I did it too. I would drive by big houses and wonder who lived thereâevery weekend I would do it. What did they do for a living? How did they make their money? Someday, I would tell myself, I would live in a house like that. I read books about successful people. In fact, I read every book or magazine I could get my hands on. I would tell myself that one good idea would pay for the book and could make the difference between me making it or not. (And hopefully this book will make the difference for you!)
I worked jobs I didnât like. I worked jobs I loved but that had no chance of becoming a career. I worked jobs that barely paid the rent. I had so many jobs my parents wondered if I would ever be stable. Most of them arenât on my rĂ©sumĂ© anymore because I was there so short a time or they were so stupid I was embarrassed. You donât want to write about selling powdered milk or selling franchises for TV repair shops.
In every job, I would justify it in my mind, whether I loved it or hated it, that I was getting paid to learn and every experience would be of value when I figured out what I wanted to do when I grew up.
If I ever grew up, I hoped to run my own business. Itâs exactly what I told myself every day. In reality, I had as much doubt as confidence. I was just hoping the confidence would win over the doubt and it would all work out for the best.
We all want our dream job or to run our own companies. The truth? Itâs a lot easier said than done. We need jobs that pay the bills, and we canât wait out the search for the perfect situation. Which leads to the question: What kind of job should you settle for when you canât or donât have the job you want?
Not everyoneâs situation is going to be the same, but for the recent graduate, or if you find yourself in a job you donât like, or if you are unemployed, the answer is pretty straightforward (at least I thought it was when I graduated college). You continue your education.
Go back to school? No. Get your MBA? No.
For most recent college grads, you just spent the last four or so years paying tuition to get an education. Now that you have graduated, itâs your chance to get paid to learn. And what if you arenât a recent college grad? The same logic applies. It is time to get paid to learn.
When I graduated from Indiana University, I certainly didnât dream of working for a bank. I wanted a job where I could learn more about computers. So I took a job working for Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh. I helped on systems conversions. Taking old manual systems at small banks and helping them convert to automated systems. I wasnât that good at it. The job was fun for the first couple months because I worked with a lot of fun people. A lot of fun people that liked to hang out and drink after work.
But as the months wore on, I liked it less and less, and I had to remind myself, more and more, exactly why I was there. I was getting paid to learn about how computers work, how big companies work and how middle managers workâthat was a whole lot better than paying tuition to get a business education.
I lasted all of nine months at that job. I lasted about eight months at my next job, working for a company called Tronics 2000. At Tronics 2000, our mission was to try franchise the TV repair industry. The company was supposed to be entrepreneurial. It was supposed to be looking into franchising the computer repair business as well. (They had me write an analysis of the opportunity in my off-time). As it turns out, it basically was none of the above. But I got paid my $1500 per month and I learned a whole lot.
The company sold a total of one franchise. Which I sold. Again, I was far from a great employee. I spent too much time having fun at the expense of doing my job to the best of my ability. Going to work hung over once a week isnât a good career move. So, in some respects I cheated them. No excuses on my part.
The job was also frustrating. Calling and calling and calling on TV repair shops trying to explain the value of franchising wasnât easy. But I learned how to cold-call. I learned not to be afraid of going through the phone book and making calls.
I also got to talk to an old industry veteran, Larry Menaugh. Larry wrote the very first service contracts in the television industry. He was a wise old vet. We didnât talk much about the company or the industry, but after meetings we would talk about how to get the job done. He would give me honest critiques of things I was doing, and coming from Larry, I knew they were right. I wish I could go back and thank him. I tried to look him up a few years ago, but couldnât find him. If you read this Larry, thank you.
As I said, I lasted in that job about nine months, and from there took off to Dallas, Texas, in search of fun, sun, money and women.
I was 23. I had no money. The â77 Fiat I was driving drank oil faster than I could drink beer and had a huge hole in the floorboard. I was going to stay on the floor of some friends who had moved from IU to a huge apartment complex called The Village in Dallas.
I had no idea what the future would bring. I was unemployed and heading to Dallas with zero job prospects. But I knew I had taken a few classes in real-world business and got paid for it instead of paying tuition, and I had every intention of continuing to do the same thing until things worked out. When I got to Dallas, I drove up to the address my friend Greg Schipper had given me. I donât think he expected me to move in. It wasnât like I had many living options. In fact, since he was the only person I knew in town, crashing at his apartment was my only option.
Shippy lived in a three-bedroom apartment with four other friends in Dallas. I became roommate number six. This wasnât a really nice place we all kicked in to move up for. This place has since been torn downâprobably condemned. I didnât have my own bedroom. I slept on the couch or floor, depending on what time I got home. I had no closet. Instead, I had a pile that everyone knew was mine. My car still had the hole in the floorboard and that â77 Fiat X1/9 continued to burn a quart of oil that I couldnât afford, week after week.
To make matters worse, because I was living on happy hour food. Any bar that offered free food in exchange for buying 2 beers was my favorite nightly dining establishment. It was cheap in dollars, but heavy in calories. You know all the jokes about the fat kid at the buffet? That was me. I probably gained 30 pounds in a year.
