Daily Snippet

At age 19 I was married, living in Atlanta, and poor. My life consisted of one thing: work. I worked from 8am to 5pm as a legal secretary for a title company, and I worked at Macy’s from 6pm until 9pm three nights each week. I attended Georgia State University the other two nights. I also cleaned the house of a family with twin boys on Saturday mornings, and I delivered the Atlanta Journal and Constitution every morning from 3am to 6am. Needless to say, I was tired most of the time.

At Macy’s I worked in one of the slowest, least trafficked areas of the store: women’s accessories. In my short evening shifts I made a few sales of scarves or gloves, but most of the time I merely stood behind the counter, watching the video on “50 Ways to Tie a Scarf” as it looped over and over and over again. I was bored. And did I mention that I was tired most of the time?

Macy’s had a policy that retail clerks were not supposed to begin balancing their registers until the store closed at 9pm. This was a good business policy for a retail store. If a customer wanted to purchase an item at 8:59pm, I was not only supposed to be thrilled to ring them up, but I was supposed to be smiling and chatting with them as I completed the transaction.

I ignored this policy. In my world, with my hectic schedule, every minute was critical. If I could have my drawer balanced when the clock turned 9pm, it meant that I could simply grab my bag of money, deliver it to the customer service counter, and exit the building. I could be in bed by 9:15pm. If any customer dared to disrupt this pattern, purchasing an item during the last 15 minutes of my shift, I usually smirked as I assisted them, openly displaying my disgust. How dare they inconvenience me?

One Friday evening the accessories counter had been particularly slow. Only a few customers had crossed into my department. I was bored, tired and anxious to go home. At 8:45, I began to count the change in my drawer. Of course, this activity had to be handled as a covert operation, quietly and cautiously, to avoid attracting the attention of a manager. Since my register hadn’t seen much action that evening, it was balanced within minutes. With one hand on my money bag and both eyes on the clock, I waited.

And then it happened. An older woman appeared in my department. “No! You can’t buy anything!” I shouted inside my head. She wandered aimlessly around a big table of scarves, running her hand over each of them as her eyes slowly scanned everything in the department — belts, purses, and wraps. Then she walked over to the counter. I wasn’t sure what to do. Would it be better to ignore her so that she would go away or push her into a sale so that I could still rebalance the drawer before 9pm?

“May I help you?” I asked in a hurried voice. “We close in five minutes.” She didn’t respond. Her empty gaze fell on an item in the case below me, and she leaned down. I could feel the minutes slipping away, and I was irritated. “Ma’am, is there something that I can do for you, or are you just waiting for someone?” When I got no response again, I pulled out my cattiest 19-year-old tone of voice and said, “Hellooooo!! Anybody hoooome?”

She stood up, slowly raising her eyes to meet mine. Big, heavy tears were streaming down her cheeks, and her forehead was wrinkled with pain. “My husband died yesterday,” she said softly. “His funeral is tomorrow.” She paused, choking back more tears. “He was in the military, so they . . . they want me to wear . . . long, black gloves.” She wiped her eyes, trying to compose herself. “Can you help me?”

I released my hand from my insignificant bag of money and opened the case below. Together, we examined her options for long, black gloves, and I rang up her purchase. I wasn’t smiling. I wasn’t chatting. But I was helping a hurting woman who happened to be a customer in need of gloves at 8:59pm on a Friday evening.

After she walked away, I turned back toward my register, crying as I counted the money for a second time. I never closed my drawer before 9pm again. More importantly, I learned that everything in life isn’t always about me.

In the summer of 1984 I returned to Michigan from my first year of boarding school in Asheville, North Carolina. I was sixteen years old with no local friends and a driver’s license in hand, so I decided to get a job. I placed an ad in the local newspaper that read, “Ambitious student desires full-time summer job. Can babysit and type.” A veritable mountain of talent!

Soon I was offered a babysitting job in a nearby town — forty hours per week for $2.00/hour to watch two young children. During the first week I established an easy, monotonous routine of diapers, naps, lunch, soap operas, walks around the block, and more naps. I was thrilled to be earning money, but I was incredibly miserable.

The following Monday, my mother called. “A woman just called about your ad,” she said. “She owns a trucking company, and she wants you to call her about a summer job.” My heart was pounding as I wrote down the number. Should I return the call? I wavered between my commitment to this family and my desire for an opportunity that wouldn’t involve a rocking chair and Young and the Restless.

