Looking For A Place To Land

The trip from Carpentersville, Illinois (just outside of Chicago) to Orlando was tiring but exciting. We could feel our bodies begin to thaw as we left the snow and the cold, heading south. In the evening after dark on the first day of the 2-day trip, we stopped at a motel to get some rest, but we couldn't sleep well and got up at about 4 or 5 in the morning to continue on.

I remember stopping for gas shortly after we crossed into Georgia. The sun was shining, and we were shedding our outer clothing. Lois and the kids were getting ice cream, and I was pumping gas, listening to music on the outside speakers at the station. Minnie Ripperton was singing Loving You, and birds were chirping in the background of the song's soundtrack. For a moment it felt a little like heaven.

We rolled into Orlando after dark --- me, my pregnant wife and our two daughters. No job, little money and devoid of pride, Lois's folks welcomed us graciously and opened their home to us. Looking back, I realized the foolishness of leaving a job when you have no other job lined up, especially when you have a family. I would make that mistake one more time in this journey. I now understand that the Lord uses you wherever you are at. It doesn't mean that you can never move, but we must always consider how major changes affect us and our families. It also means that you should carefully weigh advice or input from your family members, as well as others around you that you trust.

My new job was to find a job. I left the house at 8:00 AM and didn't return until supper-time. Occasionally, if I was near the house, I would stop by for lunch. I passed out resumes, filled out countless applications and put many miles on my car --- and my feet! To be honest, I've always felt uncomfortable staying with my in-laws, which would explain why I could stay gone for hours. It was probably because I was not a people person, even though I had performed or spoken in front of hundreds. Not quite introverted, I had a very tight comfort zone.

As in the Chicago area I found that I was under-qualified for some jobs because I had no experience and over-qualified for others because I had a degree. And I was depressed.

This did not help toward being the positive, assertive job-seeker that I needed to be. I tried a few sales jobs, soon realizing that it was not for me. In fact, it probably helped develop my enmity towards sales people to this day. I tried selling insurance to businesses and remember feeling let down each time I was rejected. One job was selling cutlery door-to-door. The opening pitch line was that you got the housewife to give you a penny. Then you would impress her by cutting a penny in half with your amazingly sharp scissors --- just one of the many fine products you were willing to display! Little did I know that in those days pennies were made of 95% copper and 5% zinc. You could cut it in half with anybody's scissors! The composition is almost reversed in today's penny, but you can still cut it with a little more effort. Needless to say, the cutlery job didn't work out either.

Proverbs 18:22 says, "He who finds a wife finds what is good ..." I would add that he who finds a good wife is truly blessed. And so I was. Because I was one gloomy dude. I don't think I could have lived with myself. Lois couldn't leave me and go live with her parents because she was already living with her parents! But she never gave up on me. She would continually encourage me, and I'm sure that she constantly prayed for me.

Her prayers were somewhat answered when I finally got a lead from the newspaper classifieds. I rushed downtown to interview for a computer operator position with a large law firm. The pay wasn't much, and it was third shift work, but it had benefits. Hope began to awaken within me. At the same time Lois's unmarried sister had been looking to buy a house in Orlando, so that she could transfer from Chicago as a telephone operator. The transfer was to take some time to complete, so she offered for us to rent the house from her.

New job. Getting out from the parents' home. Life was good --- again. Maybe now things would get back to normal.

Or would they?

Hawking The Lord's Stuff

Life was good. I had just gotten my degree. I was on the fast track with a promising manufacturing company. Then I got a call from my college roommate, Ron (see blog 11/12/07), saying that he had a great opportunity for me. He had landed a job with the Fleming H. Revel Publishing Company, who, at that time owned Spire paperbacks, a large collection of Christian material. They had just opened a branch office nearby and had another opening for a sales representative.

Now, I wasn't keen on sales jobs, but Ron convinced me to talk to his boss, who turned out to be David E. (see blog 6/14/09). David was the administrator at Cook Publishing, who had tossed a grenade into my aspiring fine arts career earlier. It seems that David had accepted an offer to assemble a local sales team for Revell. He knew that I would be calling him, and was pleased to hear from me.

He explained that Revell was really taking off in new book releases, and they were needing more reps to contact bookstores across the country. Unlike cold-calling as in the numerous call centers today, this sounded more legitimate, more respectable. And, to be sure, the bookstore managers were expecting our calls and showed serious interest in purchasing great quantities of books. The job paid salary plus commission for the first 90 days, then the commission would more than compensate after the salary stopped. An added perk was that we got one free copy of every book that came out, plus one copy each of every paperback that was still in print. We also got special discounts on Christian jewelry, which my mother especially loved.

Since the base salary was at least what I was currently making, with the potential of making more, by encouraging people to invest in literature about Jesus and God, how could I turn down such an opportunity? I told David that I would need to pray about it. He replied that that was fine, but, in his opinion, if you're living in the Lord's will daily, you will already know what to do. And, he continued, the position wouldn't be open much longer. It didn't take long for me to decide that this was the Lord's will (or so I thought). Still stupid.

The office was new and clean, the secretary was gracious, David was a great boss, and I enjoyed talking daily with the bookstore owners and managers. Our hit book was The Total Woman by Marabel Morgan. It was a pithy piece about how to be the perfect housewife --- obedient, sexy and spiritually on target. And we sold a boatload of the books. I loved going to work.

But as all good things must come to an end, so would this grand new career. Two main things would be the driving force for me to make another move, this time literally --- back to Florida. Enter Ron, my old roommate. He was witty, charming, immature and still fiercely competitive. He would circumvent the established guidelines to arrange extra large quantity sales, then brag to me about them. He also would say and do things to break my concentration or interfere with my conversations, even to the point of flipping paperback books at me from a revolving book rack we had in the office.

I was not very wise in handling such tension, and I was not a tattletale. I began to dread going to work. On top of that, the three months came and went, along with the base salary. While we were selling lots of books, the commissions were tied up in publishing red tape, the story being that the company needed to receive enough revenue from the actual book purchases in order to pay the commissions. (I must not have read the fine print.) The waiting was difficult. I had two young daughters and a wife to care for. And the commissions only dwindled in. My boss, David, who later became a good friend, was very helpful in getting a partial salary extended for me, but it just wasn't enough.

Lois and I had also had enough of the Chicago winters, so we loaded our two young daughters into the car, attached a U-Haul trailer and, with my tail between my legs, headed for the Sunshine State, where we would be staying with her parents while I, once again, looked for work. We would also become a part of the Plymouth Bretheren, much to the delight of her folks.

And once again the Lord would provide a great career opportunity. The big question was: how would I handle it this time?