When Daddy Came Home to Stay

Sometimes...

Sometimes... I feel like a failure. I feel stuck in a rut of failure and misfortune. Like things beyond my control are striving to keep me from my goals. Sometime... I feel lucky to have this life. I look at my loving wife, my wonderful two year old, and I can't believe how lucky I got. But then I think I've failed them.



It all started about two years ago. I was trying to work with my dad. Spending a lot of time contacting people, a lot. Mostly it was getting turned down. Frequently, it was getting turned down. More than once, I was threatened with with bodily harm. I loved the idea of working for myself, and still do, but I soon realized that I couldn't make it work. I won't go into details, but I had to have a real job. The whole time I was going to school, working with my dad, and working nights at a call center.

My first "real" job out of college was working for CompUSA. It was a business to business sales job. I focused on small companies. I was on the verge of making a huge sale, a record breaking sale. I am good at sales. I'm not a typical salesman. I'm very open and honest, but people liked it. Then I woke up one Saturday morning to the phone ringing. I picked it up and my father was on the line saying how sorry he was. I was too groggy to even comprehend what he was talking about. Then he said he was sorry he was the one who broke the news. CompUSA was closing.

I can't say it came as a shock. In my gut I new it was going to happen. It was just before Christmas. About a two weeks before it happened, things started disappearing from the shelves. The store rooms looked bare. I remember having ten TVs to sell for the Day After Thanksgiving Sale. But, it being my first job, I refused to see the writing on the wall. So it was a shock.

I still had my job as a reservation agent for Marriott Hotels. I was good at it, and for that kind of job it paid well. I had always said the center was going to be closed. It was the most expensive center in the Marriott family. We had the best sales, but sadly, we cost of fortune. As much as I hated that it was a go nowhere job, I was good at it. I loved being the top salesperson. I reveled in the fact that no one came near my numbers. I was the rebel. I didn't use their guides and go in trouble for it. My numbers spoke for me. It was no shock one day when I came home and they said everyone had a day off with pay because they were closing the center. I laughed, hard. I had told my manager the week before that I wouldn't be surprised if they came in next week and closed us.

So... three jobs in less than a year. I lost my last job just as the economy went south. Most claim that the recession started with Lehman Brothers. When the personal interviews stopped happening, it seemed strange. When the phone interviews went away, i figured something was up. When I couldn't even get a response to my emails, something was wrong. When the crash officially happened, I laughed... again.

When the severance pay stopped coming in, unemployment was a joke, and saving started disappearing, my wife went to work.

That's when daddy came home to stay.