A Job

Yesterday I started my new job in earnest. Its a sales job. Its door to door. No...I am not selling vacuums (my dear friend has a terrific story about a Kirby sales call made to her home involving a vibrating attachment...but I will retell it only with her permission). I am selling something that people actually want; cable, Internet, and phone service from Comcast.

No...this is not my dream job...but it is something for which I am aptly suited, requiring determination, guile, the ability to think on ones feet, and a certain imperiousness to rejection. Its also a job that is, to a degree, immune to the ebb and flow of the global economy which is a far cry from mortgages. People want to be entertained and they are loathe to give up cable TV or the Internet even in the leanest of times.

And these have indeed been lean times. I made the mistake that many people make in lean times. They. No. We, we loose sight of whats important in life and let the crisis at hand define who we are. We also let what we do define who we are. I was a mortgage broker and when that career began to evaporate I found myself adrift. Now I am the cable guy...wait...that doesn't sound right...but you get the idea. I had forgotten that work is what we do...not who we are. Its a means to an end and that end is the ability to live our lives and provide for our families. I work to live...I do not live to work. But work I must.

So last night, for the first time in months and months I slept through the night and I awoke with a feeling that I have not felt since the spring. I felt normal. A job and all that comes with it will do that for a man.

I can't wait to go to work tomorrow.