I filled it and then some. And tonight, I had the first one while standing outside.

It's an odd one - a torpedo size from the Philippines, but very easy to smoke. I watched the stars and just puffed away.

Again, the continuing mellowing out, and trying things that require the lingering time to savor and enjoy. Right now, I need to savor bedtime.

And so it ends

So in the end it was more of a whimper than a bang. I called in to the office, spoke to my manager who transferred me over to HR, and they told me they’d be mailing me all the paperwork necessary, no reason to come in, etc, etc.
The big question is going to be regarding unemployment. Technically they did offer me the demotion, which means NYS may determine I walked away from the job of my own free will, therefore I will get nothing. If this is the case, clearly I will need to find employment relatively quickly. If not, you’ll probably get to see a whole lot more posts about the job a whole lot more quickly, as I’ll have the time to really flesh out a few subjects I’ve been meaning to touch on.
In the end, I feel like a weight has been lifted. I wasn’t going to walk away from a paying job for nothing – I needed to get fired. I spent the day basking in the sun, considering starting work on the two bicycles I’d picked up at the dump to get into rideable shape, and in the end just chatted with neighbors. Closure to hopefully come later at a leisirely rate.

All over but the shouting

So I set up nothing in my final day as a collector. I did follow up with a couple of hardship programs, sent off frantic emails to fellow collectors to follow up on stuff that I'd found, and spent much of the day essentially doing "lead generation" for other collectors. If I can't turn a profit, I may as well help others to do so.

I can honestly say I've learned a lot doing this. I've found some of my own limits, and I was put in the position of having to make some difficult choices that needed to be made. From here on out, I have some clearer direction.

I'd put some more reflection into it, but I'm at the house, which is no longer a strong place for reflection. I'll have more to say on Monday when I'm actually terminated, and will have some further posts to clarify some other points I never got the chance to cover.

But for now, a glass of rum and bedtime. The course has been run, the time run out, and now its just awaiting the inevitable.

Final day

Barring divine intervention, this will be my final day as a bill collector. I am currently at less than 40% of NPV, and I'm only working for 5 and a half hours today to end the month. Somehow I don't see it happening. And as I've been told over and over again, if you don't see it happening, it won't. (Yes, the Cult of Positivity runs rampant in collections - possibly a future post as well.)

I did have a good meeting with the division manager yesterday, who said he recognized I work hard and was very intelligent, but for some reason just couldn't put it together. I was offered (off the record) the opportunity to stay on at reduced pay, but told him I just couldn't see it working if it wasn't working now. And he told me that if I don't see it, then clearly it isn't going to happen. So that will be that.

I do hope to accomplish a few things today, as the team is very close to hitting goal, and I know that means a lot for our manager. I'd like to see that happen for the morale of everyone involved. It's been a rough road, and it would be good to be on top of things again.

Alright - off to get Sam from pre-school. Notes from final day later on this evening.

Graduation - going out in style. Sort of.

Due to circumstances that would take too long to explain, I took four and a half years to graduate from Middlebury. So instead of graduating in May of '95, I actually graduated in February of '96, and therefore got to do the "Feb" graduation ceremony.

To explain for those not familiar - Middlebury has its own mountain and ski area, called the Snow Bowl. February graduation is a very informal sort of affair, culminating in a ski down the mountain to receive your diploma.

Small problem. I don't ski. Never learned, despite growing up in Maine and then attending a college in the middle of Vermont with its own damn mountain. I usually spent the winter in intense coursework, and was usually broke anyway.

For those of us in that position, we were offered a free skiing lesson/day pass during January to learn how to make it down the mountain without bodily injury. I learned how to point my skis in the proper direction and slow down enough to make it down the bunny slope and accept my diploma. I even started to get the hang of it enough to try to show off a bit to a cute freshman who I'd seen getting her first lesson too.

(It didn't work. Suffice it to say, my showing off ended with me in a snowbank being laughed at by said freshman. I called it a day shortly thereafter.)

Graduation day arrived, we sat through the short ceremony at Mead Chapel, and then everyone trundled over to the Middlebury Snow Bowl to ski down. I sat down on the lift next to Scott DeVries, another first-time skier who happened to be from Iowa. I hadn't seen him for a while, so we chatted on the lift up, not paying a great deal of attention to the fact it was a different lift than the one we'd used for our lesson.

There was a great deal of commotion, with someone shouting out from the ground, "Hey - I just taught him to ski last week! Someone make sure they get down! They missed the midpoint!"

Apparently we were supposed to get off the chairlift at the midpoint of the mountain. We failed, and were now on our way up to the very top of the Black Diamond trail at the top of the Snow Bowl.

