Life, Work & Wonder

Blog

  • So Grateful That I (Literally) Fell Into Sales 25 Years Ago

    It has been nearly 25 years now, but I went into sales for the noble reason that my pregnant now-Ex Wife (”Ex-Wife”) fell down the stairs.

    Previously, I was a high school English teacher. For three years, I woke up every morning at 5am, made coffee, read the paper, got dressed (stylish slacks and a nice shirt), then zipped off to a large public high school where I spent my day trying to convince packs of 16 year olds that Shakespeare was still interesting and viable 500 years after his death. On evenings and weekends I coached debate, and during the summers I worked temp jobs as a receptionist, and all told I cleared less than 35K (in 1999) to support my young family of three.

    Then one evening in March I was playing with my son in the living room when I heard Ex-Wife scream followed by a thump-thump-thump-thump. What in the heck was that??? I jumped up and sprinted in the direction of the sound and found Ex-Wife sprawled at the bottom of the stairs in tears. “I fell down the stairs,” she exclaimed. Then added, “I think the baby is okay.”

    Oh my god!

    We rushed to the hospital and eventually talked to her OB, and we learned that the baby (thank godness!) was okay and although Ex-Wife was okay she needed to be on bedrest for the next few weeks to protect the pregnancy and baby.

    Oh my god!

    Ex-Wife was a self-employed part-time tailor. She never made much money, even before we had kids, but she made enough that with my salary we could (just) barely stay financially afloat. And her being on bed rest meant she wasn’t going to make any income which meant that we were no longer going to stay (just) barely afloat.

    Oh my god!

    I had to spring into action. My first thought was to take a night job to make up for the lost income, but that wasn’t practical because someone needed to keep an eye on our spirited toddler child and also look after now-bed-resting Ex-Wife. So I did something I truly truly (truly!) hated to do: I asked my parents for a loan, just to get us through the rest of the school year when I could look for a higher paying job.

    Then, when the school year ended a couple of months later, I updated my resume and hit the job market. At the time, tech was booming so I thought I’d be able to get into some entry level tech job. Turns out, I was wrong. Companies didn’t want to hire someone off the street with zero tech experience — they wanted to hire someone who knew something about tech. Who knew??? Hahaha. Anyway.

    Just before I was about to give up and ponder other options, one of the tech recruiters I talked to said, “You aren’t a match for our tech openings, but you seem like a natural salesperson. Have you considered looking into sales?”

    To make a long story short, I ended up in sales, partially because almost out of the gate I doubled my earnings going into sales.

    This was circa 2000. It was a different world for me then. Different from my previous world as a high school English teacher. And different from the current world of technology sales, although despite any claims otherwise the basic rules of sales haven’t changed: get someone to listen to me, listen to what they do, explain how we might be able to help, then try to align everything so that they make a win-win-win investment.

    I’ll never forget my first week in training. The job seemed to good to be true. “Wait,” I said to my trainer. “I reach out to prospective clients, get them to listen to my story, get them to tell me their challenges, then align what we offer to their challenges?”

    “Well,” my trainer said, “It’s a little more complicated than that. But that’s the gist of it, yeah.”

    On top of that, I was making nearly twice my previously salary, got a commission every time someone signed something, plus I had an expense account and free coffee (we had to furnish our own coffee when I was a teacher). I honestly thought I’d died and gone to heaven.

    I can honestly say that nearly a quarter of a century later I’m just so grateful for that unexpected change in my life. Where I’d gone from working 50-70 hours per week for more 45 weeks per year for pennies on the dollar to working 40-50 hours per week 47 weeks of the year (including holidays and PTO) for dollars (multiple) on the dollar. Where I’d gone from barely affording my mortgage to actually having (a lot of) discretionary income and retirement savings. And I didn’t have to spend my youth studying computer science or engineering, or spending my free time studying computer science or going to graduate school. I just had to find out what a prospect’s problems were and try to align that to what I was offering. Which, honestly, was a HECK of a lot easier than teaching Shakespeare to packs of 30 16-year-olds.

    NOTE: None of this article was generated or edited using AI. It is 100% organically human written by me. 🙂

  • If I Had One Wish For A Single Skill, It Would Be Drawing/Sketching

    If you could instantly master any skill, what would it be and why?

    How much I admire people who can sketch or draw.