I returned the call. “Your ad leads me to believe that you’re a resourceful young woman. Is that correct?” I had no idea what she meant. “Yes,” I said. “Good. Then why don’t you come in for an interview tomorrow?” My mind was racing. I didn’t want to risk losing my babysitting job. “Well, I can’t come until after 5:00. Is that OK?” She agreed, and we made an appointment for the next day.

The following day I had my first encounter with Pearl Barkman, owner of a trucking firm that hauled gravel in Grand Blanc, Michigan. I have no idea how old she was exactly, but I do know that she had grey hair and was old enough to collect social security checks. I once questioned why she always obscured her Cadillac behind the trucks on the lot, and a woman in the office told me that, technically, Mrs. Barkman wasn’t supposed to be working while collecting her social security, so she needed to hide the car.

Anyway, Mrs. Barkman hired me to work as her Office Assistant for $2.50/hour, which I later realized was illegal since it was below minimum wage; however, it was far more than babysitting wages, so I was thrilled. Mr. Barkman, who seemed a good bit younger than Mrs. Barkman, handled the truckers, the hauling operations and the bidding, while Mrs. Barkman handled — well, everything else.

Mrs. Barkman intimidated me. She had a sweet smile, but she had the personality of a bull fighter. Once, while completing a multi-part form using the typewriter, I made a mistake. I rolled up the form, used my liquid white-out to correct the error, and rolled the form back into position. Mrs. Barkman appeared out of nowhere, slammed her hands on the table and snarled, “When completing a multi-part form in a typewriter, do not EVER — I repeat, EVER — use white-out.” She rolled the form out of the typewriter, flipped over the top copy and said, “See! Your top copy looks correct, but the error still exists on the other copies, which equates to legal problems!” She dramatically tore the form into tiny pieces. “Now do it correctly.”

Mrs. Barkman scared me. She had the appearance of a frail, old Grandmother, but she had the presence of a heavyweight boxer. Once, a big, burly trucker came upstairs from the garage to argue about his paycheck. He didn’t understand semi-monthly pay and believed his check was short by a few days. I listened as Mrs. Barkman explained it to him, but he wasn’t satisfied. He started to yell and shake his fist. I watched as Mrs. Barkman went nose-to-nose with this man, backing him slowly against the wall as she explained it to him again with so much intensity that, even if the man still didn’t understand, he was forced to yield. When he retreated to the garage, she turned around, pointed at me and said, “Sometimes explanations aren’t enough.”

Mrs. Barkman frustrated me. She wanted things to be perfect, yet she asked me to do things I had never done before. Once, she asked me to calculate the daily load tickets. Systematically, I removed a load ticket from the tall stack, entered the numbers into the large desk calculator, and hit the plus sign. I thought I was making great progress when — WHAMO! Mrs. Barkman swooped down like a vulture, grabbed the stack and said, “You will not do this until you can use a ten-key by touch. Here is a list of numbers. When you can add them correctly without looking at that calculator, come and get me.” I spent the next three days calculating numbers, cursing her name under my breath. “Mrs. Barkman,” I finally said. “I think I’ve got it.” I glared into her eyes, never diverting them as I calculated the entire list and then turned the calculator to show her the correct total. She handed me the stack of load tickets and said, “Now maybe you can do what you’re supposed to do.”

Mrs. Barkman pressured me. The first time the dispatcher was out sick, she sat me down in front of the radio. “There you go,” she said. And then she walked away. This was the one task in the office that I never wanted to tackle. The truckers were mean and impatient. “874 to base,” I heard. I was paralyzed with fear. “Dammit all, 874 to base! Cathy?” My hand was shaking as I pushed the button. “Ummmm. Cathy’s out today,” I whimpered. “Speak the fuck up!” he shouted. “Listen, I’m blocked on 69 with a 10-ton and no route.” What the heck? My head was spinning. I ran into the other room. “Mrs. Barkman, I need your help.” “No, you don’t,” she said, without looking up from her paper. “Truck 874 has run into a detour on I-69 on his way to Lansing. He has a 10-ton load, which means he wants to avoid weigh stations, and he needs you to get him there. The map is on the wall. Now go do it.” I did it. And, by the end of my third summer with Mrs. Barkman, I cussed instructions into that radio without hesitation.

