Or as a plaque in my grandfather’s office read: Don’t let the bastards grind you down. You can read more about the origin of the quote here. The funny thing about that is that I read that quote so many times through my childhood that I started to use it whenever people were in a bad spot, or a tough position. The earliest that I can remember using it was when I was 13 in my first band, and a friend was having trouble with his parents, and unable to make practice.

I don’t recall my father or my grandfather ever saying that quote to me, or around me, but I certainly remember that plaque that hung in my grandfather’s office. I would say that quote is as timely as ever now. It’s easier than ever to take a look around at unemployment, bankruptcies, home foreclosures, and think it’s someoneelse’s fault. Somebody else is to blame for my situation, or my predicament, but the only thing that we can control is ourselves, and to some extent our situation.

I believe that through attitude, and foresight we can create the trajectory for our life. If we want to be bummed out, rejected, and unhappy with what life gives us, we can, but we’re in charge of that. That’s not to say that this is about some kind of happy, happy, joy, joy affirmation perspective, but it is to say that if we want to ride the suck express, then all aboard, because there’s always room. However, it’s the hope train to tomorrow that’s going to get you off on the right foot and creating a trajectory that’s going to keep you moving forward towards life-enhancing opportunity and joy.

In fact, that’s one of the craziest things that I’ve noticed in life. When I start doing something, and I’m working at it, the endeavor takes on a life of its own. It becomes less about you and more about taking care of the thing that you’ve created. The first couple times I realized this it threw me, because I was on a trip and I wanted to get off. Sometimes, though, there’s no getting off. You have to ride the whole trip. Which, on the one hand, prevents you from beingwishy -washy with the things you build, but on the other hand a sort of synergy is created where the process of what you’re doing intersects with some kind of unseen energy, or current that just keeps flowing out from the thing you created.

The take-away is that if you want to put yourself on a positive life trajectory then be prepared to build something. Even through the tough times, don’t let the bastards grind you down, and eventually things will take off on their own.

I walked out to where me and other guy would be working and sat atop a mound of soil that I had created the week before. I was fuming and just sat there in the early morning August sun, silent. The guy was working and he sensed my agitation, introduced himself, and asked what was wrong. We talked for a few minutes, but I didn’t really have much to say. I had no plan, and no prospects, and I was not only being cheated, but also taken advantage of. I had nothing. Knowing this I carried on for a few more days, and earned back the time to pay for the sessions, and earn enough time for another session, but the elderly southern gentleman, while old, was no dummy and quite an astute conniver. He knew I had no prospects and he kept sticking me up and holding the training hostage. It was starting to feel like indentured servitude, and pretty soon I would owe him more than he owed me according to his relative method of accounting.

After another couple weeks of this routine and horrific training, I had enough. I walked out of the training and into the office of the elderly southern gentleman. I didn’t know what I would say, or do, because I was young, and Detroit was a small town. Word in the A/V business could travel fast. I collected myself the best I could, and told him that I would be discontinuing the training. He gave me a lot of trouble, told me that he had set aside a place for me, and all this and that. I told him, that I would have to respectfully decline. I also told him that by my estimate he owed $50 and that I wanted to square up. He told me that he didn’t have any money and that I should be paying him for the privilege. I asked if he needed to go to the office or an ATM and get cash. He told me I would take a check for a lesser amount, I told him that I wouldn’t. He told me that I was ungrateful. I insisted that I be paid for my time. He told me I did a bad job and deserved nothing.

He tried every attempt at breaking me down. The elderly southern gentleman with his white suits and black cain, looking like some kind of senior knock-off, Leon Redbone kept up his act, until finally he told me that I was making a big mistake by leaving his employ and that word of my not completing things would catch up with me. He pulled two twenties and two fives from his wallet and threw them on the floor in front of me. I was broke. Not missing a beat, I picked them up and shot out his door in a single motion.

At the time, with no prospects and no opportunities, and also being young, I had no idea what I was doing. He may have been right for all I knew, but it didn’t matter. I had to make the choice. I had to do what was right for me. In the end, I never did break into A/V in Detroit, and not long after that I took a job as an administrative assistant. Work wasn’t great, but I did get to work with computers, pay was good, and I wasn’t sweating in the hot sun. While I don’t know how things would have turned out if I had stayed, things certainly have been better for leaving, even if it did take a long time to reconcile that.