    My friend Jon growing up was an amazing sketcher. While we all talked, he was often sketching on scratch paper. Maybe it was a character he’d imagined, or the view outside the window, or a memory, but he was always sketching something to perfection and we always admired what he sketched.

    I also remember reading the autobiography of the great 1950s independent filmmaker Samuel Fuller. In his diaries he often sketched, and his notebook from his tour in Europe during World War II was filled with little drawings to document his days that really captured my interest and I thought really quickly expressed to me what his experiences were.

    How much I admired this.

    I’m not a drawer. I’m that person who can’t draw a stick figure well, and can’t even really draw a straight line, and was often teased in art class for the (lack thereof) quality of my work although being teased about that didn’t bother me since I couldn’t help it. Luckily I can write okay, but it takes “a thousand words” (wink wink) to cover a picture and it’s easier I think to listen and draw then it is to listen and write, which means a person can be a part of a conversation while drawing.

    I also admire those people who can sketch out the vision they’re trying to convey. Maybe plans for the garden. Or a particular door. Or a place that they visited. Me? I have to describe it in words which is harder to convey in every day life.

    I have many weaknesses but I’m a faster than average sprinter (not the fastest sprinter, just faster than the average weekend athlete). I can’t take credit for it, I was just made that way. And just like the average person can’t will or train themselves to sprint as fast as me, I know from experience that I can’t train or will myself to draw as well as the average person let alone to become a gifted drawer. How much I wish that I could train myself to sketch things well and to sketch them quickly.

    Anyway. That would be my wish. Everything else that I’m not good at I’ve made peace with. But I do wish I could draw well.

  • My Lawns Are A Disaster. And Life Is Great All The Same :)

    When I was in my 30s I worried so much about having a terrific lawn and garden. Partially to impress my neighbors but mostly I think to impress my parents, who always strove to have perfect lawns and gardens when I was a kid. 20 years later my back lawn and gardens are a total disaster. Know what? I’m actually happier 🙂

    UNABRIDGED VERSION

    The first summer that I was a homeowner I was 29 years old.

    The house was a fixer upper in Ballard (Seattle) because that was all I could afford, and part of having a fixer upper was that the yard and gardens were an unmitigated disaster. The yard was a patchwork of dirt, moss and weeds, and the garden was just a hodgepodge of overgrown shrubs and trees along with a variety of overgrown vines.

    I spent almost every free minute of that first summer out in the yard, desperately working to make the lawns and gardens look presentable, partially because that was what my neighbors saw but mostly because that was the first thing my parents and friends saw when they approached the house. How important it was to me back then to make a great first impression, to have a manicured lawn and tamed weed-free gardens. To me, a good lawn announced to the world, “Look at me — I’ve got my act together!”

    Although I was exhausted from work and new homeownership and just life in general, every single morning I got out of bed, put on grubby clothes, then charged out into the yards. On Saturdays and Sundays, I was out there until the evening hours like a devoted pre-automation farmer. I cleaned up the moss, dug up every single weed, sowed countless amounts of grass seed. I pulled out the vines (which took the better part of two days), tore out the hideous boxy shrubs, pulled more weeds than I could possibly count, and just kept working working working. I think the dump fees from all the greens I pulled out exceeded $200 (which would be close to $600 today) today which was about $199 more (which would be close to $597 today 🙂 )than we could afford in those days after the mortgage and insurance and groceries.

    It took the better part of two years, but eventually the yards and the gardens were perfect. All the bare patches filled in with grass, the moss dissipated and all the dandelions became past history. The gardens were filled with flowers and bark and actually looked pretty good. 

    I knew I’d made it when one day my neighbor complimented my lawn and then apologized for the state of his lawn (I didn’t care; my keeping the yards nice were all about me and my fear of judgement and had nothing to do with the state of my neighbor’s lawn).

    For the next 10 years I spent every week mowing the lawn and edging the lawn. Even after we hired landscapers to keep the garden weed free, I continued to keep our lawns perfect.

    Then my health gave out. And suddenly I no longer had the energy or the physical stamina or (most importantly) the desire to keep the gardens perfect anymore.

    Today, 30 years later, my lawn is a disaster. The front lawn has been replaced by environmentally-safe turf, which makes that part easy. But the back yard? Oh my gosh! It’s a disaster. The grass is a foot tall. The weeds are waist high. And it would be impossible to imagine that the owners of that home (us) ever cared about the state of their lawn. And know what? I’m totally okay with that.