Mrs. Barkman mentored me. I didn’t recognize it at the time. I didn’t think I needed it at the time. I didn’t appreciate it at the time. But now, as a small business owner, I realize that, in her own unique way, she was teaching me the myriad of critical skills that I would need to be successful in both life and business. Am I a resourceful young woman? Yes…thanks to you, Mrs. Barkman.

As a child, I went through a “buddy stage”. If I went to the roller skating rink, I invited a friend. If I rode my bike into town, I invited a friend. Not unusual behavior for children. But what happens if this tendency continues into adulthood? It can be very detrimental if having a “partner” is a prerequisite for taking any risks.

In the fifth grade, I had the opportunity to participate in a skate-a-thon to raise money for a local charity. The top prize was a color television, and I wanted it. My family had a large, broken console television that sat on the living room floor and served as a tabletop for knick-knacks and dust, and we had a tiny black and white portable with an antenna that detected only a few stations (even with the addition of aluminum foil!).

I had no doubt that I could raise the money to win. Unfortunately, when it actually came time to go door-to-door asking for donations, I wasn’t so confident. I remember lying on my bed, daydreaming about the color television and devising a scheme for attacking my area neighborhoods one house at a time. But I simply couldn’t envision doing it alone. So, I called Cathy.

Cathy was a fun girl, and she liked the idea of an all-night skate-a-thon. I explained that it would require some fundraising, and a discussion of prizes ensued. Cathy was hooked. On Saturday she and I rode our bikes from neighborhood to neighborhood, knocking on doors and collecting donations. Now, if two cute kids came to your door, zealously requesting financial support in hopes that they will win prizes, what would you do? If you have four dollars, each girl will get two of them! If you have fifty cents, each girl will get a quarter! Thus, at the end of our fundraising day, we each had a lot of money, but our totals were exactly the same.

At dinner my dad asked how much money I raised, and he was thrilled to hear the amount. “How much has Cathy raised?” he asked. I told him. I could tell he was disappointed. He lectured me about the foolishness of involving Cathy. If I really wanted to succeed and win the television set, I would have to do it alone.

Each morning that next week I planned to embark on a solo fundraising mission after school. Each afternoon I simply returned home and watched Brady Bunch re-runs on the black and white television. Isn’t it amazing how bright things look in the morning and how dreary they look in the afternoon? My dad would come home from work, ask me if I had gone out, and I would simply answer, “No.”

The next Saturday I called Cathy about taking another fundraising jaunt on our bicycles, and I learned some startling news. Cathy had gone out alone in her own neighborhood all week, and she now had twice the amount in her big white envelope than I had! How dare she go alone, especially when she knew that I wanted the color television. But even with the knowledge that Cathy was winning — even with the irrational feelings of betrayal — I never budged.

On Sunday evening my dad told me that I would not be going to school the next day. I would be going to work with him. The ride to Flint took twenty minutes, and it was a quiet ride. As we approached the city, dad turned into a winding subdivision and stopped the car. “This is your stop,” he said. He informed me that he would be going to work while I did fundraising in the neighborhood. “I’ll pick you up at 5:00 at this same exact spot.”

What!? I was angry. I don’t remember fearing for my safety, but the familiar pangs of insecurity throbbed through my body as I grabbed my white envelope and stepped out of the car. I sat on the curb for a long time and contemplated my plight. I could sit there all day long and, when he returns, tell him that my envelope had been stolen or that nobody offered me a single donation during the entire eight-hour workday. But I knew what I had to do.

I approached the first door … then the second … then the third. With each attempt, the process was less painful. Of course, some people live to slam a door in the face of well-intentioned eleven-year-old girls, while other people live to donate the largest bill in the white envelope. When my dad picked me up that evening, I was elated. I had surpassed all financial expectations, and I had overcome my fear of going door-to-door alone. At the skate-a-thon, I won the color television.

Don’t misunderstand the problem. The problem had nothing to do with being alone. I loved to be alone. I spent hours riding my bike around the schoolyard, shooting baskets, and reading books in my bedroom. Being alone was one of my favorite hobbies.

