(I've avoided talking about this for a while now. Either because of how any one can find stuff about you on the internet and also, I needed the time to shake all this out. But fuck whoever finds it. And things have shaken out enough now where I can see it for what things were)
I won that nickname, Ron Stoppable, from a co-worker. One night we had lost enough staff that even getting the basics of the job done an hour or two late was damn near impossible. Add to that the iffy operation of a dish machine didn't help matters any. It seemed it wanted to break to add to the work. Since my staff were short, I had to step in to make sure they didn't drown and at least assure that the basic, needed essential jobs were done. Everything else we also normally did I deemed a luxury and dumped them. Priorities, you know? We got out late as I suspected.
The last moment of the job included locking the door. I stood there that night, looking at it all...and thinking..”Fuck it...It's good enough. They'll survive the next morning and understand why. They won't drown.”
As I was locking up, that staff member had noticed the change in my countenance and said, as a compliment...”You're a...Ron-Stoppable!” He meant that as “Unstoppable.” I had dove into the work in emergency mode and did as much as I could for them. When I heard this, I smiled at him and secretly in my head I was saying, “Shut the fuck up.” I was too annoyed to even accept compliments. The drive home on 95 had me swearing like a sailor over the fucked up shit we had to deal with.
When I get put in those situations, I can shift into what I call “Plow horse mode.” Whatever is needed to be done, with whatever obstacles, I just dig down and yank that plow and pull and pull and pull...purposely ignoring any distraction that may tug me off my objective, including snubbing you. I know you're there, I'm just ignoring you as anything disrupting my focus will just slow me down. I'll get to you later. I get pig headed and single minded. I also get a “look in the eyes” too. It's a slightly pissed off, 'Damn the torpedo, full steam ahead!' look. Some have said it's slightly insane too...God, I hope not.
Tenacity is a skill derived from long term patience. But it's not one I like to pull out of my bag of tricks. If so, it means things have gone to Hell and requires that I bring it out.
***
In ninth grade, we had a ex-marine history teacher, Mr Holt, who sported an out of fashion handle bar mustache, and who, unbeknownst to us, subjected us to a watered down Rangers qualification test. We did not have to do the insane obstacles, exercises nor being flown blindfolded into the Panamanian jungle, with just a compass and knife and told, "Find your way home!" No, he has taken some of the spirit of those tests and worked them down to 9th graders.
One test involved a trough filled with ice water and we were to plunge our forearms into it and keep it in there till we couldn't take the freezing pain anymore. The test was timed and all us boys were Gung Ho to do it. The results were written on the blackboard above the trough. I lasted one minute and 10 seconds. That put me in second place.
Another test was an actual obstacle course outside in the school yard. Our teacher had told Mr. Charland, our gym teacher what he was up too and Charland loved the idea. We had to jump through tires, sway on overhead bars, grab a rope and land past a sandpit and finally sprint around the school to the finish line. I came in second again.
A Mr Petrucci? The typing teacher who was known for screaming his head off at the kids till his face turned red, had said to others that I had cheated. I was not known then, nor now, for feats of athletic prowess. That little gossip made it's way back to me in Mr Holt's class when I countered that accusation with, “every obstacle had a teacher standing right by it...that means if I cheated....THEY did too by not alerting anyone about it!” That was true, every obstacle had a teacher there to make sure. I then said, as a slap to Petrucci, that if he wanted to, he and I could run the course and we'd just see who would win. I never was taken up on that. I knew what I had said would get back to him and there'd be no offer.
There were other “fun” tests Mr Holt threw at us boys over the weeks.
Then one day, he asked that I and this other kid who I forget his name, but he was an overgrown behemoth football jock, to the front of the class. He then admitted to why he was doing all these little tests. He and I stood there not really comprehending what Ranger tests were all about. As some time went by it started to make sense what that was all about.
Now, Mr Holt was not beyond rubbing salt into a freshly open cut.
“Only TWO of you? Just TWO that made it? “God...you people are SOFT!” He was bitching to the other boys who had fallen waaay below the mark, the cut off point, of these exercises. He was one for pontificating that today's kids weren't what they were in the past. Hell, I think every generation does this. The reason why is that kids, early 20 Somethings, aren't yet totally baked in the oven yet, they need more time. To a 40 year old who is baked and finally become stale and hard, these kids are “soft.”Of course they are, they're not 40 yet.
He went on for a bit and I could see the faces of the boys as boys look like when they're being chewed out. Rolling eyes, looking at the floor or just staring straight ahead. Once Holt finally exhausted his tirade, he then said we two standing there, should be congratulated. The rest of the class was oblivious or secretly hating we two up there. He then thought it wise to ask us two why we had “won,” as a lesson to those boys who did not give a fuck about it all.
I had said, “Don't quit.”
I had thought I had said the wrong thing as Holt rolled his eyes. He then bellows out to the class...”Dammit! You HEAR him?? That's WHY he WON! That's why HE'S up here and you all aren't!” Holt was rolling his eyes as that was the simplest thing those other boys should have known to begin with.
I was pleased with myself, coming in second along side a football gorilla who could have thrown me into the floor. It wasn't till years later that I understood “don't quit” really meant in totality.
