The Memo

The Memo was Originally Posted on August 20, 2014 by lavarock

There are still a few people out there who never got the memo, so for them, here is why I moved to Hawaii.

I started by working for my Father in construction. Because I was living at home, he paid the contractors, subcontractors and his bills and my paycheck paid for room and board.

I then worked for a lady electrician, a service station and for a carpet installer. There was the owner, me and the crew chief. The crew chief and I were out on a job laying carpeting when the crew chief gets a call. We are out of business because the boss was just found sitting in his truck outside the local bar, dead.

I work a number of perhaps 15 jobs in a number of industries, including satellite TV, Ham Radio, inventory control, television station installation and twice a Disk Jockey/Air Personality at a radio station.

I finally settle down at a large computer company where I remain for about 18 years. I like my job and am good at it, but the company changes and the new CEO decided to cut tens of thousands of positions, mine included. I have to give them credit, they essentially gave us an early retirement package and I got unemployment for a while after leaving.

I finally was hired by a third-party company and was a subcontractor at the same company I “retired” from, but at half the poay rate I had months ago. Still it was going to tide me over until I could finalize my future plans.

Many years earlier I had taken a very good deal to travel to Hawaii and fell in love with the place. After Atlanta, Hawaii was like “paradise” I found a coffee farm and would be come a coffee farmer.

So I go to work in the same building I was working at but this time in the basement and a very different job. I report on Monday morning and set my items down in my cubicle. I await the guy I am replacing, whom I met on Friday afternoon and is going to train me all this week. As I have a cup of coffee I meet some of my team mates as they come in. “Why don’t you sit down” I was asked. Well, I don’t want to sit in John’s chair was my answer. Don’t worry, he left on Friday and is not coming back. I said that I thought he was supposed to train me this week. I was told that he got upset with the job and his lot in life and he ain’t coming back.

I went upstairs to talk to my boss (whom I knew from my prior stint at the company). You should be down stairs for your training, he said. I explained that was not going to happen.  I can’t say he was all that surprised. He then said to me “Well, you will catch on. By the way, your first escalation meeting will be at 9am”. First escalation meeting? Yes, it appears there were two a day about a problem that was very serious.

It appears that a year earlier, this group set up a computer for an external customer, a big, important customer. The system backups failed and the system manager did some investigation on the problem but never found out why they could not back up the system. Flash forward to a fairly recent failure and the customers system failed. They asked for it to be restored to yesterday. Ahhh Houston, we have a problem. ell, OK, go to yesterdays backup. Aye Captain, the warp engines… How about last week? No dice.

It is bad enough to tell a major customer that you have lost their data and cannot recover it. It is even worse to then tell the customer that you knew that the data was not being backed up over the past year and stopped looking for the problem.

That was where I cam into the picture, trying to add some expertise to the situation.

I listened to the issues and asked a couple questions of the old system manager. I then did a Google search and found an external customer with the exact same problem and a solution. I set up a test computer, tested the solution and salved the problem, all within a few days to a week or so. I think, had I still been an employee of the main company, I would have had a parade or an item in the cafeteria named after me. Instead I got a hearty handshake.

I cherish my time with the company though and as my prior boss used to jokingly remind me, the company was paying me way too much for what I did. I may have proved my worth just 3 or 4 times in that 18 years, but those 3 or 4 times were doozies.

So during this time, I was awaiting my closing and house sale and when I was ready to leave for good, UI offered to teach my replacement.

Setting up the farm was more difficult than I imagined but I did it. I am also the owner and only employee. I like being able to appoint myself “Employee of the Month”, to decide it is “bring your dogs to work day” and every day is casual day.

By the way, I also have an unlimited supply of coffee for myself and no escalation meetings!

Life is sweet!