The Best Job That Never Was

I had to give my son the bad news. His perfect job wasn’t.

He’d recently graduated from Notre Dame. He was working at Arthur Anderson in Chicago. His girlfriend (soon to be wife) was living not that far away. He loved his job, all the traveling, his boss and the company itself. What was not to like?

Trying hard to straddle the line between being realistic and yet supportive, I could only remind him that while everything was great at the time, things do change. While ‘Father doesn’t always know best’, I’d been down that path before, several times. He laughed at me. We laughed at me. But my prediction did prove correct.

Not too much later, Brian’s firm imploded and he was hired on by KPMG, a company that was not even close to the culture of Arthur Anderson.

My daughter interned at the law firm her last year in law school. So it wasn’t surprising when they hired her upon graduation. She found that corporate law wasn’t what it was cracked up to be.

Two perfectly wonderful jobs that turned out not to be so wonderful.

No job is ever perfect. Even if all the stars and moon and sun are in alignment, eventually something usually happens that changes the equation.

Brian moved on to Colorado, got his masters in Entrepreneurship and found a job with a new startup called Triple Creek. He’s still there and thriving.

My daughter moved on to the capitol working in politics and found her passion; politics and the sometimes wondrous, confusing, mysterious manner in which bills are made and passed.

Now she has the most important job of her life; being Mom to Brennan and Charlotte.

Welcome to the real world, guys. No job is perfect but you can make the best of any situation.


My first job as a paperboy
On Sundays, I had my little red wagon to haul my 143 Sunday newspapers. Their weight was so great that the front axle bent every Sunday morning. And I had to untwist it before I could proceed. No wonder I can still lift small boulders with ease.

It meant getting up at 4:30am each morning, even if it was twenty below zero and delivering newspapers to my unappreciative vociferous readers. It meant getting short-changed by apartment dwellers, who moved away without paying their newspaper bills. It meant trudging back to some home when the owner couldn’t find the newspaper that hadn’t landed in exactly the same spot every day. Pulling it out of the weeds without even a thank you. It meant listening to the smart-ass district manager haranguing me because I wasn’t making his quota of new customers each month. It meant watching out for the big kids who loved to threaten me when I was ‘collecting’ and had cash on hand.

Yet despite those irritating nuisances associated with the job, it meant I was an independent businessman. I learned to save money and not spend all of it before the end of the month. To a great degree, it meant I was mostly self-supporting from 7th grade on. I got a musical education with my tiny transistor radio that I wore under my parka. All the best of the 50’s Pop music and crossover Country and Western. It was my musical window and fueled a lifelong love of music.

I never considered myself in the newspaper business. I was just a kid, willing to freeze his tush, for a shot at a savings account and the education it might buy. And despite the cold, deadbeats, high-strung district managers, and sometimes-grumpy customers, it was a great first job.

I changed. It didn’t. After high school, it was time to move on.


KTCA Television
My start in television started inauspiciously enough. They didn’t have an opening for a writer so I offered my services for free. I volunteered there for over six months with a great group of people, all of who were much older than I was. There was an atmosphere back then that was electric with interest and excitement for the business of public television. We were all part of the gradual transition from educational television to public television, a huge shift in demographics, in programming philosophy, and production techniques.

Once hired on as a producer-director, my crew and I experimented with all kinds of new production techniques. Field recordings and videotape were introduced during that period. And we marveled at the creative new ways we could tell a story on television. It was another education for me. And I got paid for learning.

Of course, over the years, management changed. My boss moved away and the atmosphere got more corporate and not as much fun. The bottom line superseded the creative aspects of the job and the staff grew stale on repetitive programming and production.

It was time to move on. Again.


Maryland Center for Public Broadcasting
Without a doubt the best boss I ever had was General Manager of the Maryland Center for Public Broadcasting back in the 70’s. He was brilliant, generous with his support in every way. He let me run my department without outside interference. He welcomed new ideas and self-motivation.

He gathered around him a wonderful group of people to work with. It was a blast for almost five glorious years.

But then, of course, over the years things gradually started to change. Eventually the GM got a job offer in Philadelphia that he couldn’t turn down. He left and with him, the creative energy that defined the place for so long. The disease was slow in coming but over time it managed to turn a top rated television station into a study in atrophy.

There were other jobs before and after those. Some good. Some not so good. I learned from each and every one of them. Life lessons I’ve taken with me in one capacity or another.

Even the Army brought with it some traveling, some adventures and misadventures, a host of colorful characters I’d love to meet again. And a few, I’d rather not.