**
Dads try to raise their sons to be men. Each Dad has a differing idea of that that is. My Dad's biggest Commandment was that, “If you are going to say you are going to do something, DO IT. Don't let others down with specious talk.” Be credible. Be reliable. The other Commandment that I was taught, but with less intensity, was “don't give up.” If it took me 15 tries to succeed, then so be it. The point being was to keep at it. I took that to heart and has served me pretty well, till a few months ago. Over the years, I had learned that unless I was completely in love with a goal, then the constant attempts to reach it were worth it. But...but, if I started to feel I was spending way too much to attain a goal that would've broke-even or felt like a loss when I reached it, why keep going? I had in internal Profit/Loss spreadsheet in my head.
But overall, Dad's advice on being doggedly persistent did pay off quite a few times.
**
Half a year ago or so, I was telling someone at work a revelation I had about myself. “You know, I'm really, really good about staying on my feet in an earthquake zone. I can survive and tolerate the chaos and unpredictability. I don't like it or wish for it but I can remain standing. I had learned that as a child when you have no choice but to cope with what you cannot control.
But a little later, after telling the coworker that idea, it occurred to me...”Why the fuck was I living on the San Andreas Fault line? There are OTHER places to live!” I sort of bellowed that out and the coworker understood that metaphor I created and finally...I had understood it. The obvious sometimes escapes you when you're focused on a survival mechanism that worked great at one time but I tend to whip it out and use it unconsciously without figuring if it's the right move to do. “Muscle memory” it's called. Do something 10,000 times and you automatically do it without a conscious thought.
I had spent over 20 year working in institutional kitchens and you tend to learn a few things about them. Rule One is NO DRAMA (or at least keep it to a minimum). Everyone works closely with one another, learn one another's habits, work styles and personalities and if you're lucky, the team gels and tightens. This means that the work load becomes far easier and you can do it in a shorter time. Everyone is happy then. Life is good. You actually like one another!
It also helps to have management that knows what they are doing as well and understands the absolute beauty of a team that “works.” Sure, it's not 100% everyday but 95% is so much better than 34%. If your team is independent, reliable and tends not to create headaches for higher regionals, you are LEFT ALONE to run the place as you see fit....FREEDOM!. Freedom if upper management knows enough to leave well enough alone.
Or...
You can have a Conga Line of managers with varying levels of experience romp on through, fucking up the system the team created. Each one coming in may have dubious credentials and some with a HOLY mission to create change where there was no problem or reasons to “fix” in the first place. The funny aspect to that last one? After a few weeks the manager reverted to the old way of doing things, once you hammer it into their heads...or more likely, when reality hammers it in for them that the original way was the most efficient answer.
Our place of work had suffered six management changes in less than 18 months. I quit finally. After I left there have been more. I don't know what the count is now.
**
In the end, those bastards made me realize when to quit, give up, run away, surrender, throw in the towel. I looked at the ceiling one day and said, “Hey Dad..there are some situations you should quit, flee from...with a flame coming out your ass you know!” This was one.
I wasn't all keen on leaving though. I had known a few there for more than 20 years and they turned into a “work family” and social outlet for me. But, how many Richter Scale 9.8 earthquakes can one stand? Again, why was I living on the San Andrea Fault Line? There's that point where one says, “Enough.”
My length of employment at all the jobs I have had tended to be long term commitments. I wasn't part of that “Job-A-Month” crowd that seems to survive just handily. Those people somehow still make it with their patchwork backgrounds. My leaving any job wasn't taken lightly. Which brings me to another point. Actually doing it.
I could leave my job because of some very fortunate, or unfortunate, however you look at it, occurrences. I own my house outright. The reason I do is because every single one of my family members died, one after the other, like a row of dominoes, leaving me the last one standing, with the property. I have won the Death Lottery two times in a row...to put it darkly. Long ago Dad was smart enough to have a life insurance policy that included various provisos should he drop dead. The mortgage was paid off in a month after he did drop dead one day, relieving my Mom of that monthly torpedo.
There are those who are jealous of my “good” luck. It's short sighted to believe that that kind of lottery is a panacea. There are other real losses associated with that kind of winning number. But you cannot convince the little minded fucks of that. So I don't. It would take a person with a certain maturity to understand my saying...”You want to be me? Well, that requires you would have had to live my life exactly as it was lived...for you to end up with the property. Are you so sure you want that? Having to live my life, sight unseen? with all the details you know nothing about?” No, your cretins would never “get it” and they continue to roll around in bitterness at this supposed fortune.
I was afforded a Get Out of Jail Free card in a sense. Or at least made it easier to pull off a resignation from a job. Add to that I'm a single guy with no kids to pay for, nor a wife, or a wife who wants as pair of $20,000 titties from the plastic surgeon (I do know one guy that had to relent to that). My overhead is low enough to swing, for a bit at least.
I held onto that card for such a long time, never using it, due to “toughing out” some shitty job situations. “Tough it out...things are bound to change” I hoped.
But, those tectonic plates never stopped shaking the crap out of everything. Each management change caused another quake. The simple thought that I could leave..move...leave San Francisco before it toppled, to a much calmer place, finally realized itself.
Ron-Stoppable? Well, apparently I can be stopped. Though this time, it was probably a good thing. I swear, it takes decades sometimes for certain OBVIOUS truths to make themselves apparent because your so blind. Then again, I've been told by others fairly aged, that this is a common occurrence. You need that long term perspective to see the rhinoceros in front of you .. Am I dense? Hell, I can be, but most times it isn't for want of brain cells. Usually it's stubborn, typically male “I know I am Right!” attitudes.
By the way, I wasn't the only one to flee the San Andreas either.
NorthRidge earthquake. There are quieter places.
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