    Because what I learned when I was 42 when my health gave out is that there is more to life than lovely lawns. That when there are weeds or bare patches that the world just keeps turning all the same. And every single minute I spent fretting over a lawn mower or taking time away from something else I’d rather do is a minute that I’ll never get back. And that at the end of the day, my neighbors thinking I’m impressive or not impressive really doesn’t matter.

    I take some pride that my lawn was once amazing. Because it shows I can do it if I want to. But I also take some pride that I prioritize my life, that some weeds and tall grass in the backyard (which is out of sight of our neighbors) won’t hurt anyone. And mom and dad (now approaching 80) seem to love me just fine even when my lawn and gardens aren’t perfect.

    Some people love to garden. Not me. For me it’s a chore. And wisdom I’ve acquired is this: put (good quality) turf where the neighbors can see. And then let nature do its worst in the hidden parts (back yard). And not only is life still okay, but I have a lot more fun and free time too.

    PICTURE:

    Is that a tree? No, it’s a waist-high weed in my back yard. And that’s okay.

    ABOUT:

    This is my fun site. The one where I can just write and have fun and be totally vulnerable without fear of judgement. Names are changed where needed to protect the innocent, and I retain all rights without any liability whatsoever 🙂 Contact me at “fromthedeskofrob@gmail.com.”

  • My Second Birthday

    My first memory is my second birthday, when mom and dad wake me up to give me a birthday present before dad has to head to work and school for the day. Looking back, it’s amazing how responsible and predictable they were even when they were just 22 years old.

    https://jobshealthdivorce.substack.com/p/waking-up-on-my-second-birthday?r=8ipil0&utm_medium=ios

  • Gray Skies Are Worthy Too

    Yesterday life felt amazing.

    The sun came out. By afternoon we were on our friend’s boat on Lake Sammamish with amazing blue skies overhead and Mt. Rainier peaking over the trees in the distance, and although I’m not a fan of boating I just felt on top of the world in that moment. In fact, every time the blue skies come out in Seattle I just feel so amazing inside, and I feel like anything is possible and I appreciate life soooooo much.

    But the gray days are worthy too.

    I think I was 20 when I started to realize I may have SAD. After an amazing Spring and Summer and Autumn (when it was still 80 degrees in October) where I just felt so happy and alive every day, when the gray skies returned that December and January suddenly I felt so heavy inside. I thought maybe I was homesick (what with being in a small town college hours away from my big city home) and maybe a little lonely (what with most of my friends being back home), and this belief was solidified when my spirits improved immensely as I met more and more friends the second half of the school year and we experienced a warm and sunny spring. Then I came home from school for the summer, and Seattle just had the most amazing weather (like most summers in Seattle), and I was in the best spirits from February all the way through into September that year.

    Then the clouds returned. Starting in September, it was a very very rainy year ahead, including record rainfall and generational flooding, and suddenly I felt so very heavy again. Exhausted. I thought maybe I missed my summer job back home, or the friends who’d transferred away between my first and second year away at college, or maybe was suffering a little from my mom’s challenging times she was going through at the time. During that time, I started to withdraw: I exercised a lot, studied even more, and stopped going out as much. I didn’t realize just how much it was the clouds/gray weighing on my spirit.

    I’m in my 50s now. I can look at the repeated patterns over the years that I didn’t have the luxury of doing when I was in my early 20s. And every single year I suffer when the weather turns gray. On the outside I seem fine. But on the inside I start feeling heavy. Listless. A little trapped. And then the blue skies return and suddenly I feel like anything is possible again, that everything is just great again.

    So yesterday on our friend’s boat, when the sky was so blue and I just felt so amazingly at peace sitting there with my friends, I realized that I need to work on improving my inner spirits (key word: inner, on the outside I seem totally fine 🙂 ) when the weather turns gray. Because the weather is gray soooooooo much in Seattle, at least half the year, which means I’m essentially giving up half my time (life) to struggling inside when the weather turns gray.

    Thankfully I’m a fighter. When the chips are low I’ve always been able to persevere. And I’m determined to enjoy the other half of my life too, the one where the skies turn gray. I will persevere. The second half of my life will be sunny times in my soul even when the skies turn gray 🙂 Because every single day of life is worthy, even the cloudy gray days too.

  • Who knew that shingles would protect my brain???

    Who knew that my health issues might help me stave off dementia?? That getting shingles a third time might actually keep my mind relatively intact in my old age?