Sharden Productions and other Associated Ventures
Sharden Productions, Inc. provided me an opportunity to be my own boss. Of course, you’re never your own boss. Every client, every customer, every potential contract is your boss/master/driver/nightmare/reward. That’s the nature of the business.

I made a couple of bucks.	I can’t complain.
I worked long hours.	I wanted to.
I had some sleepless nights.	Part of the equation.
I did some very nice work.	I take total credit for that.
It provided me an opportunity to travel.	I appreciate that.
It provided some amenities I wouldn’t have otherwise.	Ditto.

Now it’s the foundation for a gradual shift from a video production/distribution company to a publishing company.                                                Thank you Sub-S Corporation.

I guess that perfect job I never had would encompass all the best of what I did have.
Each job brought something special to my life. And my life experiences.

Imagine if they were all wrapped up into on job. The best of best. The nicest people to work with, no limit on possible earnings, no age discrimination, self-motivation as the driver, an opportunity to reconnect with some old friends, or forge relationships with new ones. Wouldn’t that be just the perfect job to have?

But wait, it is.

I’m a writer.

Europe - The Second Harvest

The proposal was simple enough. A job offer as producer-director at the public television station to begin in three months. My response was quick and clear. After volunteering at the station for over six months and moving up the ranks as floor man, cameraman, audio man and overall gopher, I gladly accepted their offer. Then I told them I’d return in three months to take the job.

The next day I gave my notice at the Public Health Department and bought a plane ticket for Amsterdam.

No real reason to stay home. I had grown tired of writing PR releases in public health. I wanted to return to Europe to make up for my sad venture the first time around and there were no female enticements for me to stay. And, of course, I had never made it to the South of France.

Why I thought this second trip to Europe would end up better than the first a year earlier, I have no clue. Just a gut feeling that this time I had a better idea of what to expect in a foreign country. I knew which foods to eat for sustenance. I was determined to make more of an effort to get to know people.  I can’t say I was more mature, just more ready.

Like running a marathon, one never quits. It’s not an option. I had to return to Europe and make this trip a better experience than the first one. I had no other choice.

I can’t remember why I ended up in Amsterdam. Probably because my first brief stop there the first time had wetted my appetite for the unexpected. And I remembered hearing all those tales of a city running rampant on sexual freedom, the arts, new music and strange coffee shops. Wonderful tales being magnified by bar stool poets I knew back home. It was like some strange mysterious force was pointing me in that direction.

Nothing much has changed in forty years. To get ‘there,’ you still exit the train station, cross the canal bridge and turn left. I remember exiting the train station, backpack instead of suitcase this time, and following those simple instructions, I found myself in the Red Light District.

For reasons then unknown to me, the girls immediately began speaking in English.

There were bargains galore that afternoon but I didn’t have spare change or the courage to venture under that red light bulb in the entryway. Two gorillas on the corner watched my every move. But they had nothing to worry about. I was more tentative than I was curious, more scared than I was willing. (Oh my gosh, she isn’t wearing any underwear).

They seem so friendly. (Does she really like me?) I quickly learned just to look and move on. Talking to the girls only invited the gorillas to move closer to me.

Coffee shops were more inviting. If you wanted the good stuff you had to ask for it. I just wanted a light roast and my obligatory muffin. Most of the smoking was sequestered out back where the strange looking people gathered. I sat in a corner with my book and kept repeating to myself: ‘Seriously! You’re not in Minnesota any more.’

The first of my wonderful friends just appeared in the doorway the next afternoon. John slowly perused the room, spotted me as an American, (how did he know?) ventured over and sat down next to me. John said afterwards he always wanted to talk to an American his own age to find out more about America. He guessed by my jeans, boots, and plaid shirt that I probably fit the bill. All that was missing was my guitar.

John made it clear, that unlike a lot of other Europeans, he loved America. And because I fit that demographic, I became his defacto translator and sounding board for all things related to America. We talked world politics, the arts, movies, popular music, his home in Amsterdam and anything remotely considered American.

As he peppered me with questions about my homeland, my chest swelled. I pretended to know what I was talking about. And apparently my limited knowledge of anything political wasn’t enough to dissuade him from continuing our conversation late into the night.

Question: How could something like the assassination of RFK and Martin Luther King,

                 happen in your country?

Answer:   There is no sane, reasonable answer for that question.

Question:  What do you think of the general strike in France?

Answer:     Say what?

Question: What do you think of the war in Vietnam?

