"Some things I may have taken for granted again and again..."

(title quote: The Academy Is..., The Phrase That Pays)

"There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in travelling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one's position, and be bruised in a new place." - Washington Irving

Yesterday was the first day at my new job. I haven't started the writing yet, because I wanted to get the transition into this new retail job settled a bit before I added another challenge, but I'm starting to settle in, so maybe by the end of the week, I will be ready for that.

First, I must say that the corporate climate at my new job is drastically different than that at my music store job. I have learned that my dear friend from high school really hasn't changed much over the past 20 years. There is much more of a pecking order at this new job than at the old one. Since I am a management trainee, I immediately jumped a few stations in that seemingly rigid "caste system." At the music store, the manager does just as many menial tasks as the newest part-time associate. At the game store, management is rarely expected to do such things as vacuum, dust, or straighten merchandise on shelves. I am being trained by an assistant manager and a 3rd key candidate. The ASM shows me how to do a lot of management tasks, and the 3rd key candidate helps me learn how to handle dealing with employees like her, who will be under my leadership. It's not nearly as exciting as the music store, but can be fun at times and the pay is better. The maturity level, even among the adult employees, is significantly lower than at the music store. I am going to withhold judgement for a while until I learn the job better, but so far a comparison between the two jobs is not like apples and oranges. It's more like apples and pork chops. I'm keeping an open mind. I will be writing more about it as I gain more experience.

"If you would attain to what you are not yet, you must always be displeased by what you are. For where you are pleased with yourself there you have remained. Keep adding, keep walking, keep advancing." - St. Augustine

Other than having sore legs, I don't feel any more tired or stressed after working double shifts for the past two days than I did previously. Once again, we'll see how I'm doing at the end of the week. So far, I have come to the conclusion that my old job condition me to long hours and high stress to the point that I'm actually getting better at problem solving and making sales as I'm more tired. I'm a night person anyway, and I think I've been getting more sleep since I started the double shifts because I am consciously taking care to avoid burning myself out. I just want to make sure I have a good handle on the new job and feel that I am going to stay with it before I burn any bridges with the music store job, since I currently like that job better. It just doesn't provide enough income to pay the bills right now, even if the writing job starts paying what I expect it to at first.

I really haven't had the time to promote this blog as well or as much as I was before, so the number of visitors I've been getting each day has greatly declined since I had my crisis a few weeks ago. My visits have dropped to about a third of what I was getting per day before. I'm going to be renewing my effort to write every day, comment, and reply to comments, but I'm not sure what else to do in the time I have available to get my number of visitors back up. Suggestions are welcome!

Today was my wife's turn to be involved in a car accident. She was stopped at a traffic light when a SC Department of Transportation truck slammed into the back of our car (now both of our cars are damaged). She called me for advice, herself inclined to not call police, but I advised her that if there was damage to the car, she needed to call it in. She said she felt fine physically, but is now quite sore from the impact. It was hard enough to leave her with a huge welt from the seat belt and cause her head to impact the steering wheel. The rear bumper of our car is damaged, but is likely not even enough damage to meet our deductible. Her neck is now sore from the incident, but we are also currently between health insurers, so she declined being examined by the EMT and has so far decided not to get checked fro injuries. I have warned her about the dangers of pinched nerves and other injuries, but she doesn't want to cause any more negative impact to our already fragile financial state. It is just impossible to get ahead.

"Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour. " - Arthur Schopenhauer

The other day, I went to the bank to make a deposit. The teller had to bring a bank manager over during the transaction, who asked me if I was aware of the current balance of my account. I informed her that I was indeed making a deposit and was well aware of the balance. She still felt the need to say in a conspiratorial tone, "Well, I just want you to see how low it is." Then she wrote my balance on a sheet of paper and showed it to me. The next day, I received a call at home from the bank. The teller informed me that she had given me fifty cents too much change in the cash I received along with my deposit and that I was to bring that change back to the bank immediately. I was working during bank hours that day and the next. Then it was the weekend. She called again the next day asking where her fifty cents was. On Monday, my wife made another deposit, only to be chewed out by the teller for not bringing the fifty cents to the bank sooner. She paid the fifty cents, but we are both pretty upset about our treatment by these bank employees. We feel that if our account had a much more significant balance, we would not have been bothered so much for the fifty cents. That just doesn't make sense to me. I'll bring the fifty cents on my convenience, not theirs. After all, it was their mistake, not mine. I'm still not sure that I actually received fifty cents too much change and would love to know how they decided that I was the one who had received the extra change. It just makes me want to move my account after both my wife and I were treated like children for this. I know ti would have no impact on the bank if we moved our account, and that if our account was important enough to matter to them, we would not have been treated that way.