The problem was not a lack of desire. Many people say, “If you want something badly enough, you will make it happen!” Baloney! If that were true, there would be nobody living in poverty, smoking cigarettes or paying off credit cards. By their sheer desire to be rich, kick the habit, or alleviate debt, these people would make all of the necessary adjustments to succeed. I had the desire, and so do thousands of other people in the world.

The problem was fear, though not the fear of being kidnapped or fear of the unknown. My fear was less concrete, a strange concoction of fear of failure and fear of looking foolish. And, I had the strange idea that two or more people would somehow “legitimize” any venture and, somehow, cut down on the possibility of failure.

When fear is greater than desire, you find yourself at a personal impasse, and involving other people is a typical approach to the problem. You want to start a business, but you’re afraid, so you enter into a partnership. You want to go on a trip, but you’re afraid, so you invite a friend or relative. You want to ask someone for a date, but you’re afraid, so you ask someone else to approach the person on your behalf. The results are toxic. You never really know why the business succeeds. You never really experience the trip through your own eyes. You never really know if the date would have worked without the generosity of your friend.

And, on more than one occasion, you involve someone else in your plans only to find that they are more than willing to take the white envelope door to door without you. Before you know it, you are the loser in your own game.

CQ Press has again announced America’s safest and most dangerous cities, and I am so proud to announce that I grew up right between two of the top five most dangerous cities in the United States — Detroit, Michigan and Flint, Michigan. What an honor!

Periodically, I pass through an area of the country that reminds me of eastern Michigan. A strange combination of comfortable familiarity, mental paralysis and deep depression washes over me like an insidious poison, and I want to withdraw into a fetal position.

What’s that? You have a nagging desire to experience this sensation?

OK. On a cold, snowy night when you don’t want to be outside, put on your most comfortable pair of sweat pants and fuzzy slippers along with a heavy wool sweater. Run three laps around your house. Then, as you itch uncomfortably in that wool sweater, fix your favorite meal, sink into a comfortable chair and pop in a DVD of the 1989 sensation Roger & Me. As the drama unfolds, drink just enough alcohol to make Michael Moore appear thin. That should do it.

At the conclusion of the film, the wool sweater will be driving you insane. Yank it over your head and throw it across the room. Run outside and let the cool air comfort your irritated skin. At that point, my friend, you will experience the incredible sense of relief I felt the day that I stripped eastern Michigan from my life.

During one scene of Roger and Me, Michael Moore attempts to interview executives through the window of one of the plants scheduled to close. The GM representative comes to the window, refuses to talk to him and has him escorted to the sidewalk. That exact plant was the exciting destination of multiple field trips in my early school years.

What a treat! We had the special opportunity to “tour” one of the automotive shops. Don’t recognize that term? In eastern Michigan they are called shops, not factories or plants. In fact, when my first grade teacher asked the class what each of us wanted to do when we grew up, the stock answer was “I’m gonna work in the shop with my dad.”

When I dramatically gestured as if I were running in place and said, “I’m gonna be a world famous writer and die while jogging in Central Park at age 99,” I was met with blank stares. The first time it happened, I sat down, slouched in my chair, and vowed to never share myself with these people again. But, the more I sat and stewed, the more I wanted to show them that I was different.

Anyway, on the first field trip to a shop, I hated it. The fumes and noise made me physically sick, so the teacher had me sit in the bus with the driver. He sat quietly, his forehead vibrating against the large steering wheel as the engine idled. He seemed so sad, but my young mind didn’t know what to do. Having been raised in an Assembly of God church, I was certain that I had a moral responsibility to interject myself into his life.

I tapped him on the shoulder. He sat up with a start. “You and me are the lucky ones today, did you know that?” I announced. He raised his eyebrows and asked, “Is that right?” “Yep,” I said. “We don’t have to be in THERE.” I pointed to the plant. Then, in true charismatic fashion, I stood on the bus seat, raised my hands in the air and shouted “Yeeeeeeaaaah Us!” The driver laughed and laughed; in fact, he was still laughing when I waved good-bye and exited the bus at the school.

Over the years I learned how to cope with everything from emotionally bankrupt adults to classmates with blank stares. My self-cheering, self-applauding and self-encouraging skills increased, and, to this day, if I need some encouragement, I often clap for myself. Sometimes, I cup my hands around my mouth and make crowd noises. But, if I really need to feel better, I remember that I no longer live in eastern Michigan. I stand on a chair, raise my hands in the air and shout “Yeeeeeeaaaah Me!”

