its been awhile....I have discovered what it is to "work" again.....

May...Mid May

I left a place of employment at least 15 years ago that I grew to despise.  Initially, it was great, perfect.  I worked hard, extremely hard, but it was mainly physical work at the beginning.

Being 18, when I started there and healthy and strong as an eighteen year old boy is, with as much energy as race horse, I excelled.  It was only physical to start.  Unload trucks as fast as you can.  No worries, I clogged their systems with so many packages they stopped me often.  I would wait at the back of the truck, triumphant that I shut them down.  After the initial pain of getting used to the labor, my body loved it, I dropped my overly hyper energy in that work.  So they made me a supervisor.  A supervisor aged 19, in charge of 45 year olds.  So they figured out I was worthy of some other things and was placed in the position of "Simulator".  I reveled in that position too.  Trying to make order of complete chaos in a 3.5 hour period was mental, and I loved that too.  In 3.5 hours I took 300 phone calls, 3x that in radio calls on 3 channels.  I wore a headset, had foot pedals to answer the phone and radio calls, two key boards and 6 monitors sat in front of me.  Behind me there was maybe 50 or 60 buttons that controlled all the conveyor belts moving the packages in the 3/4 million square foot hub.  I will never be able to explain how crazy that was, but I enjoyed it somehow.  I was young, sharp and full of willingness to succeed and loved the challenge of it.  The tours they brought through labeled me "the brain center of the hub".  My ego ate it up, so I loved it.


A few years later, well I was there 18 years, so when I quit, finally, I came to the realization that as hard as I worked, only more work would be pushed on me.  They offered me a full time position delivering packages.  I leapt and loved it, initially.  After running like an idiot for 3 or 4 years killing it and breaking records delivering packages, skipping breaks and just working my hardest I realized they would only reward me with more...….work.  

That is the last time I felt like I worked.  I quit.  I knew they would run me to death so I left it.  Fortune shown on me that I was able to.  I was 37