The Day I took the Blinders Off

It’s 1986; I’ve been working at Stripling Blake for about 3 years. Started as a yard dog and worked until I became a top salesmen in inside sales before I began training to become an outside salesmen—which was the dream job for young guys like me—especially being the youngest outside salesmen in the history of the company. I was 21 when I finally finished my training. I was making $28,000 at the time, which I thought was an unlimited amount of money. Bought a new four door Subaru, it had a radio antenna, chrome rims, and just looked so cool. I did what I thought was a terrific job, my employer did too, everything was great.

I came up the stairs one day and see this girl, Kay, she was crying. I asked her what was wrong and she says, “They’re laying everyone off.” I didn’t have any real idea of what she meant. So I start walking through this sea of cubicles, and in a plant of about 125 people—it’s a good-sized lumberyard—that makes for a lot of cubicles. Being the low man on the totem poll, I had my space all the way in the back. Walking down this aisle leading to my desk, I see that all of these cubicles have been vacated; these people don’t have their jobs anymore. I’m sitting there; I have no idea what to do. I’m dumbfounded. Back in these old days, we didn’t have cell phones so we couldn’t text or check the news. Eventually, my boss comes up to me and says, “I need to see you in my office.”

I start thinking, “here we go, this is it, and this man is going to put the proverbial bullet in me.” So I walk in and there they sit, all of the top guys in the business. At this point, I’m just waiting for them to say it. Instead, they tell me, “You still have your job,” and here it comes, “but we’re going to have to cut your pay by 20% and we need you to move back down to the counter.” They had told me they had laid off some huge number of people; I was lucky to still have my job, mostly, I think, because I was young and hard working.

So I go home to my wife and started crying like some 5 year old who got my toys taken away. The worst part of the ordeal was going back to the meeting later that night. I swore to myself right there that I would start paying attention. Up until this point, I thought that’s just how life was. As it turns out there’s this thing called the economy, and with it interest rates, and collapsing loans with foreclosures. From that point forward I read newspapers and articles. In getting your blinders off, it’s important to look at both sides of the argument to develop a well-rounded and informed opinion. When life punches you in the nose, it’s a wake-up call. Whenever I go anywhere, even if I’m shopping, I look at what people are buying, just to get an idea of the latest trends. What are people spending their money on? They have to ask questions to get answers. In doing so, there’s no longer an excuse to be young and dumb, you need to be young and informed.