Until the age of fifteen I lived in Michigan, which meant that I said things like “You guys gonna go to the game?” and “We’re out of pop, eh?” and “I’m layin’ on the davenport because I don’t feel good.” At age fifteen, I left home to attend boarding school in Asheville, North Carolina, and my vernacular shifted to “Y’all goin’ to the game?” and “We’re out of Coke, did y’all know that?” and “I’m lyin’ on the couch because I don’t feel good.”

When I am concentrating, I can eliminate most of the slang, idiosyncratic phrases and regional accents out of my speech; however, when I am tired or relaxed or simply do not care what anyone around me thinks, I naturally produce the most mixed-up potion of verbal patter on the planet. Is it recognizable? Yes. But my veritable melting pot of jargon raises more than one eyebrow when I am speaking in a group.

A few years ago, I was standing in line at a bakery in Savannah, Georgia. I noticed a huge cinnamon roll in the case, so I turned to my colleague and said, “Jeeminy Christmas, will you look at the size of that thing?” The woman behind me grabbed my shoulders, spun me around, hugged me and said, “You’re from the north! Oh, please say that again!” I was stunned. “Uh, huh?” I asked. “Jeeminy Christmas! I haven’t heard that in so long, and it made me feel like I was back up north again.”

As a fifteen-year-old I argued with people over minor language differences. I vehemently insisted that pop was a far superior reference to carbonated beverages than Coke, since Coke is a specific brand. “Pop,” I insisted, “is non-specific and more inclusive.” But, as an adult, I accept these quirky differences as part of the fabric of life. So, when a waitress in Atlanta asks for my drink order, and I say Coke, I now accept the fact that she will follow with the nonsensical question, “What kind?”

But, of all the crazy terms and references I have picked up like lint and incorporated into my vocabulary over the years, one word seems to baffle everyone: minavelins. In my childhood household, this word was used to reference the leftovers, or little pieces, of anything, but it was used most consistently to refer to food. For example, when all of the whole potato chips were eaten, only the minavelins remained in the bottom of the bag.

However, the word minavelins was not merely a reference to food. After cutting shapes out of paper and leaving the paper scraps on the table, my mother might say, “Clean up your minavelins.” This is a very handy word to add to the arsenal of nouns because it encompasses so much. Why say “Clean up those little scraps of paper” or “Eat those tiny bits of potato chips left in the bottom of the bag” when, instead, you can summarize the subject of your statement with one simple word?

Unfortunately, nobody beyond my immediate family recognizes this word! The first time I used the term with my husband, I had just finished making chocolate chip cookies. I scraped the bulk of the dough out of the bowl, turned to him and asked, “Do you want to eat the minavelins?” He hesitated, examined the bowl and then said, “Huh?” I repeated, “Do you want to eat the minavelins?” He said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

I explained the history of the word in my own life, and he simply said, “I’m sorry, but I really don’t think that’s a word.” I insisted that it was, indeed, a word and countered with, “Isn’t it possible, my dear, that this term never traveled into the frigid countryside of Minnesota where you were raised?” He challenged me to a dictionary duel. And, after much Googling and Webstering, I was forced to concede that the word minavelins (and every spelling variation thereof) was nowhere to be found. Yikes!

Official or not, minavelins remains a staple in my vocabulary. I mean, Jeeminy Christmas, do y’all think I’m gonna abandon such a convenient word just cause yer rantin’ and ravin’ about its authenticity? Not fer nothin’, eh? I’d be up a creek without it, I’m tellin’ ya!

I have owned an IT consulting firm since 1990, so I’ve been around the block once or twice in the world of technology. In the early days, I carried a 5-1/4″ floppy disk with critical files, such as autoexec.bat and config.sys, generic printer drivers and a spooling application to every client site. With those few tools and a solid understanding of DOS, I could solve most personal computer problems of that era.

I offered my clients valuable advice, too. “Trust me. You don’t want to upgrade to Windows. We aren’t sure whether or not it’s going to make it in the market, and DOS isn’t going anywhere.” And I made important assurances. “Absolutely. You’ll never need more than 4MB of RAM on any of your systems.” I am thankful that the World Wide Web was a mere twinkle in Al Gore’s eye at that point, or my foolish guidance would still live in infamy in articles and discussion forums!

