working for a living

This was originally going to be a blog about Starbucks, but then I got carried away remembering all the places I had worked for...

When I was 15, I got a job washing dishes at The Wright Place, owned by Forrest and Charlotte Wright, in my hometown of Samson. When was 16, I upgraded to waiter, and did that for two more years in high school, then off and on for another three years. Its quite possible that Sandy Wright, the middle daughter of Forrest and Charlotte, was truly my first love--she was that chick who was ahead of you by 3 in grades and a billion miles in leagues.

My gigs at radio stations WKMX and WTBF were also lots of fun... I had the Friday evening shift with Rod Connor, helping out with the high school scoreboard, then at midnight, I took over on the airwaves. Now, they do voice tracking--as in, someone does all the "radio stuff" during the day, and computers play it at night, as if the DJ was really there, but in 1995, I was really there. It was great, but tiring... considering I'd go in at 8pm, I wouldn't leave until 9 the next morning... I wrecked a car this way. Fell asleep at the wheel, the day before Heather Howell and I were going to Atlanta to see Beauty and the Beast at the Fabulous Fox.

WTBF was a smaller station, but with the smaller station I had lots more freedom. I did the mid-morning show, from 9 to noon, and at noon, I would run the board during the Rush Limbaugh Show. I was a Bill Clinton fan during that time... and then discovered Rush.

Every Wednesday night I did "The Wednesday 90s!"--keep in mind this was around '98, so most of the 90s had gone by. I pulled in my two boxes of cds and cassette singles, playing all the forgotten favorites like "Better Than You" by Lisa Keith, "That's What Love Can Do" by Boy Krazy and "Solitude" by Edwin McCain.

Sunday nights were more fun, though, as I did "Sunday Night Power", a 3 hours Christian music show. I even managed to finagle on-air interviews with Audio Adrenaline, Plumb, Third Day, Cindy Morgan, Watermark, Point of Grace and a few more... tons of concerts, free CDs, and with free concerts and free CDs came dates that were inexpensive. Christian women are righteous babes, that's what I always say.

Considering I'm jumping all over the chronology here, I have to mention my freshman year's catering experience at Marriott Catering at Troy State University. I also waited tables there at Troy State for Marriott--along with half of the Indian nation. Funny story, one day I'm moving glasses off of a table, and another waiter, Naveem, was doing the same. The professor engaged him in conversation, finding out he was from Bangladesh. After Naveem left,the professor turned to me, looking at my then-darker and slimmer features, asking, "What country are you from?" I gave him a weird look, and a more southern slang than I intended, I said, "I'm from Alabama."

I did my time in fast food, mine being a Dairy Queen. Its truly a wonder I still can eat Blizzard from there, as I've made plenty of them. I also know that the health department does in fact allow a certain number of tiny gnats into the Blizzard mix, as its impossible to keep them away. They also never cleaned under the chicken pan, when they breaded chicken, and it was quite odiferous. As you pass down 231, coming into Troy, wave at the Dairy Queen. Thirteen years ago, I was there.

Movie theaters are a joke. I worked at two, once in college, once living in Birmingham. I worked at the Carmike 10 in Montgomery for a while... its unbelievable how lazy some high school students--most of the people that worked there--can be. I did get my entire fraternity in for a discount at "12 Monkeys", so thats something. At the time, I worked with Bobby Black, now a Grammy winning and Tony nominated artist, and Lisa Turk, one of my old school BFFs at Troy... I mean, how hard can it be to tear tickets? Not very.

Lisa ended up quitting because she was getting married that March. And they wouldn't tell her they would give her a few weeks off for the wedding. I just decided to stop going. Not sure why Bobby left.

The other movie gig I did was at the Summit here in Birmingham. That place is miserable, I tell you... boring and miserable. I remember working the theater the night the first Harry Potter movie came out. I had my arms outstretched, holding back mobs and mobs of kids and parents of those kids who wanted nothing more than to sit down and finally get their children settled. Of course, one of the good things about working at a theater is that you see lots of movies for free--I watched "From Dusk til Dawn" about 30 times, "Powder" another 30 times, "Life as a House" a few times and... you know, maybe it wasn't that great. I left the Summit 16 because, despite the fact I told the managers there I had a day job and could only work nights, they kept scheduling me to work 11am shifts. I just quit going.