Fear began to sink it. The terrain changed - rocky crags and howling winds snapped at our robes. The temperature dropped. This was terra incognita - we were off the map and on our own.

(Yes, Midd people, I'm aware the Snow Bowl's Black Diamond trail is considered mild even by East Coast standards. Remember - one ski lesson. Ever.)

Two people were with us at the top of the mountain, and one immediately skied down to let the graduation folk know what had happened. The other one looked us over, and she shook her head. "One lesson each, huh?"

We nodded.

"Where are you from?"

I was from Maine, Scott was from Iowa. She looked at me. "Well, you at least know what a mountain is - you think you can get down okay if you take it slow?"

"Sure."

So she set off with Scott, guiding him down the trail while skiing...backwards. I am still in awe thinking about it.

Which left me at the top of the mountain - alone. Howling wind, rocky terrain. But I had to get down, and so I started to point my skis the way I'd been taught to begin going down the mountain.

Which didn't work - even a V-stop wasn't enough to stop the breakneck speeds. Which, as I realized tumbling next to a rock, was exactly what was going to happen if I kept this up.

I sat up, trying to figure out what to do next...and started to slide, very slowly, down part of the trail. The polyester graduation robe slid well, and with the skis I could steer.

Fine, says I. This is how we go down the mountain.

The was one person at the mid-point when I finally got there, and he was bent over laughing as he saw me sliding down the trail on my butt. "We couldn't wait, but they're all still waiting for ya down there."

He laughed, and helped me up. "From here you can probably stand and really ski. You should try that run again after a few more lessons."

I shook my head. "Nah, I think this is it."

I did make it down the lower half upright on my skis, arriving way behind everyone else, but with the full applause of the Feb class of 95.5 for having made it down the mountain.

Style and grace, I'm not sure. But I think it means I need to go to my 15th reunion this year.

My day

Today I found the following things:

* A borrower was arrested last week for felony DUI while riding his ATV. He'd tried to veer off the road to evade the police, but was still arrested. He was riding the ATV drunk because he'd permanently lost his drivers license after his third DUI.

* Another borrower was arrested last year on 65 counts of felony theft of over $1500 each. I'm guessing this would be the "small amount of embezzlement" that another collector found out about while doing a verification of employment yesterday.

* One of my Out To Borrows told me flat out that she couldn't start payments until May, and wasn't going to answer my calls until then so don't bother.

* And finally, I got blown off by a $20K account I tracked down at work with a simple, "Dude, this is my work - don't call me here." Click.

(Given that we've been listening to his voice mail tell us in the office for the last six months that "This is BAAHHHHBBBB!!!!!! I'm a DOOUUUCHEEEE!!!!" I probably should've expected that.)

My manager told me today to not give up hope. I told him I haven't. Though the hope I'm not giving up is the hope that my sanity survives the next two days, and then I will spend the weekend blissfully awaiting the fall of the hammer on Monday. Sweet oblivion, indeed.

And what are YOU doing with your life, Mr. Collector?

We don't always deal with the rough and tumble end of society in collections, though it often seems like we do. But in amongst the unemployed, criminals, deadbeats, meth addicts, and those who have slipped through the cracks, there are some really amazing people.

There are all the stories about the minor celebrities people have found - reality TV stars, minor B-movie actresses, and sports figures, among others. But I'm more interested in the stories of people who are truly doing odd and creative things I've found.

Today I "found" someone I couldn't find because he is a busker in Barcelona. I came across one person doing an independent photography project of the southwestern desert (mind-bendingly amazing shots), and other doing portrait photography. I've found people doing great sculpture projects, touring Europe with jazz revues, and making documentaries and independent films.

Not that I've ever talked to any of these people (except the jazz musician, and that was on his way through the airport a few months ago). But by skipping them down, I get to see their work and what they are doing.

It does give some point for reflection of "so what are YOU doing, Mr. Collector?" as I sit and dial the phone trying yet again to reach the guy doing the southwest photos. There are very few philosophers in collections, and for most people its just a way to pay the bills and get by without really thinking much about it.

I came across one borrower who is an up and coming alt-country musician based now out of Texas. I read his bio, detailing his personal plummet leading to jail time due to booze and drugs until he decided to turn it all around a few years ago and put his life together. He started taking his songwriting seriously, and he's getting some notice.

I remembered the name, and looked him up when I got home. I'm playing one of his songs on his MySpace band page right now, and it's some pretty cool stuff - a good mellow storyteller vibe, detailing where he's been and what he's been through. (If I could link to it without violating FDCPA, I would. But I can't. Sorry.)

Me? I'm just sitting here with a drink in my hand, listening to some good music and writing a blog post. Hopefully someday soon I'll be doing more, knowing that this isn't the end, just a brief stop.