Defining Moments
If you could go back in your past, would you change anything? It's a common question, many answer that they would not, as the past has created who they are in the present. If you decided, however, to make some change, at what point in the past is that accomplished? I think in each life there are particular moments when one decision or action can cause subsequent events to unfold for years. These instances need not be dramatic, at the time one may not even know that such a decision is right in front of the individual. I also think that the most important aspect of one of those moments is that the decision made reveals one's character.
Not quite ten years ago, I was working with two people who became close friends, both with me and with each other (a short time after the moment that I'm going to describe happened, my friends married each other). They were both knowledgeable about the company's products and loyal to both the company and its customers. One day me and my friend were summoned into a conference room where our boss told us that he had just fired our female friend because she had questioned his "authority." (This was rather typical behavior from our boss, a person who stood on others' rather than his own merit - or lack thereof.) My male friend immediately put in his notice of resignation. I, on the other hand, only said to him that I could not quit my job as I would lose my house. In one defining moment I had sold out my friends and become what I most despised, a shallow, greedy member of corporate America.
While I realized some time later that our boss had expected me to quit, and when I did not, it took him another year to demote me. But, I'd already damaged myself through the one decision I had made. Shortly after my friends married, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and subsequently died. And how rude it was to see my boss show up at her funeral with his false, baseless concern. At least he was consistent. I had thought that I was better than that, yet I'd shown otherwise - in one moment. Had I stuck with my friends at that instant, it is likely that my life would have turned out much differently as in the years since I'd not have had to deal with that boss and knowing that I'd sold myself. Maybe I'd not have eventually lost all of my life either. I shouldn't have been upset by that boss. He was only a tiny parasite feeding off a greater evil: greed. He's still a worthless parasite, but that's only my opinion and I truly believe that he has a fan club who would come to defend him if anyone dared to disparage his character. Hey, they all need money, too.
So, if I could relive that moment, I sure would and I'd have quit that company as fast as my friend did. The past cannot be changed, only remembered in the present and, hopefully, learned from for the future, when some decision presents itself where the outcome may change most of a life. I hope that my friend has forgiven me for my lack of loyalty to her. I miss her. In the unlikely event that I am ever again faced with a similar circumstance, I know now exactly what decision I would make. Selling your soul is never a wise choice.
You didn't sell your soul, you did what you thought you had to do. Not everyone has the ability to walk away from a job, and that's the only thing that keeps bastards like your former boss afloat. He feeds off it like ~ a parasite.
I was warned about your boss by some pretty prominent people in the county before I took a job there. I said to myself, "What can he do?"
Ha. A lot I knew.
Thank God every day that now you will see worms like this coming a mile away. Grow from it. Stop kicking yourself.
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Remember when we were asked to buy an angel ornament and use it to remember our friend that passed away? I still have mine, and it's hanging next to me desk. I remember her fondly and too miss her very much.
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Dave, back in my foodservice days about 15 years ago, my "partners" sold my franchise to a new group with the consolation "I'd expect you to be heavily recruited." Naturally, the new guy shitcanned me within weeks. I see now that the seeds of that situation were sown years before by my own failings and lack of self-awareness, but that's not relevant to my point. One (and only one, that I know of) of my staff quit in protest of my being fired. On the one hand, I felt good that she valued me. On the other, I felt lousy that she now had to find a new job. As for the rest of the staff, I don't recall feeling a bit of malice toward them (including Jane, by the way) for sticking with their jobs. In fact, the situation was sort of a revelation to me. I was in Jane's apartment feeling sorry for myself when I had a memory burst in my head of my Dad saying, out of the blue, "Its something that should happen to everyone, ONCE." That quote was his description of being (what he felt was) unfairly fired from a job. That was a very big deal to him, a man of intense principles. The recall of that memory and the comfort that it gave me brought me closer to my dad than almost any situation could have since his passing in 1992. As soon as I recalled it, the feelings of depression just evaporated. I saw it for what it was, simply a turn in life's course. I wish I could say that I used that experience to pole-vault to an entirely new and wildly successful career but I can't. It doesn't diminish the value of the sequence, though.
What's ironic is that the new franchisees ultimately ended up calling me back a couple of years later asking if I wanted to return. Apparently their acquisition had gone from making money to losing money with my departure. I thought long and hard about doing it but ultimately decided that I had better opportunities and told them that now I'd been out of the 4am foodservice for a while, I wasn't the guy they wanted. I knew there was another world out there and wouldn't have been able to do the grind. So instead, I went and made the same character mistakes in my new job that had cost me the first one.
So what's my point? It sounds to me like you're assigning a "strategic" character failure in yourself based on one "tactical" incident. I don't think anyone who knows you is going to agree with that. Listen to Mike on this one. The world is full of people who'll beat on you for their own enjoyment, there's no need to help them.
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I agree with you and Mike, so I took my past, put it in my peace pipe and let it float away like the tobacco smoke. Time to move on into the present. I don't know the future but I'm not going to let the past take it away anymore. I'm not even the same person, so I'll make myself a new past ---
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Attaboy. I'm not sure it's so important that you come to a conclusion that you did the right/wrong thing in a given situation. You did what you did. I think what might be most important is that you ask the question as you grow and learn, but don't dwell on it.
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