The U Turn!

She was finally feeling better and the boss has been asking what’s going on with her. “Well, for Christ’s sake,” I’m thinking. “She along with the rest of the world is sick, you cheap son of a bi**h.” I offer to take her out for more training. But I made up my mind on the way over to fess up. And fessing up means possibly being the worst employee in the world. I’m supposed to be training her and I’m going to tell her that this isn’t working – for either of us.

See, she is creative and her strength is in her personality and her network. I have fun when I’m with her and we laugh a lot. And even if we are not laughing a lot I “get” the opportunities that she seizes for herself. She just doesn’t look for a job so she can go punch in and out somewhere. She is a great resource for people and knows it. I completely identify with her. In fact, we have talked many times about how we are sick of giving away free advice and ideas and that we have both decided that it was high time to get paid for our helpful ways. So, I need to tell her that the “anger” that she might have thought I was feeling was really distance. Distance from the company that we both have been working for and the unrealistic expectations of its leader. Some days the only thing I can bring myself to call him is “that bastard” and it’s only to myself because you’re supposed to support your boss – right? We were on the same river, her and I… and neither of us had a paddle.

I tell her that I think we should work together. I’m not exactly sure how or on what, but I’ve been wanting to focus on the creative side of the business for years now. Between the two of us, we could do some really fun things. And “fun” is the operative word. We both know life is rich and we are too “unique” to work for someone else for the rest of our lives, and my experience with this jerk is starting to seal my fate. We are passionate about helping people create a business from dream or idea, not trying to ram someone’s shitty product down your throat.

The cat’s out of the bag and we decide to talk about it over lunch (big surprise). But we have a big problem: what are we going to do about her? She doesn’t want to quit because she needs the money, but HATES the job. I start taking notes and thinking up how we can fix this. “Ok, let’s get our thoughts down on paper. Let’s have a plan.” I actually still have the notes: Project Basis, Not her MOJO, Loves the product, and then a long list of what’s wrong and the areas where she can be of value. “I know!” I say, “I’ll tell him you were crying about it!” (Great plan, genius) She looks at me like I’m crazy.

 We finally decide that she has to stay because she feels she has no choice. I’m not really sure why she feels she has no choice, but that’s it. Heck, she could work at CVS and make just as much money per week with no stress! So we leave to go back to her house.

Then we U-Turn. Literally. In the road, we U-turn. It happens in slow motion and I look down at my arm as I feel the car turning. She forgot her pad with all her notes at the restaurant. She’s turning the car, but we are on the outside lane. That means that there is a line of traffic next to us. Do I scream? No. I start laughing. Laughing because we weren’t hurt, laughing because she was so oblivious that there was a world around us, laughing because we need that damn pad, and laughing because we are back at square one. ~Seltzer

U Turns can be against the law 🙂

She comes over again, this time we sit in the kitchen and have coffee. I finally am getting out of my mouth-I just cannot fathom doing this job. She confesses to knowing that I am dying inside-we laugh and a weight has been lifted. Now that we get that out-of-the-way, what do we do about it?

Time for lunch-head to Bertucci’s-bring a pad and a purse. While there we sit and start laughing, this is totally wrong on every level. She thinks WE should work together (oh my god-my moons or something must be aligned this is crazy) we laugh a lot and she begins to tell me all her opinions on what has happened so far. Could this be for real?

I love the idea, we connect and our strengths and weakness’ coincide to make a perfect team. But, what to do about our current situation is the question? We came up with many plans, almost to easy. One plan, she decides she will tell him I was crying about it. I tell her that is not likely so don’t use that one. Then we decide the best way out of this is to see if she can convince him to have me stay on doing other stuff instead of door-to-door sales. Good plan, we will go with it. If it works then I can start building our company while she is out selling.

Maybe not-maybe we just leave it like this until then end of the year. We go back and forth about plans for awhile-making sure we have thought about every angle. However, one thing’s for sure-she will not tell him I am crying. LOL!

We leave the restaurant; this is so bad-can it be we are about to embark on a journey together? What if he finds out, what if he kills us-well that is not going to happen he has a limp.

We drive away and I realize I left my pad on the table. OMG, what if someone sees my notes and they know him and then they tell him. I immediately U_TURN on a 4 lane road-literally almost killing us. I pull over; we are laughing but only because it was an immediate reaction to almost dying. We drive back to get the pad.

PHEW-on to our new mission! ~PINK