"Arrogance and rudeness are training wheels on the bicycle of life -- for weak people who cannot keep their balance without them." - Laura Teresa Marquez

Finally, I know that for myself and my fellow Americans, today was an important day in the history of our country. September 11th, 2001 changed the nation irrevocably. That day changed us collectively and individually. It changed the way we view our government, and it changed our government. It changed the way we view our fellow man, altered our level of trust for people of different nationalities than our own, and our response to that day changed the way the rest of the world views us. The brick that is 9/11 has been mortared into place in our nation's construction. It cannot be removed from the edifice that we have become. It is right there. If you look around, you can spot other bricks that have been permanently secured into place, such as Pearl Harbor, the assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK, and even July 4, 1776, which is our nation's cornerstone.

"History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days." - Winston Churchill

No matter what opinion you have of the events of that day, and our nation's reactions to those events, it is undeniably one of the dates that everyone who was living at the time will always remember where they were and what they were doing at the time. At age 37, I have a few days like that behind me. For example:

I remember exactly where I was when I heard the radio announcer proclaim that Elvis Presley had been found dead at his home. We were on our way to eat dinner at The Barrier Reef in Sussex County, New Jersey.

I remember where I was when I found out that John Lennon had been killed. I was eating breakfast, preparing to leave for school, when I again heard the news on the family radio.

"Hard times, baby well they come to us all
Sure as the tickin' of the clock on the wall
Sure as the turnin' of the night into day."
- Bruce Springsteen, Waitin' On A Sunny Day

Finally, on September 11, 2001 I was sitting at my desk in my office at the school where I was teaching, the one I just left a few months ago, when my father called. He was at his job as a golf pro... okay, not a real golf pro, he works at a miniature golf course, with the television on when the show he was watching was interrupted with the breaking news that a small plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. He called me immediately to share the news. I couldn't turn the television in the classroom on right away, but did turn it on in time to see the second plane hit. The only people with me were my wife and one of my students, who had late arrival but always came to school at the normal time to hang out in the band room, work on homework, and talk to me about life. That was actually a common thing for students with late arrival. They came to the band room because it was often a better place to be than home. We kept the television on for the rest of the day, as did pretty much every other teacher in the building. We helped the students to process the information the best we could before we turned them loose into the world, many of them to homes where they would have no other people to talk to or help them deal with the emotions and fears they were feeling.

“There is a history in all men's lives." - William Shakespeare

I cancelled marching band practice that day, but we played football on Friday night. It was an away game and security was tight. It actually started raining early in the game, and we quickly abandoned the bleachers and boarded the buses for home. Many events around the nation were cancelled, but South Carolina high schools played football. Not too long after, we had our annual Saturday All-Day Band Practice. A lot of information and misinformation was still being reported at that time, and the students heard the news during our lunch break that we would be going to war. Many of them were nearing selective service age, or had siblings and friends who were, so they were struggling with the conflicting emotions of considering military service, or worrying about the possible reinstatement of the military draft. There were a lot of emotions rampant that day. Our traditional performance at the end of the day (we rehearsed from 8 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. and then gave a final performance for all parents and other invited guests in the stadium at the conclusion of the day) was awesome and the students bonded that day. There were a lot of tears, and circles of students joining hands for spontaneous prayer. I endured a great deal of criticism for allowing students to pray together in the end zone after practice, as well as for allowing my student leaders (mostly seniors, some considering military service) to mention these topics and events in their addresses to the other students just prior to our final performance of the day. As far as I was concerned, if it was the predominant topic on their minds, it needed to be shared and worked through while they were still all together and had each other to rely on for support.

Think what you want of the event, or of our reactions to it, it is still the anniversary of something incredibly significant in the history of the world. Everyone who lived through that day will have distinct memories of not only that day, but of the weeks that followed.

“I've never tried to block out the memories of the past, even though some are painful. I don't understand people who hide from their past. Everything you live through helps to make you the person you are now." - Sophia Loren