As the years passed, I was fortunate enough to experience the Dot Com boom. My training facilities were filled with students who had never used a mouse, and my staff trained thousands of users to utilize Windows. I watched as the world transitioned from WordPerfect to Word, from VisiCalc to Lotus, from Lotus to Excel, from standalone PC’s to networks. And, of course, the Internet transformed everything.

The price for technology services during the mid to late 1990’s was inflated beyond reason. Money was flowing, and the demand for anything related to technology was incredibly high, so technology firms could garner elevated rates for everything from training to software development. Admittedly, the price pendulum needed to swing back to a reasonable point. But what is reasonable?

We might learn the answer to this question by examining the dozens of websites on which potential customers post their technology projects in order to accept bids from programmers, developers, and artists — virtually anyone willing to compete for the work. Here is an example of one recent project (posted here in its entirety, with no editing) for which the maximum bid that will be accepted is $500:

Accounting Software 99.9% like Peachtree

“Me and other programmers are developing a insurance software and well we need an acounting package to be part of it, it needs to be on VB 6.0 and use ms access to inplement Crystal reports. The thing is that I need someone to know Accounting very well and well know a little of insurace. It has to be very very close of Peachtree Acounting, I have the digns or the style of how I want it to be, which fonts, with colors etc, but the funcionability I want it basically like that. The programmer most be serious and need to know very very well accounting please. Other works will be posting soon. If you dont have peachtree acounting well I think it can be donloaded over the inteet a full demo or anything.”

Luckily for those of us needing a good accounting package, there are currently five legitimate bidders! And, surely we can rest in the knowledge that the winner of this bid will be a dynamic, experienced VB programmer, highly knowledgeable about the accounting, tax and reporting needs of today’s insurance industry. The winner will, no doubt, be a solitary programmer. Who needs the distractions of a team for such a small development project? And, to be truly competitive, he or she will offer a firm quote of $485, sealing the deal with a willingness to say good-bye to that extra $15.

Should I alert the folks over at Sage Software that the product they’ve been perfecting for years, Peachtree Accounting, is in danger of extinction? Or should I safely assume that the price pendulum in the technology industry hasn’t swung back that far yet?

My husband is a software and web developer, so he spends the bulk of his daily life at a computer, writing code. As we were traveling in the car yesterday, he made the comment that the ability to copy and paste (or cut and paste) is the most valuable feature ever invented for the computer. I reflected on his comment and agreed. But then I closed my eyes and dreamed about how wonderful it would be to have this capability in real life.

Life with copy and paste? As soon as my neighbor mows his yard, I would copy his manicured grass and paste it over my own yard. Why should all of us sweat on a hot summer day? And, after Paula Deen prepares a fabulous meal on television, I would copy the delectable spread and paste it onto my plate. Dinner is served! And, finally, I would shave one area of my legs, copy the silky skin and paste it in all the right places. I could even paste it on my husband’s face, making it instantly smooth!

Life with cut and paste? After my dog finishes with her “business”, I would cut the pile from its current location and paste it into the trash. No mess, no fuss. Trash needs to go out? Easily done! I will cut it from the various cans around the house and paste it into the large collection bin at the curb. Better yet, I will simply paste it into the dump. No need for garbage collectors anymore.

I realized that the possibilities were endless as my mind experimented with the concept of cutting and pasting. The next time I have to speak or teach in another city, I will simply cut myself from my home and paste myself on the job. No more airports, no more traffic. The feature would be purely functional, not as exciting as the transporter on Star Trek, but it could be sold in a two-pack along with Undo.

And then it struck me. Pasting is not a requirement in the cut and paste process! So, the next time I say something I regret, I would simply cut it. No need to paste that kind of error. I would go back to each of the big mistakes that I have made in the past, systematically cutting them out of my life and pasting them nowhere.

Can you imagine it? Our lives could be like the finished copy of a word processing document. There would be no visual indication that we rearranged it fifty times, cut out entire segments, or copied and edited dozens of key areas. We could ensure absolute perfection!

The car lurched as my husband pulled into the bumpy parking lot of our destination, jolting me into reality. He turned off the car, leaned over, and kissed me. As his scratchy whiskers brushed against my face, I smiled. Life without copy and paste is already perfect.