Another job at Troy that I loved was The Pied Pipers, the children's theater troupe. Seriously, we all got dressed up in funny costumes, learned and acted out goofy children stories like "The Three Little Pigs" and "The Tortoise & the Hare" and others, and we would tour the southeast, in Florida, Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama. Imagine spending a week on the road with a bunch of actors, crammed in a van, staying at some of the seediest hotels ever. The All American Inn in Bonifay, Florida? Stay away. I do have some fond memories of The Hampton Inn on Mobile Bay, though... but that's a whole other story.

The stories then? What about the time I actually did throw up in my mouth because a fellow actor smelled so bad? Or the box of cereal that was filled with weevils? Or the very flaky Heli and her odd Lil' Pig? Or the time when Mitch passed out, and we had to cancel "The Tortoise & the Hare"? Perhaps one day I'll share... I'm sure Wendi Deckermiller could add a ton more.

I remember Suzy McGinn was always nice to me. I remember traveling with Michael Brown, and Mitch Kissam, and Whitley Porter (Rives), and and yes, Ambre from Rock of Love 2 with Bret Michaels was there.

Our director was Dr. David Dye, a generally good guy, but a very serious, perhaps offbeat director. We were paid something like $35 per day, and maybe $15 or $20 per day for food, I don't remember which, and our travel expenses and hotel/motel accommodations were covered. But from what I gathered, it was nothing compared to what Dr. Dye was making out of the deal. It reminds me of that scene in "The Shawshank Redemption", where Red is discussing the Warden Norton's "Inside Out" prison worker program... "And oh, how the money rolled in." Kinda felt like that too.

FYI, for anyone interested, I found this site which gives the fate of several Troy actors...

Did some time at The Disney Store too. Like Dairy Queen, I was the first person hired after the initial staff's opening. This is back in the day when The Disney Store was actually owned by Disney (now most of them are owned by Children's Place), and this location was in the Montgomery Mall--and this is back in the day when you could go to Mo'Mall and not get shot. At least, not repeatedly.

That location is gone now, shut down when Disney sold the business and closed a bunch of stores. Actually kinda saddens me, and it has crossed my mind more than once to apply at The Disney Store here at the Galleria.

My first job in Birmingham was a story I'm not proud of. So, therefore, I'm not going to mention it, because you know what, its embarrassing.

However, that bad experience led me to a temp agency, which led me first to a $8 an hour job at Regions, working in the back, scanning checks. Like, I would take a pile of checks, feed them in the machine, and stand back. In 2 weeks, I scanned over 3 million checks (it kept a tally on screen). When the machine broke down, I just sat back and waited for them to fix it.

Its important to note that at that temp agency, a guy named George Marling asked me if I had found a church. I said no. He handed me a green pen with a church named Valleydale on it. He said I should try it. So I did. And 9 years later, I'm still there. Don't ever let anyone tell you those green, now brown, pens are stupid and useless.

It then led to me AmSouth Bank--where Lori Smith Beirne would come to work years later--doing check research. Holy crapping smack was that job boring. I would actually spend 8 hours on five checks, pouring over books and books of data, trying to fill in gaps and figure out where they belong.

And then, that led me to the fateful decision of working at Parisian Corporate/Saks on Lakeshore, first for $6.15 per hour. They had just started the "Home Division", so really, I was doing data entry there. However, out of the 20-something temps they brought in, they only hired like, four, and I was one.

Parisian was truly a great experience... I spent time in the Home Area, then in Advertising, and finally in the Men's Buying Area, and by the end of it, I knew how to run assembly in the warehouse, how to operate the buying systems, how to track the shipments headed to Michigan and Iowa, how to shake down a candle company who refused to pay (I'm not kidding--Iris of Excelsior rued the day they crossed me and Janna Morrison, my buyer) and everything else you could think of. Buyers who were coming into the company making 70 and 80 and more per year were coming to my desk to learn how to do basic data entry.