Do you have any stories like this? I’d like start a featuring stories like this, contact me with your ideas.

All throughout our lives we’re faced with situations. Most of these situations don’t require much, perhaps some research, advice from parents or colleagues who’ve had to make similar choices before. We evaluate what’s before us and we make a decision to move forward. These are the easiest situations to deal with. However, sometimes, thankfully not all that often, situations arise where there’s nobody to offer advice, and your only guide is your personal ethical and moral compass. These are situations where you really have to sit yourself down and evaluate what you’re faced with and how it may or may not affect your life down the road. These kinds of circumstances almost always test your integrity, because there’s usually something fundamental and core to your being that’s at question.

The tenuous relationship between you and your integrity is the feeling when you’re at the crossroads of something in your life that’s big or has the possibility of becoming something very large if you don’t act swiftly and decisively. In situations like this there’s almost always a component sacrifice or loss that comes with doing what you know is right, but is neither comfortable or very appealing. It’s the conflicted feeling that is the tenuous relationship between you and integrity.

I remember one time, early in my career, as I was working trying to break into the corporate video business in Detroit. The economy was in the toilet, and there was a lot of desperation. The desperation became most apparent whenever I showed up to interviews. I was fresh out of broadcasting school, I had a pretty good reel, and I was still there like all the other new upstarts groveling at the feet of studio and post house owners trying to get any kind of job, even a coffee boy, that might allow the opportunity to get a foot in the door. After nearly a year and a half of interviews and few prospects I met an elderly southern gentleman (I say gentleman sarcastically, because he was no gentleman at all, but we’ll get to that) who was willing to give me a chance, but there was a catch… Isn’t there always?

He would give me a chance to work in his studio and actually work on the gear, but he’d only do it in exchange for me landscaping his house. The closest I had ever gotten to landscaping had been planting a tree when I was in the Cub Scouts. I explained this to him with the hope that he would have mercy and cut me some slack, and just let me in. Ha! No such luck, the elderly southern gentleman was willing to teach me. So the next day, on a hot August morning, I showed up with a thermos of water and two bologna sandwiches. The deal was for every eight hours I worked I could earn $40 that would be put towards a special studio program that he had worked out with his son, who actually ran the studio. And the $40 for studio time actually came out to only two hours of studio learning with the “chance” — I have to put chance in big fat air quotes — that I could get an opportunity to participate in a shoot or work in the audio studio, for free of course, but the chance to practice my craft. So let’s review, eight hours of labor for $40 that could be put towards two hours of studio time that *might* lead to a chance to actually do A/V work for free as an intern. It was a horrible deal, but I was desperate and hopeful. Sometimes, hope is all you have especially when you’re desperate. I sweated it out for several weeks, working roughly four days a week that culminated in a six hour studio learning time session each Friday. The lessons were not good. The yahoo son of the elderly southern gentleman was a washed up rock and roller who landed on the wrong side of the coke spoon too many times, and his feathered hair, straight from a Journey cover group, being tossed about as he covered the most basic aspects of audio, was doing little for me.

Still hopeful and still desperate, the first week-earned session had ended. Time to start back up again on Monday accruing more learning time. When I got to the site on Monday I noticed two things. First off, there was a guy already there, working, and a lot of the work that I had done the week before had been undone. I went to the office and asked the bleery-eyed elderly southern gentleman what happend to the work I did all last week. As he wiped the sleep from his eyes he told me that I hadn’t’ done a good job and he had gone and redone it himself… There wasn’t much to the job, it was mostly spending the day bent over pulling weeds and rocks out of a small field of which I had accrued nearly 15 wheel barrows full by week’s end. This guy was probably 90 years old, seriously, no joke, so I just stood there agog imagining this old man doing that back-breaking work. He told me that he apprised the new upstart of the project and that moving forward I would have company. He then went on to tell me that he would dock me for all of the previous week’s time, and so effectively, I was working to pay back the session of the previous Friday. I became smoking hot, and started to argue with him. He held all the cards. I walked out.

To be continued on Wednesday, 09/30/09…