Long Time Coming

Roughly one year ago this week, I quit my old job. When my supervisor told me I could “find somewhere else to work,” if I didn’t like the rules, he didn’t think I’d actually do it. He thought wrong.

At the time, a new company was forming around an ambitious young entrepreneur who had a track record of less than successful start-ups, but each one had been a little better than the last, lasted a little longer, and his most recent endeavor had not failed so much as it had been stolen from him. Most successful small business owners go through a series of early failures before hitting their stride or finding their niche.

I called him and we talked several times at length about what we thought was wrong in our industry and what he thought should and could change. We found that we had a lot in common and so, on no more than a verbal agreement with a stranger I’d never met, I stepped off the cliff into the unknown and quit my job.

People told me I was be insane, but the ones who really care about me understood it was what I had to do. After nearly eighteen years in the same, essentially entry-level job I’d watched a small Mom-n-Pop company grow, split, merge, morph, and devolve into a soulless corporate beast covering nearly half a continent. The idiots had taken over the asylum and I couldn’t stand it anymore. I walked away from three weeks vacation, all my family’s health and life insurance, and took a twenty-percent cut in my gross income.

It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

During one of our early conversations, I remember my new employer asking my opinion of another employee he was considering for a leadership position. I told him then, and I still believe, that the person who wants to be in charge is probably the worst possible choice for the job.

The new company managed to navigate a tough economy and the perils of operating with little more than a shoestring budget and raw emotion to keep us going sometimes. We survived the summer despite a rocky financial environment, but when the cold season arrived last fall hard choices had to be made.

Half of our original team had to be let go and we’ve slogged through an unusually bitter winter with a tiny skeleton crew spread across our twelve county service area. It’s been a long cold season, but we’re still here and on the brink of bigger, better things.

A couple months ago The Boss began talking to me about taking on a bigger role in the company. I’d decided years ago that management simply wasn’t in my future and had resigned myself to the life of an entry level grunt. I was reluctant at first, but the man who signs may paycheck convinced me to give it a shot. Sometimes I still wonder when the rug will get yanked out from under me.

I’ve got a good role model in my employer. He’s trying to build a better corporation and show our bigger, better funded competitors that it is possible to make money and “not whore out your employees.”

Over the last few weeks I’ve gradually taken over running the day to day operations and been charged with building the most efficient, cohesive service team our industry has ever seen. The boss is working on improving our benefits package in ways unheard of for more than a generation.

The little company that everyone I knew wrote off as a failure before if ever got a chance to fly is poised to grow four or five times in size over the next few months. When all is said and done, I believe we will have created one of the best places to work in twenty-first century America.

The boss loves what I’m doing. I’m saving him money and he says the crew I’m leading is beginning to act like the cohesive team he’d always envisioned – not just a bunch of individuals who show up to collect a paycheck but a core group likely to stay together for many years.

Faced with a new challenge, I’m usually a bit skittish, if not just a little afraid. Will I do the right thing? Will I screw it all up and get fired? These are the kinds of questions that plague me constantly, but this time I feel good, relaxed, ready to meet the task head on. My wife says that’s because I’ve been in training for this job for almost twenty years, and I suppose she’s right.

After all these years, struggling to be noticed in an industry where everyone looks the same on paper, where the only way to get ahead is a willingness to eat your offspring on command, my day seems finally to be dawning. For once I find myself in the right place at the right time.

It’s been a long time coming, I hope it lasts.