Janna told me once, "Dave, there are 500 divas in the world. 400 of them work here." She was not kidding. Some of the most beautiful women ever worked in that area, but what you thought was honey was turned to sour salsa when you got to know some of them. Especially in cosmetics and shoes. Those women are vicious.

When I got the job at Cox Radio, the department manager said, "Okay, David, what can we pay you to stay?" I said, "$12 an hour". He said, "You already make $10.75. That's really high for your position... actually, you aren't even a sales assistant, you'd be considering an area specialist." He tried for $12, but didn't get it.

At the time, Cox Radio consisted of Oldies 106.9, Rock 97.3, and 104.7 WZZK... I was hired to work for Oldies and WZZK as a sales assistant, and at first, it was really rough. My boss was a lady named Vickie, and... well, she was mean. She wouldn't let me do my job without hovering. I was very, very glad when she left, because then I took over.

Rob & Shannon, freshly plucked from Magic 96.5, was taking over the morning show, and I worked with them in the morning... the first day was September 10th. Of 2001. And you know what happened the next day.

I was with Cox Radio for almost 4 years and in that time, I outlasted 75% of the staff. The entire Rock 97.3 staff was let go, as it became Oldies 97.3, and 106.9 became The Point--The Best of the 80s and More. My job really consisted of helping the sales team with their presentations, slide shows and stuff like that, but it evolved into me being pretty much everyone's right hand guy. I was the guy you turned to when you needed something--to bring up Shawshank again, I was the Red of Cox Radio for a few years.

And oh, how the rewards rolled in... I mean, The Lovely Steph Leann and I (dating at the time--which is funny, because at Parisian, the men's buyer and his assistant I worked for begun to hear the name "Stephanie" as I was leaving the company... they knew little about her, only that I was sort of enamored with her... where was I? Oh yeah...) pay for the Comedy Club Stardome or Birmingham Broadway tickets for over three years. It was awesome. Gift cards from Cracker Barrel and Logan's Roadhouse and IHOP and everywhere else, and free hams from Honeybaked Ham and free CDs and more. Sometimes I didn't have anything to do, so I sat in my office and read comic books. Seriously.

I had the overhead lights pulled out in my corner of the office, and a table lamp in there. I had a cubby full of snacks, and an empty area on the far right of my desk that was empty only because it was where Natalie, or Bob, or Adam or Marcie or whoever would come and sit when they wanted to talk through a presentation, or just talk. I knew so much crap about so many people. It really was one of my favorite jobs ever.

About 2003, I took a job at Starbucks. February '03, to be exact, just part time. I had a day job, so I worked 4 nights per week--I had to start saving money to buy my woman a ring, ya know. And pay some bills.

It was something big that took me away from Cox Radio... perhaps it was God, knowing that if I had stayed there, I might have stayed there forever, and never gone to Starbucks. I mean, 106.9 is now The Eagle, an awesome station, and WZZK has Rick & Bubba, so imagine what kind of fun that job would be now. Of course, going on that rationale, what if I had stayed with Regions when they offered me something permanent?

Anyway, I got offered a job at NBC 13. This was a dream opportunity... I mean, 8 years out of college, and I was going to finally get to use my degree for something purposeful! Yes, it was another sales admin job, but a year there, and I'll be able to work my way over to production, right? I mean, I directed, produced, wrote and sometimes anchored the news in Troy (working with Steve Hauck, thank you), so that experience would pay off, right?

NBC 13 was the absolute worst job I've ever had. There was no room for advancement, there was no room to move, some of the sales people I worked for were, for lack of a better word, complete morons who would blame me when they screwed up (I'm really only thinking of one in particular, though a few more weren't much better... on the flip side, though, I loved me some Kelley G...)

I made at least three serious attempts to make the jump to production, even being willing to work for free to learn what I could. Shot down. Told to stay put. Then, when I was leaving the job, one of the managers said he didn't think I had ambition.

One of the good guys, Gary, they let go. For whatever reason. I received a letter from him at work a few weeks later, simply saying, "Hey, I hate that I didn't get to say goodbye but I was forced out. Thanks for working so hard, and you let me know if I can help you any. David, you're one of the good guys there. Don't let them get to you -- Gary A."