    The first time I came down with shingles was the spring of 1988, during the stress of finals week. Suddenly I had such an itchy patch of bumpy red skin on my back that was annoying but not especially painful. I made an appointment with the dermatologist after a couple of days, and she diagnosed it as shingles and chastised me for not getting in to see her sooner.  

    Fast forward nearly 25 years. It’s 2013 and my life is just a fog of hell. For nearly two years I’ve been battling interstitial lung disease and inflammatory arthritis in my back (the battle in itself is nearly an all-encompassing job) while raising two teen agers and working full-time to support the family, including my (now ex) wife who has decided after my diagnosis that as a 38-year old high school drop out she was destined to be a doctor so became a full-time student. When in the midst of all this I decided to switch jobs to sales management for a dysfunctional company with lofty aspirations, it became too much for my physical system to endure, so I came down with shingles again. The second time was remarkably similar to the first: an itchy patch of red skin on my core. To be honest, I didn’t know what all the fuss was about shingles: to me it was more like a case of poison oak than it was some hell-ish infliction. 

    Then the third time hit. That was 2016 when I was working as a sales leader for yet another dysfunctional tech company that was having financial issues. This bout was memorable because I was amazed at how unconcerned my management seemed for my well-being when I said I had to work from home because of shingles, but more than that for the first time I understood what the fuss was about shingles. My body hurt like hell. I remember my nerve endings burning and actually hurting, like there were in needles rather than nerves. This time I got into the doctor pronto and got the medicines to help stave off permanent damage. And it was about this time that my doctors suggested I get the shingles vaccination despite my relatively youthful age of 48. 

    Now, 10 years later, I’m reading how much they’re realizing the mental benefits of shingles vaccinations: that little prick is a powerful protection against dementia. Yay!!!!!! 

    Sometimes in life what might seem like a bad thing actually in reality turns out to be a good thing long term. For me, that includes my lung disease — which gave me a new lease and outlook on life — and also my shingles, which unwittingly gave me some extra defense against dementia. Believe me when I say that I as much as anyone need any defense I can get against brain ailments — I’m already started with a lighter load (lesser brain) than most 🙂 

    I’m just so grateful for unexpected and indirect great news.

    SOURCES:
    https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.aarp.org/health/conditions-treatments/shingles-vaccine-lowers-dementia-risk/&ved=2ahUKEwjf38WzocOUAxXFETQIHZhrLxIQFnoECCQQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2ruEM2NXKWGpkuCuUMR7Xc

    https://www.reddit.com/r/psychology/comments/1pd1i66/a_dementia_vaccine_could_be_real_and_some_of_us/

    https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2025/03/shingles-vaccination-dementia.html

    etc. etc. etc.

  • Maybe the only way to save our planet and ourselves is to use AI for frivolous reasons?

    I’ve started using AI for fun. In a weird way, to save the planet.

    For years, I’ve avoided using AI for fun, because the most important thing to me is fresh water and the ungodly amounts of water that AI uses is scary.

    This past week, while watching a private leer jet flying into a Dallas airport, while watching the news about yet another stricken cruise ship, while reading the news about yet more AI-driven layoffs, while driving by a big housing development built in a desert and using sprinklers to keep its expansive green lawns green, I realized that for me as an individual to try to save our planet’s water is just total denial and folly. All my efforts to avoid using AI to make my life easier or more fun (pics, generating marketing copy, etc.; NOTE: I love to write so any non-marketing material I write is only written by me and not AI), and all the times in the shower I turn the water off while I shampoo or soap, and all the times I turn off the water when scrubbing a dish — total folly. Because the reality is one tech company using AI, or all of us (me included) using Spotify on a daily basis, or one resort golf course, or one jerk in a private plane: in several minutes they probably use more water than I can conserve in my entire lifetime.

    There was a comedian during yet another jump in fuel prices during the 2000s who said each American has a duty to drive as much as possible, so that we use up all the world’s oil so that OPEC loses power over us, or at least so that the American government notices the worrisome plunge in oil reserves so starts to take steps to change oil consumption. Of course that was hyperbole, and is a mostly-silly comment, but it wasn’t a bad point.