Answer:    I did my time, stateside not overseas, but I feel for the soldiers over there,

                 just doing their job.

Question: What did you think of ‘The Green Berets” starring John Wayne?

Answer:    Seriously?

Statement: Just kidding!

We met the next day and took up Trivial Pursuit/America style where we had left. I had a new best friend in Amsterdam and was feeling very good about my stay in the country. We (John and I and some of his buddies) took in canal rides, long bike rides, crashed a couple of black light parties and even hit a couple of the more notorious coffee houses that favored noxious weeds and strange brews. I stuck to my black coffee and John just smiled at my timidity.

John lived in a third floor flat above his parents place. His grandparents still lived on the first floor after being there forever. It was quite common for extended families to share multiple flats in one building. John’s flat was on a canal and was a spectacular spot for watching people, water and bicycle traffic.

John was an artist extraordinaire. He was just trying to break into the business when I first meet him. He could draw freehand, portraits, pastoral scenes and dabbled in photography on the side. I still have a cache of his pictures of Amsterdam, circ. 1968. The man had talent.

I remember John was tall, always had a beard and a smile and a wonderful personality. He loved practicing his English on me day and night. His taste in music was superb. We shared a love of Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, CCR, Cream and, of course, the Beatles. How could we not connect?

I remember we hung out in Amsterdam for probably a week. Then he introduced me to another fellow who also wanted to practice his English. John’s friend and colleague was named Ronald. John had originally meet Ronald when he drew up Ronald’s wedding announcement.

Ronald was an interesting anomaly. He was in his late twenties, had never held a real job and had no interest in finding one. He was on government assistance and perfectly comfortable with his situation. As someone rather hungry, I couldn’t understand that attitude but I accepted it for what it was; someone else’s life, not mine.

John hinted that mental health issues had prevented Ronald from getting any kind of meaningful work. Despite his intelligence, Ronald had an anti-social bent about him that prevented him from being a part of any organized endeavor. So he and lived happily as an essayist, a potter, a housekeeper and a devoted father to his daughter.

John and I and Ronald spent a couple of afternoons in some pub, debating the war in Vietnam, the anti-war movement, politics in America (I passed on that one) and other topics of general interest. It was like a debate / humanities / logic / and history course all wrapped up into one elongated discussion that went on for hours. My brain was numb when we finished each evening.

After spending several afternoons at some pub with the pair, Ronald surprised me by asking if I’d be interested in spending some time with him and his family so he could continue practicing his English. Let me see? Free lodging, a stack of rock and roll records, and great Indonesian meals. I jumped at his invitation.

Ronald lived with his wife, Felixia and their daughter in a two bedroom flat outside of central Amsterdam. His public housing project looked no different from any of the other housing units around. And Ronald had no qualms about living there. It always fascinated me that Ronald never aspired for better things. He was content to let his wife work part time while he dabbled in his various interests. I still don’t understand that concept.

While Ronald was very intelligent, high-strung, quick to overreact and famously curious, his wife was just the opposite. A perfect counter-balance for her unbalanced husband. Felixia was originally from Indonesia. She and Ronald meet in Amsterdam and despite their cultural differences, family resistance and lack of financial support, they married and thrived.

Felixia was the anchor in the family. She was forever patient, understanding and devoted to her husband and daughter. She loved her Ronald despite all his faults. And she was a great cook, tolerated high volumes of Rock and Roll (until bedtime for the baby) and our being out most evenings until the pubs closed.

Ronald and Felixia’s wonderful generosity, social charm, sharing of their home life and our late night intellectual musings were like a banquet for my soul. It was all so new and glorious.

Felixia and I cooked and cleaned and took long walks into the countryside with the baby. Her broken English more than compensated for my lack of Dutch or Indonesian mastery. When Ronald came with us, we’d talk foreign and domestic politics, family (I had little to add there), love, the war and an assortment of other subjects as our whims might unearth.

One time we went to a huge park that had an exact replica of the Rotterdam Harbor in miniature. Ronald pointed out details that no one else would have ever seen. The baby loved running around, pointing at all the miniature buildings and ships.

Other times we’d go back into town and explore various shops and food stalls. Ronald knew just about every coffee shop in town. Felixia knew most exotic food stall vendors by name. I just held the baby and followed them around. I was part of the family and loving every minute of it. Occasionally we’d hook up with John and his girlfriend and spend the evening in some pub someplace alongside a dark canal. It was hard to imagine that just weeks earlier I had been working in a television studio half a continent away.