Here's the kind of place it was... Salesgimp #1 asks me to organize files. So I did. Salesgimp #1 later pulls out a file, and then puts it back in the wrong place. Comes to me asking me where it is. I say, "I filed it, like you asked", to which the reply came, "I can't find it". So, I spend the next hour and a half of my time searching various file cabinets around the office for this missing file. Finally, I go back to his office, where Salegimp #1 is gone for a meeting. I decide to take a glance in the desk file cabinet... surely looked there, right? The file was misfiled, about four files away. As in, its supposed to be here, count four file folders with your fingers, and there it was. Clearly marked. I told my boss about it. I got in trouble for it, for calling Salesgimp #1 out.

I didn't leave on the greatest of circumstances with NBC, though I guess thats only with the management. Or one or two in particular, anyway. In one of those "we must decide the best direction" conversations, I volunteered, "I am turning in my two weeks. I'm done. I'll be honest with you guys... I hate this job, its miserable, and you guys make for a terrible work environment." I mean, I'm leaving the job, so what the hey?

"Like, the other two people in my position hate their jobs, your salespeople can't do anything for themselves, Salesgimp #1 (I used his real name in this instance) blamed me for that file missing when he screwed it up, and I still got the heat for it... I feel like I spend the whole day with a napkin in my hand, just awaiting the chance to wipe their mouths."

If you've never had a chance to unload on your boss, especially when it doesn't matter because you are leaving, the feeling is unbelievably refreshing. Some of the sales staff took me to lunch later--Kelley, Barbara, Clif, Minea--and they told me I was getting screwed out of a job. "Its a club," Clif said. "If you aren't in that club, in that clique, you don't make it here. I'm sorry, man. You were one of the good guys."

On the positive side? I became friends with Brooke Smith (from the Bachelor), Stephanie Walker and the wonderfully wonderful Wendy Garner.

In the weeks that followed my departure, one of the sales managers up and left, another was fired, a few more quit, and I was enjoying my full time gig at Starbucks. It was supposed to be temporary, making $8 and some change an hour, until I found something better. My wonderful Lovely Steph Leann said, "Don't worry about it. Take your time, you find what you want to do, we'll make it work. It will be tight, but we'll make it work."

And I discovered that... I liked Starbucks. Not just for part time work, but I really, really liked the company. It was a great company... and so, I finally made the leap, did the interviews and went full time career with The World's Best Coffee Company.

Its one of those stories where I look back and realize what I learned everywhere else... people skills at The Wright Place, cleanliness at Dairy Queen, cultivating creativity at WKMX and WTBF, how to make a napkin into a swan, a peacock and a crown at Marriott Catering, theatrics and drama in Pied Pipers, interpersonal savvy at Cox Radio, adversity at NBC 13...

So, here I am, in the working field now almost 17 years. I'm a manager of a Starbucks Coffee and Tea. Makes me wonder, if this is what all the other jobs was leading me to, or if this is just another learning journey that God has for me, en route to something even bigger.

For now, though, I will continue to do my job. And love my job. Because I do.

Thoughts on 9/11 Part I

Can you believe its been 4 years since the 9/11 attacks? Like the Challenger explosion, Princess Diana's death, and for older people, the moon landing and JFK's funeral, this is one of those rare events where everyone remembers where they were when it all began to unfold.

I wrote the following essay below, in two parts, and I want to add a third part later this week about my re-visit to Ground Zero about a month ago. When 9/11 happened, I attempted to write some things... but nothing made sense. A year later, I finally was able to produce my thoughts on paper; mind you, this was before I dated Stephanie, this was before I worked at NBC, this was in the midst of The Deuce, so this was a long time ago. So, here we go...

Thoughts on 9/11, Part 1

Oh, the rhetoric we are thrown this week… “Tuesday morning began as such a beautiful day…” “Everything seemed so normal on Monday…” “Our lives would change forever on that day…” But here’s the crazy thing… it’s all true. Tuesday morning was a perfect day. Monday was your typical Monday. And nothing would be the same.

