Thirty Years Later: A Perspective

An ancient Poloroid from 1996

My first gig as a bicycle mechanic started in late 1993, but it almost never happened. I noted that it was 30 years ago this month when something that I thought was terrible at the time happened to me. 

At the time, I had been working as a salesman/bench jeweler/designer for a local jeweler for about a decade already. I had gone through gemology school, was a second place finisher in a state-wide design contest, and I was the top salesperson in a three-store chain. Things were looking good, career-wise, and while I wasn't pulling down crazy money doing this jewelry job, I was making a decent living. I had no worries. 

But that all ended one day when I came into work in November 1993. A partner in the business, who was also an owner of a jewelry store in another city, but not directly affiliated with where I worked, had a love interest in my boss, and was jealous of all the time I spent with my boss. So, I was fired. 

And there ya go. I had no job for the first time since I was in the fifth grade. I was about 32 years old at this point, by the way. I was devastated. I had no idea what to do, but going on unemployment was where I ended up immediately afterward. 

Part of that entailed having to "look for work" so I could claim benefits to keep myself afloat until I figured out what to do. I had to turn in evidence of three applications for jobs every week. I was into cycling then, so I used my local bike shop, where I had purchased my 1992 Klein Attitude, as a reference. 

Since I didn't really have anything to do, I would stop by the bike shop last, and then I'd hang out until they closed. Finally, the owner sidled up to me one day and proposed that I might be able to get a job there, but it wouldn't be at the pay scale I was used to. I jumped on that immediately.

The rest, as they say, was history. I became an apprentice of the owner, learned a lot, and well, you probably can figure out some of the rest now. But if it hadn't been for a weird jealousy that motivated a firing, I might not be sitting here writing this blog post. 

And that whole ordeal turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me. Obviously, at the point when I was fired, you'd have been hard-pressed to convince me of that! But now? Yeah.... I'm very happy it all went down the way that it did.