For some reason today, I thought about an event that happened in the spring of 2007, and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head.
For the life of me, I can’t remember the month, but I do know it was warmer out, so I would guess late April or early May. I working quite a but for i/o Computers, and really starting to get stressed out from work since I was now the department manager. The one day, I was taking a walk and listening to a podcast called ‘Security Now’ with Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte. One of their sponsors for the show was a company called Nerds On Site. After doing some reading, I learned that it was a franchise, and that indeed there were none in the area. Being overworked by the 2 jobs, I thought that maybe this would be something that could be the salvation I was looking for. I went through the application process, and was given a date for orientation.
Their orientation was all done online with a group of people through shared voice, video, and Power Point presentations. I remember this day well for some reason. I got home from work fairly quickly since I didn’t want to miss the orientation. All the windows were open in the living room, and a beautiful breeze was blowing through, so I decided to take the meeting on the laptop. I setup a table and plugged in my headset. I got through all the introductions from the person running it in Canada. After that, we watched some intro videos. While the premise was intriguing, the overall startup cost was a lot more then I was looking to invest at the time. But, trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, I stayed until the end of the videos. We all chatted after that, and then headed into the Power Point presentations. Being absolutely exhausted from all the hours I was putting in, I could feel myself starting to nod off. Who could blame me? I was sitting there on a beautiful spring later afternoon with a nice breeze blowing through the room.
The next thing I knew, I was waking up on the couch. Apparently Jess came in and I was sitting up, asleep, still on the conference chat with the Power Point presentations still running on my laptop. She took off my headset, closed my laptop, and let me lay down.
I remember this for a few reasons. First, I remember that I was looking for an easy out from a situation in which I was totally overwhelmed. I now realize that there is no such thing. Secondly, I remember feeling excited going in thinking that this was something that was totally for me, and then upon hearing about how many thousands of dollars I would have to initially lay out just to become an authorized franchise, I was slightly depressed. Third, I remember how exhausted I was and that all I wanted to do was slow down and rest, but something in me kept pushing me to do more. And last but not least, I remember how kind Jess was to remove my headset, close my laptop, and let me sleep. In my eyes, she forgave me for not being a Superman and let me go back to being human. She cared more about me then I did.
I’m not too sure why I thought about that today at work, but it’s been in my head all day. Funny how that happens sometimes.