We’d almost always listen to rock and roll at home or in some pub, honoring the greats of America and abroad. I even discovered a couple of favorite groups from the Netherlands. A steady beat and solid bass are universal. Even lyrics in Dutch, once translated, can carry meaning to the uninitiated.

Their daughter (wouldn’t you know I forgot her name?) was my first exposure to a young child other than the cursory social exchanges I had with my new nieces and nephew. She was bright, energetic and full of life. She was so loved that I wanted to grab at part of that affection for myself. It almost didn’t seem fair that such a young child could be so loved.

I remember they let a babysitter and I take her out one afternoon. We played in the playground, went for ice cream and fed the ducks at the local pond. Her parents meet us by the schoolyard where we were watching kids flying kites.  It was unconditional love on her part. I hadn’t felt that before with another person and it felt so good.

So for an all too brief couple of weeks, I was a part of Ronald’s family. Total uncon-ditional love and acceptance. It was wonderful. For a young man who grew up in a single parent household devoid of love and affection, it was a wonderful eye-opener. And some-thing I knew I wanted in my life in the future. Someplace, somehow, with someone.

Upon my return to the states, I was struck by the ease with which I could rent an apart-ment, buy a car, get a job and put money aside for savings. It was so unlike my new European friends who had to struggle for years just for the down payment on rental housing.

In retrospect, I was a fool not to stay in touch with John and Ronald. Together, we all just let our communications start to falter and finally fade away. Like so many other young men back then, and probably still today, I was more focused on myself than others. At the time I had no idea of the blessing I’d just been given.

What a wonderful legacy I could have passed down to my kids if I had kept in touch with John, Ronald, Felixia, and their daughter. Friends abroad to share life stories and world events. A broad sweep of continental issues to share via Skype. I should be so lucky today.

We all make mistakes in life. That was certainly one of my biggest.

I suppose I can take solace in the fact that I still have their images on a digital disc someplace and if I want to return to Amsterdam, circ. 1968 I can pull it out and gauze at my computer screen once again. But it certainly won’t be the same.

I can still see (in my mind’s eye) all those wonderful faces and rekindle those fond memories of finding family, for the first time in my life, in a public housing project on the outskirts of Amsterdam.

Who Said You Get to Be Boss

I’ve had several good bosses in my career, a couple of great ones and a few who were outstanding. They knew how to provide leadership, focus and guidance to their staff. My average was probably no better nor any worse than anybody else who has been in the work force for any length of time. Luck of the draw some would call it.

Then there were those bad bosses.

I actually think the more valuable life lessons came from the adversity they brought to my life. Their number isn’t large but I’ve learned something from each and every one of them. Mind you they weren’t doing me any favors. I just grabbed their lemons and made nectar with it.

Boss # 1

It all started in Seventh grade with my first job; a paper route. We were just a bunch of hungry young entrepreneurial seventh and eighth graders working our first real job. They said we were in the newspaper business.

I thought no, I was earning money for high school and my frequent jaunts to DQ. That’s the only reason I was willing to get up at 4:30 in the morning when it was twenty below zero and don my rubber galoshes just to get a newspaper to some old retiree who had to have on his paper by 6:00am because he had nothing else going on in his life.

Our boss was a twenty-something wise ass who drove a brand new convertible and loved to catch us at the newspaper drop for a quick lecture and hard driving sales pitch. He sounded like some gravelly-throated football coach when he spoke. He’d remind us that his next raise depended on our reaching a certain sales quota. His words fell on deaf ears.

If you’re going to try to rally the tiny troopers, know your audience. He never understood that meeting his goals wasn’t a priority when homework and being home before dark took precedence over his corporate aspirations. Our boss never understood seventh grade enticements. Hint, it wasn’t earning points for a trip to the Dells.

Lessons Learned: Treat everyone with respect, even kids. They’re people too. And some of them are smarter than you are!

Bosses # 2

The Army had a plethora of good and bad leaders, none stood out. Even the obligatory hard ass drill sergeant and sloth in olive drab were just doing their jobs. I learned early on that if you did your job and didn’t cause a problem, things would work out just fine.

Being invisible in a sea of khaki isn’t a bad thing. It gives you time for the more import-ant things in life instead of KP or guard duty.

Lessons Learned: Be a leader yourself before asking others to follow you. Lead by example. Oh, and keep your mouth shut.

Boss # 3

One of my early bosses was a station manager, a pillar in his community, a deacon in his church and a racist. His façade has been honed and tempered by his all white high school and private college that feed his misguided beliefs. He truly believed in the superiority of the white race and didn’t mince words (in private) about it. His God was not color-blind.