To spare you from what you’ll hear over and over and over today and tomorrow and in the next few days, I want to share with you a few different things. I want to give you my Tuesday morning. And then I want to share with you my Wednesday afternoon that occurred eleven months later. These are my thoughts… maybe they ramble, maybe they are boring… but I wanted to share. The stats I have come from USAToday.

I work at 1069 the Point and 973 Oldies, but last September, it was Oldies 106.9, and down the hall was Rock 97.3. Rob and Shannon premiered on Monday on the 106.9 station, stolen from up the hill at Magic 96. I had already me t both of them, and had applied—and been granted—an internship with their morning show. The first day was really hard, being there at 5:45, answering phones, telling people where Burt and Kurt went (the old morning show, now you can find them on 101.1 The Source in the afternoons), telling people about Rob & Shannon, talking on the air some, being introduced as SuperDave. Katy still calls me that… I like it.

I’d been at Cox Radio for almost three months, I was still learning my way around, still learning my place. My computer was old, the only person I knew really was Michelle Carr, then the national sales assistant, and she was even kind of intimidating, because she was tall and knew everyone and everything much more than I did. I made it through the morning show, Rob and Shannon made it through the show as well, and I came back to my desk to work on Alabama Football packages. I didn’t know Katy. I didn’t know Lori. I barely knew Tammy McLeod, Jason Demastus and knew nothing of Alex and Erin and Melanie and the Shades church up the hill.

Tuesday morning, I awoke at 5:30 am, got into the shower and headed to work. Rob & Shannon’s second day on the air, one of today’s big features was that a guy from San Francisco was going to call in about pricing records. He’s a big vintage record expert, and we were going to invite listeners to call in with their records to be priced. I found out my vintage “The King and I” soundtrack album, with the Deborah Kerr and Yul Brenner cover, was worth about 18 dollars.

At 8:50am, the phone rang, and I answered it… it was Ericka Woode, our lovely midday host, also stolen from Magic 96. She was letting me know that since 8:46am, the World Trade Center had been on fire, and that we should turn on the television in the studio. We did, and Rob began to announce over the air that the tower was on fire, and that this was something that everyone needed to watch. We played another song, as Rob, Shannon and I were talking about it, and then at 9:02, Rob was on the air again.

Shannon and I stood transfixed on the TV, watching this image of the tower burning, knowing now it was a jet that had crashed into the side. Rob began to say, “Folks, if you are not hearing the news, it appears that a plane has crashed into the side of one of the buildings…” when I noticed a small image in the background of the TV getting bigger. I pointed it out to Shannon, who said “That looks like a plane.” The image got bigger and bigger and then, on live TV, crashed into the other tower. It was surreal… the people on the news on ABC were quiet for just a few seconds, and then people were screaming, with the newscaster yelling, “Oh my God! A plane has just hit the second tower!”

Shannon and I gasped, as Rob was also quiet for just a moment. “Folks, we have just seen history… another jet has gone into the World Trade Center. You need to turn your television on right now!” Suddenly, everything was different.

The phones began to ring off the hook, the program director came running in the studio, the new director began to go ballistic, pulling every news story he had to put this on the air. Within an hour, we were directed to go straight to news and news only, as every Cox Station joined a news feed. We then began to answer phones, finding out information, answering questions to what we knew, being clueless to what we didn’t know.

At 9:59, on live TV again, I saw the South Tower began to shake and then fall.

At 10:28, I saw the next tower come down.

I was in New York City in 1998, and had visited those towers. I didn’t go to the top, but stood outside looking at their might, their majesty. They were 1,300 feet tall, straight up in the air. I was 5’7, with a straining neck, not able to see the top the closer I got to the base of the buildings. In 102 minutes, the world I knew had gone from pricing records to seeing both of the World Trade Towers collapsed. And I had no clue how to react to that. It was surreal. It wasn’t happening. This was a movie, this was a disaster movie from the 70s starring William Holden and Shelley Winters.

I answered phones for most of the morning, but then just grew weary… I got tired of people saying the same things over and over, asking the same unanswerable questions over and over… I just wanted to go be somewhere else. I tried logging on to the news sites but they were jammed. I remember ESPN.com, my favorite site, having a small picture in the corner with the announcement “North tower struck by plane”. After the South tower was hit, the entire site was devoted to the coverage.

