I cause trouble wherever I go.
I had 7 jobs over my career: 2 retail & 5 accounting.
RETAIL
1. My first job was 45 years ago – I used to drive the other employees nuts because I never sat still. There was no union – they just thought I was kissing ass. They literally could not comprehend why someone would work harder than they had to.
Working for my grandfather’s old lumberyard was my all time favorite job. Shout out to anyone left of the Oyster Bay Lumberyard crew.
2. My second job – went pretty much the same except I was met with outright hostility from other employees, who literally began stealing things since I had an interest in the business. I quit for the benefit of the real owner.
Newly married and contemplating rug rats, what were we to do? My grandfather used to say, “You make more money with your head than your back!” so I went back to school and got an advanced accounting degree.
ACCOUNTING
3. My first accounting job was 25 years ago – my second day on the job my supervisor asked me to fabricate financial statements for a client. Literally, just came right out and told me to add non-existent assets to a client’s balance sheet so the bank would give him a loan!! When she wouldn’t listen to reason, I went to the owner – who took me out to dinner and invited me to join the firm.
4. My next job was for one of the mega accounting firms of the day. We were all just so many cattle (and not like in India either – rather, as in Texas!) How did I manage to piss off my peers this time? By volunteering to work when there wasn’t any given to me.
5. I bailed as soon as I had a chance and become the director of accounting for one of my clients: Snapple – back when Wendy was the company’s spokesperson. At that point, my previous employer, mega-accountron, essentially became an adversary since my old boss was now auditing my work – and I knew how they played the game! 😉
The three partners who owned Snapple before it got caught up in a game of virtual monopoly were three of the best bosses I’ve ever had the pleasure to work for: savvy and kindhearted, which is an awesome, winning combination. 😉 [Historical footnote: not-so-much for the folks at megacorp Quaker, who tried to dictate unfair terms to their new customers; ask anyone who’s gotten an MBA in the past fifteen years.]
6. I went to work for the guy who orchestrated the sale of Snapple to Quaker – one of the most lucrative investments in the history of megatron-sized investments. [Historical footnote #2: I’m the only person I know who worked for Snapple at the time of the sale who didn’t make a dime on it].
My new boss became an instant mega-supper-dupper lottery winner and started his own investment firm – with airplanes and and all the rest of the trappings. It was a real life version of some Wall Street movie where secretaries (sorry ladies) won luxury automobiles at holiday parties!!
I was a workaholic for most of my 13-year tenure there – always on pins and needles worrying that the guy was going to can me. It’s not clear whether I left that job or he fired me: my termination was a consequence of my refusal to fire an innocent friend whom I depended upon to do MY job! Talk about a rock and a hard place!
7. My next and last accounting job, which I just shook off 19 months ago to “retire” was a more painful version of the previous one for a LOT less money, and for people as passionate about the old Republican establishment as I am about yoga!! I was referred to internally as the firm’s token Democrat.
YOGA (early days)
Nineteen months ago, just as I had fifteen years ago when I turned my family’s life upside down thinking it would be a good idea to hitch a ride over to the Harley dealership in Revere and ride home on a motorcycle – I decided to start my own yoga business.
Yoga is virtually all I’ve thought about – besides family, friends and myself (unfortunately not in that order) – for 14 years.
Here’s the funny part: just like when I left my mega-dollar accounting job, and my ego said, “No problem! The job offers will come pouring in…….” – I coasted for the better part of a year before it dawned on me that wasn’t going to happen, and I better get up off my ass.
YOGA (these days)
Nineteen months ago I thought, “I know something about yoga that no one else does!! 😉 Of course students will come pouring in….” Again, not so much (though to my true students – you know who you are – you have my eternal gratitude!)
So I’m turning up the heat in my pursuit of spreading what I know about yoga.
Part of that effort has been put into a charitable association for certified yoga instructors (I WISH I knew how to add heart emojis in WordPress!!!!), who’s mandate is:
fellowship, education and service
My sincere, heartfelt thanks to those who have responded “YES”!!! It’s going to be awesome! Modeled after the old, stodgy corporate affairs – a few hours of study in the morning followed by an awesome meal and an afternoon of service – rather than golf! 😉
Another part of the effort to spread the word about mind-control and consciousness has been put into Marblehead’s chapter of BNI: the Nor’easters. That chapter of the story next!
Namaste 😉