I was embarrassed and saddened to hear him ramble on about those people. He also wasn’t much partial to Yankees, East Coast Types, and of course, those folks out West who were just plain nuts. Women didn’t fare much better with him either.

Lessons Learned: Look beyond your small world to the larger world beyond. Don’t let religion blind you to what is fair and just.

Boss # 4

The old man, dressed in a younger man’s skin, was 25 years old. 25 going on 65. His attitude, demeanor and state of mind had calcified well beyond his physical years. He should have been a monk in medieval times. It would have suited him much better.

His idea of fairness was couched in a sanctimonious, haughty attitude that he somehow had a closer tie-in with God. He wasn’t a priest but he should have been. He thought his ticket said: ‘Heaven, non-stop.’ He misread it. In fact, he was just a minion and a puppet to the powers to be who also thought they had a straight shot up to heaven.

Lessons Learned: Open your mind to new thoughts and ideas. Your providence is much too small to help you make good value judgments. Either that or join the cloisters.

Boss # 5

Stumpy had a Napoleonic complex; loved creating his own crisis environment at every opportunity, was paranoid beyond belief and probably the most unstable person I’ve ever had to work for. I did learn to take copious notes while working for him. He loved to grill me on the tiniest of details and would pursue his questioning until he could catch me on some minor error or misstep. Then he delighted in correcting me and praising himself for his intuitive nature.

He once spent an hour and a half after work chewing me out for my shortcomings he’d documented over six months. Must have been a slow night for him at home. It was his idea of an exercise in humiliation. But I was the one feeling sorry for that pathetic excuse for a human being sitting across from me that night.

Lessons Learned: Get psychological help for your boss (or yourself) if possible. And take very good notes.

Boss # 6

Moneybags was a corporate wannabe who never quite made the grade. His idea of fairness was to make sure he always ended up on top. If I reached my financial goal for the year, he got a bonus. If I didn’t make my goal for the year, he still got his bonus.

It was win-win for him and win / lose for his associates. Hardly seemed fair. Especially when he didn’t support me in attaining my goals. I once made a huge sale the last month of our fiscal year. So he promptly upped my goal for the year by the exactly amount I had just brought in. Thus effectively erasing what would have been a substantial gain over my stated goal. His reasoning…he thought it came too easily to me, ignoring the fact that I’d been working with that client for almost a year to land the contract.

Lessons Learned: If you accept the title and take the money, do what your title entails even if you don’t like to do it. Or don’t pretend to be a boss when you’re not up to it.

But there’s a happy ending to this story.

I got fired.

There have been several turning points in my life. This was certainly one of them.

Whether it was age discrimination as I still suspect or just internal politics (another very real possibility) it was my very good fortune to be fired without explanation. It was to change my life. My wife’s response (and I’ll always love her for it) was very simple: “Good, now you can spend more time with your kids and focus on your business.”

Less than four years later, my son was accepted into Notre Dame and I had increased our net worth four fold. And I was making more money in my own business than I had at my old job. Good fortune can come in very strange packages.

Boss # 7

Being self-employed meant long hours working for myself. I was probably harder on me than any other boss I ever had. The old adage that you are your own boss is totally wrong. Everyone else is your boss. But I was lucky. I had some wonderful clients, great projects to work on, and thoroughly enjoyed working with my daughter as host of my cable series.

Lessons Learned: Attention to marketing is as important as doing the job itself. I’m learning that now as I struggle with finding the time to write new material while focusing on my own program of self-promotion.

Bosses # 8

Frick and Frack presented a good opportunity for me to gain a steady client on a yearly contract. But along with it came many challenges.

Frick was a eunuch. He was scared to death of making decisions that might offend anyone, anyplace, at any time. So he constantly played it safe. Any idea I might bring to the table was immediately shot down because it might somehow offend someone someplace.

Frack was an appendage. He thought he had all the answers but wasn’t smart enough to know any of the questions. He told me how to do my job at every opportunity he could. I had seen his work. He had nothing to talk about.

Lessons Learned: The eunuch should have grown the courage to do his job instead of relying on others to tell him how to do it. The appendage is still an anal retentive sad sack whose grasp of the world evolves around many visits to the mirror to assure himself that he was a winner. Only losers do that.

My good fortune was to get so fed up with the antics of those two bobble-heads that I quit working for them. Another turning point in my life.

A day after “What now?”  I began my new career as a writer.