There are several things I will never forget…

The smoke from the first tower

The plane slamming into the next tower

The shrieks of the news people when the second jet hit

And that video of the man with the towel…

I saw video of a man hanging out the window of the North Tower, the first one struck, waving a white towel. He was close to the top of the building, maybe the 90the floor or so… he had no chance. The rescue helicopters couldn’t get to the roof, the firemen couldn’t get past the 90th floor, where the jet hit. He was just waving his white towel… I saw a firefighter later talking about it. He was in tears, simply saying, “This man… wanted us to help him… but there was nothing… there was nothing we could do…”

200 people packed into the 78th floor lobby of the South Tower. They are all there, some going up, some going down, because they were told that the tower was secure. It was that floor, the 78th, that was sliced in half when American Airlines Flight 175 rammed through it. 200 people were there. 12 survived. Twelve people out of two hundred survived the left wing of a plane flying 417 miles per hour slicing through the floor they stood on, waiting for an elevator.

Another thing I can’t imagine is the desperation… being on the 100th floor, knowing you are going to die. Knowing you can’t go down. Knowing you can’t go up. So… you jump. I’ve seen video of this as well… and it’s haunting. What do you do? An estimated 212 people died by jumping. But you have to think that there were scores more that we’ll never know about that found a way to die without jumping… stabbing themselves, hitting themselves, maybe helping each other die somehow. Maybe taking an overdose of Benadryl in a co-workers office to knock you totally out.

I went home that day during lunch, sat in my room and cried. My tears flowed for a few minutes, watching the television, watching the people running around, scared, hurt, lost… watching the thick smoke, watching the fires blaze out of control. When I went back into work, I stopped at a gas station… already, gas prices were rising because of gas shortage fears. There, I ran into a college friend of mine, Donna Tucker.

Donna is my height, very pretty, very plucky and perky. She graduated a few years after me at TSU, but we knew each other instantly, and gave each other a hug. “How are you?” she asked. “Oh, I’ve seen better days. It’s been crazy today,” I replied. “Yes, I know.” We chatted for a few more minutes, about the past, about life and other things… I think God sent Donna that day to me, because for four minutes, I knew nothing about New York City, I knew nothing about Washington DC, I knew nothing about Flight 93 in Pennsylvania… I only knew of Donna and her life, her husband and how she was doing. It was a break from reality, even if ever so brief.

Rudy Giuliani made a good point… we’ll never know all the heroes. Of course, we know the firemen, the rescue workers, the police officers… but there must have been so many people who died we’ll never know of. Those people who helped usher people down the stairs just in time. Those people who gave up spots on the elevator, just in time for someone to be saved. Or maybe those people who helped comfort those others, when they all knew they were going to die. I’d like to think I’d have been that person.

Reflecting back, I’d like to think I’d have been th,e person to stand up and say, “People, Christ loves you. In a few minutes, you’ll have to stand before God, but right now, you can make a decision to live with him forever!”… but I am afraid I might have been the guy (this actually happened, according to reports) who told a lady trying to get on the elevator in front of him, “Lady, this isn’t the Titanic, woman and children aren’t first.” Who would I have been? It scares me to think about.

The rest of the afternoon was spent in silence for me. Usually, my cd player at my desk blares out whatever music I’m in the mood for, but not today. Many people in my office left early to go to their families. I called my mom and told her I loved her. I went home, and as cheesy as it sounds, I was really happy to see Michael, Tom and Shawn there. It was a comfort zone, and right then, on that day, I didn’t want to be challenged with anything. I wanted to be with people I cared about, and it was a relief to see them.

At Bible Study last night, John’s main point was to say there are no accidents. You can say this was or wasn’t the will of God, but you have to know that despite the devastation, so many people know Christ. So many people have heard the gospel. So many people are going to spend eternity with him as a result of September 11th. You can say, “Why would God sacrifice so many to save others?” but you know what, I don’t have an answer. I don’t have a clue. I do know though, that God uses everything for His glory and His purpose.