Jobs, Part 2

I mentioned that my working career started as a ride jockey and then to working in a toy store. 

By the time I graduated from high school and went to college (my college was 30 miles away and I wanted to live on campus), I was the assistant manager of the toy store.  I look back and don’t know why I thought I could be a full time student and a full time assistant manager but I did. 

As the assistant manager, I’d have to reconcile the days sales and transmit them to the home office each day (that I worked which given my non-school availability was most nights and the weekend).  The store closed at 9 pm and after checking out the cashiers and doing the days reconciliation, I left between 10:30 and 11pm each day.  Then I’d have to drive back to my dorm, do any class work I needed to and potentially get up for an 8am class (oh, the horror).

Then it happened, we had one of those very cold winter days where the wind chill was 20 degrees below 0 by the time I left the mall.  My 12 year old Ford Maverick didn’t want to start and I got a mild case of frostbite trying to get it started.  I determined to buy a new car.

I found and got a loan for a 1982 Ford EXP.  It was a manual (the day I picked it up, I was stuck at a stop light for three cycles not realizing I had it in third gear).  It looked like a sports car but it had a 4 cylinder 177cc engine (it couldn’t walk the talk).

“My people—infants are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, your guides mislead you and they have swallowed up the course of your paths.”

Isaiah 3:12 ESV

“And Jesus began to say to them, “See that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. This must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. These are but the beginning of the birth pains.”

Mark 13:5-8 ESV

I named that car Shadowflax.  The good part was that I had a reliable car to take me back and forth from my dorm to my job.  The bad news was that the nut (total expenditures for things like gas, oil, tires, insurance, repairs) significantly increased due to incorporating a loan payment, increased insurance cost with a small offset of less repairs.  In other words, I was locked into working full time while being a full time college student.

I wonder whether my parents were unaware of what I was doing until it was too late or they wanted me to make my own decisions (and learn from my mistakes).  This laissez-faire attitude was very typical for how they raised me both from a trust and lack of rules perspective.  Regardless, I was locked into working a full time job to support Shadowflax.  In fact, I even picked up a few hours each week working in the physics department as student help.  I remember the next Easter trying to figure out what I was going to do that afternoon since the Mall was closed (and I didn’t have any school work).

Now I’ve always known that limited bursts of extreme work is fine (and can produce some wonderful results) but a too extensive period of extreme work can have detrimental effects. By the time I was a Junior in college, my two full time gigs and part time physics department work started catching up with me.  My dad saw that I was struggling and decided to help.  He offered to pay off my car note and provide more flexible repayment terms to pay him back.  This is probably the best example of their laissez-faire attitude toward me (let me determine my own direction but be there to provide help and direction only when needed).  Honestly, I don’t know how I could have succeeded at my upper level classes if I had to work a full time job in addition.

“Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.””

Hebrews 13:5 ESV

“Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart. To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. Haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, are sin. The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty. The getting of treasures by a lying tongue is a fleeting vapor and a snare of death. The violence of the wicked will sweep them away, because they refuse to do what is just. The way of the guilty is crooked, but the conduct of the pure is upright.”

Proverbs 21:2-8 ESV

“Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

Matthew 6:31-34 ESV

So many life lessons make each of us who we are…