    A family member shamed me this week for using AI to generate a fun pic of me coaching the Dallas Cowboys. “AI should only be used for productivity,” she said. But then another family member chimed in and said, “Actually, we all should be using as much AI for fun as possible, because then maybe our government will turn its eyes towards the water consumption or the loss of jobs because of AI. Right now it’s too convenient for the government to turn a blind eye to the risks of AI.” How much I love that second sentiment.

    So while my own personal uptick in AI won’t move the needle at all, maybe if we all start using AI for wasteful reasons then the government will start actually paying attention to water consumption and job loss.

    I realize that this is silly. That it won’t change. But doing nothing won’t change anything either, so hey I’m going to start doing my part.

  • The Quiet Recession?

    1991. 2001. 2008.

    I feel like in general recessions get a lot of attention and press. Forcing the government to respond.

    But now I wonder if our government simply doesn’t acknowledge recessions.

    It’s Mother’s Day. And we’re at a normally packed restaurant. But it’s slow. We’re noticing thar at a lot of restaurants lately.

    The housing prices have dipped. Our local grocery store and restaurant have reduced workers hours.

    I feel like we’re in a recession no one is talking about. Silence is Scary stuff.

  • My Failed Experiment With Facebook Advertising

    For the first time ever, I created a Facebook Business page. I thought it would be interesting to see what happens if I boosted my page, especially since it seemed so cheap ($18/day).

    I posted information/data about the local real estate market in Seattle and Bellevue. Then I chose the option that targeted more Facebook visitors and followers, chose for the ad to expire in two days ($36 total), put my credit information in, and — presto — my post was boosted, whatever that means.

    One of the problems is that apparently when I put an expiration date of two days, this didn’t register with Facebook. So although my ad was supposed to expire on Thursday, I noticed that today I was still getting some clicks, so I checked my account. Indeed, I’ve been charged $56 and counting and it won’t let me turn off the ad for another two days.

    The next problem is that apparently when I click that I want my audience to be within 15 miles of Seattle since that’s where I’m a licensed agent, “within 15 miles of Seattle” is translated to “anywhere in the states of Washington and California.” Of the four people who reached out to me, one was about 30 miles away, another was 80 miles away, and a third was 1,000 miles away in Southern California. The fourth? I don’t know because they said they’d messaged me by mistake and blocked me before I could learn more about who they were and where they were from.

    Also, there is an auto response feature I didn’t know about, wherein if someone clicks on my post, the receive an automated message from “me” (not really from me) asking how I can help them. This was a little unnerving because it means I was spamming people who just wanted to click on my ad, which wasn’t my point.

    Finally, for $56 I received a grand total of four messages (described above) that have no chance of becoming clients and who it turns out weren’t even really interested in the local real estate market (also, one used my ad to solicit me), and one follower. Which means statistically if I want 100 followers I’ll have to spend $5,600. Wooooooooo!

    Anyway. I was curious to know what happened if I boosted a post. And I got an answer. Which, for me, was “more trouble than it was worth.”

  • I’m A Rudderless Ship

    What gives you direction in life?

    I spent my 20s getting started in the workplace. Graduating college, then graduating graduate school, then looking for my first career job, meanwhile working working working and paying rent.

    I spent my 30s in hell. I worked worked worked to get ahead and worked worked worked to raise the kids while their mom (my ex) was off doing god-knows-what.

    I then spent my 40s (luckily) beating back idiopathic lung disease and starting a new life following the dissolution of my first marriage.

    Now here I am.

    My kids are grown. I’m burned out on the corporate world (real estate is hard work but isn’t the same all-encompassing soul sucker). I am happily re-married with a person who likes spending time for me so I no longer need to find outside meaning (talking to strangers, volunteering, etc.). I have some savings but not limitless amounts of money to travel the world 24×7. I would love to be a novelist but then again that won’t pay the bills and I’m a person who’d need to devote my full energies to it which isn’t possible right now.

    Which leaves me a little lost right now. I’m a rudderless ship.

    But you know what?

    That’s okay.

    Does a lion spend its days wondering what its direction is?

    Do all the people “resting” in the graveyard a mile from our home currently wish they’d had more direction in life?

    I doubt it.

    Our cats seem to have no direction in life, but also seem pretty content too. They seem to have a good life.

    So I’m rudderless right now. Directionless. But that’s okay. Life is life. Direction in life is just something we add to try to craft meaning into what is ultimately an ambiguous and tenuous existence in the omniverse.

    My chore is not to find meaning or direction. It’s to enjoy life (while being a good + accountable person) as much as I can while I’m here.