My confidence wasnât exactly at an all-time high, but I was having fun. Donât get me wrongâI truly was having a blast. Great friends, great city, great energy, pretty girls. OK, the pretty girls had no interest in my fat and growing ass at the time, but thatâs another story âŠ
I was motivated to do something I loved, I just wasnât sure what it was. I made a list of all the different jobs I would love to do. (I still have it.) The problem was that I wasnât qualified for any of them. But I needed to pay the bills.
I finally got a job working as a bartender at a club. It was a start, but it wasnât a career. I had to keep on looking during the day.
About a week later I answered a want ad in the newspaper for someone to sell PC software at the first software retail store in Dallas. The ad was actually placed by an employment agency. The fee was to be paid by the company, so I gave it a shot.
I put on my interview face and, of course, my interview suit, which just happened to be one of the two polyester suits that I had bought for a grand total of $99. Thank God for âtwo-fer, two-fer, two-fer Madnessâ at the local menâs clothing store. Gray pinstripe. Blue pinstripe. Didnât matter if it rained, those drops just rolled down the back of those suits. I could crumple them, they bounced right back. Polyesterâthe miracle fabric.
I wish I could say the blue suit and my interview skills impressed the employment agency enough to set up the interview with the software store. In reality, not many had applied for the job and the agency wanted the fee so they would have sent anyone over to interview. I didnât care.
I pulled out the gray suit for my interview at Your Business Software. I was fired up. It was my shot to get into the computer business, one of the industries I had put on my list! I remember the interview well. Michael Humecki, the Prez, and Doug (donât remember his last name), his partner, double-teamed me. Michael did most of the talking to start. He asked me if I had used PC software before. My total PC experience at the time was on the long forgotten TI-99A that had cost me $79. I used it to try to teach myself BASIC while recovering from hangovers and sleeping on the floor while my roommates were at work. Michael and Doug werenât impressed.
I was pulling out every interview trick I knew. I went through the spiel about how I was a good salesperson (you know, the part of the interview where you are basically begging for a job), using code phrases like âI care about the customer,â âI promise to work really, really hardâ and âI will do whatever it takes to be successful.â Unfortunately, I was getting that Well, if no one else applies for the job, then maybe look from Michael.
Finally, Doug spoke up. He asked me, âWhat do you do if a customer has a question about a software package and you donât know the answer?â All of the possible answers raced through my mind. I had to ask myself if this was the âhonesty test questionââyou know, where they want to see if you will admit to things you donât know. Is this some trick technology question and there is an answer everyone but me knows? After who knows how long, I blurted out, âI would look it up in the manual and find the answer for them.â Ding, ding, ding ⊠Doug just loved this answer.
Michael wasnât as convinced, but he then asked me the question I was dying to hear: âWould you not go back to the employment agency at all, so when we hire you we donât have to pay the fee?â I was in.
So my career in Dallas begins. Iâm a software salesperson with Your Business Software in Dallas. At $18,000 per year. The first retail software store in Dallas.
I have to sweep the floor and be there to open the store, but thatâs not a bad thing. When I tell my future ex-girlfriends that I sell software and am in the computer biz, Iâm not going to mention the sweeping the floor part. Plus, I had to wear a suit to work, and the two-fer Madness specials looked good at happy hour after work. At least I thought they looked good after a few beers. Better yet, the store didnât open till 9:30 a.m., which meant if I had a fun night, I had at least a little time to sleep.
I bet right about now you are questioning where my focus was. Where was my commitment to being the future owner of the Dallas Mavericks? Please. I was stoked I had a good job. I was stoked it was in an industry that could turn into a career. At 23, I was just as stoked that the office was close to where the best happy hours were and that I might finally have more than twenty bucks to spend for a night on the town.
Since Iâm talking about partying, I do have to say that my friends and I were very efficient in that area. Beyond living off bar food and happy hours, we literally would agree that none of us would bring more than twenty bucks for a weekend night out. This way we all could pace each other. At least that was the way it was supposed to work, and it did until we figured out the key to having a great night out on the cheap. The key was buying a bottle of cheap, cheap champagne. Freixenet Champagne. It was a full bottle, and it cost twelve bucks. (And for those of you who are keeping score, you can go online and buy one today for less than $10!)
Tear the label off and as far as anyone knew it was Dom. Each of us would grab one and sip on it all night. It was far cheaper than repeatedly buying beers or mixed drinks, and we never had to buy a drink for a girl, we just gave them some champagne! Of course the next day was hell, but since when was I responsible enough to care about a hangover?
But I digress. Back to business. As fired up as I was about the job, I was scared. Why? Because I have never worked with an IBM PC in my life. Not a single time, and Iâm going to be selling software for it. So what do I do? I do what everyone doesâI rationalize. I tell myself that the people walking in the door know as little as I do, so if I just started doing what I told my boss I would doâread the manualsâI would be ahead of the curve. Thatâs what I did. Every night I would take home a different software manual, and I would read it. Of course the reading was captivating. Peachtree Accounting. Wordstar, Harvard Graphics, PFS, dBASE, Lotus, Accpac ⊠I couldnât put them down. Every night I would read some after getting home, no matter how late.
It was easy on the weekends. After drinking that cheap champagne, I wasnât getting out of bed till about 9 p.m., so I had tons of time to lie on the floor and read. It worked. Turns out not a lo...