Ho hum
Hello friends.
*GASP* I am posting
What does that mean? Well, either I am in a weird mood and am going to post something random, I need some advice, I am about to start posting again on a regular basis with this being the first post, I have some great news or I need to vent.
Well, if you know me then you know that I am not a big fan of the negative post. I don't really like coming on here and dumping my poo for you to peruse. I actually don't like having poo to begin with and find the spreading of the poo to be poopy. What I am trying to say is that I am a firm believer in the "Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you choose to deal with it." SO, I choose to consider myself blessed when presented with a challenge. No matter how bad things are there are always positives in my life and I try to focus on them.
With that being said I am going to say that this is just an update. I am really not bitching. I think there may be some benefit to me putting this down in print. Maybe allow me a different perspective. PLUS, I know that there are those of you who care AND maybe I can be added to a prayer or 2. Prayer is a powerful thing.
Ok, so I shall present a brief backstory first.
I was in the restaraunt business for 15 years, mostly management. Early on I trained as a chef but my ego at the time found it more pleasing to be in chargeof the whole tomato. Anyway, the last 5 years in the restaraunt business was painful. I did not enjoy work anymore. 70 hour work weeks that were tolerable when I was young and did not have a family became unpleasant and challenging. I didn't have the time to be the husband and father that I wanted to be. I didn't have the energy to be the person I wanted to be. I didn't know what to do as i did not go to college and restaraunt management was all I knew. I was stuck.
I met my wife at a restaraunt I was managing. I was eventually transferred to another location and she moved up in to management. At last I saw my window of opportunity. With the money she was making I could get out of the restaraunt biz and go back to school while taking a part time job waiting tables. I was very excited! Well, that lasted about 3 days. I quit my job and was hired as a waiter at TGI Fridays. Part time I could bring in about $20,000 a year and with my wifes income we would be fine. Well, as I said, 3 days after quitting we found out my wife was pregnant with our second child. During my wifes first pregnancy she had to quit working due to an high blood pressure. The doctor recommended she quit ASAP. YIKES!!!
So, even though we now were without a large chunk of change, i was determined to not get back in management. If I could work full time as a waiter that would have me bringing in about $35,000 a year. We tried that for a few months but it just wasn't enough money so I took a second job working at UPS. I figured this was a temporary solution unti I could figure out what to do. 2 weeks later I fell off of a dock, about 12 feet, and landed right on the corner of a big metal box, tailbone first. Ouch!
The doctor said I had ruptured my 2 bottom discs and would need to have a 2 level fusion. of course workmans compensation had other ideas. I was out of work for 2 years, fighting through the red tape. They wanted me to go to pain management courses. Electro stimulis was tried. I had epidural steroid injections. Nothing seemed to work. Finally I had the operation, went through re-hab, got a divorce and went back to work.
on a side note, that turned out to be quite a blessing as it allowed me to spend every day with my new born son for the first 2 years of his life. not something many fathers get to do.
So, I needed to find a job that didn't require me to be standing for 10 hours a day. No restaraunt work. My mother suggested I look at car sales. I said "Hell no, those guys are crooks, I could never do that." Well, after some research I found a job with Autonation. At the time they were 1 price no haggle. I figured if I was going to be in the car business that was the way I wanted it to be. After about a year they went away from the "no haggle" deal. I was worried but they had just started up an Internet department and the sales through there would be automatically discounted, and I had control over my pricing so there was no back and forth to the managers desk. eventually I transferred from a Dodge store to a Lincoln Mercury store and became the Internet director. Over the next 9 years I mananged Internet departments and business develpement centers for various delaerships. It was good work and good pay but about 4 years in I received sole custody of my son. I did the best I could but in the car business you haveto work some nights and every Saturday. It was not ideal for a single father and I felt a lot of guilt as I could not be there for my Son's soccer games and such. Towards the end I started looking in to getting out of the business and finding a job that was Monday thru Friday 8-5. I decided to try to get a job as a loan officer for a mortgage broker. I probably sent out 50 resumes. No luck, they only wanted someone with experience. Then 1 day I got a call from a broker who had seen my resume on Monster.com. He wanted to meet with me.
I found out that he was interested in bringing me on as a loan officer specializing in Reverse Mortgages. He offered me the job. I was super excited. This was a Monday thru Friday 8-5 job. The pay wasn't that great to start and there was a learning curve. I was not the worse there and kept my job and I always managed to produce at least a few deals a month but it didn't pay me any more than my base salary. I really struggled and my finances fell apart. I wasn't making enough money to pay my bills but I was determined to figure this out and become great at it. In November I said to myself that if things didn't turn around by January then i would have to get out. Then in December I was the top Loan Officer at my branch. I followed that up with top Loan Officer in January, February and March. I was making more money than I had ever made in my life but it took a couple of months to get out of the whole I had dug for myself and then I spent some long over due money on things I needed for the home and things I had promised my son. SO, I was still living paycheck to paycheck, no money in the bank.
That brings us up to the last month. On payday, April 1st my boss said that he couldn't pay me, he couldn't pay anyone. Even though I had 4 good months in a row the other Loan Officers in the office were struggling and the revenue being brought in was not enough to cover all of the bills. He said he had a plan and if we shifted our focus from doing loans to doing loan modifications we could pull out of this. I beleieved him and just prayed that I would get a check on the 16th of April. it would have been a big one and after this check I would be all caught up and even had some money to put in savings. Well, April 16th came and no check. My last paycheck I received was March 16th. I was owed over $4,000 net. we had been doing loan modification for 3 weeks when we came in on the 2oth to find out the negotiator who was handeling the modifications quit. 2 days later the company shut down. The owner said one day he would pay me what I was owed but not any time soon. He was filing Bancruptcy.
So, there we are. That is my story. Sorry for the length, I had no idea I would ramble on like that. if I was going to edit this I would probably cut a fair amount out. Not sure how nessessary to the story it was.
Anyway, I am unemployed, if I take a job doing loans again it will take about 3 months to build up a decent pipeline. All my bills are due and my rent is due and I haven't received a paycheck since March 16th. if I had known this was going to happen I would have certainly been more careful with my money. So, I guess that is the lesson. Even when things seem to be going along swimmingly you never know what is around the corner.
Even though I am in a bad situation, I am still blessed. my son and daughter are healthy. I have a roof over my head today and even if I was to get evicted I have friends I could stay with. I have food in my refrigerator but if that runs out I have friends who would feed me. I can read and write and hear and see and walk and smell and laugh. and I have you!