A Season of Change
The Summer that Changed Everything
In so many ways, that summer was a gift. Sure, the healing process for my nearly severed right ring finger was painful and uncomfortable. I had to wear this removable splint on it, I couldn’t write, many things were awkward, since I’m right-handed. But, on the other hand, I had all this free time on my hands. I feel like I used it the best way I could have.
I read a lot, which I love to do, but I also spent more time in the city — for all intents and purposes, I moved in with Kathy, in her apartment in the lower Northeast. During the day, I would spend time getting to know other group members who either worked nights, like I had been doing before my injury, or did not work at all.
I was going through the 12 steps with my sponsor. Fortunately, I had finished writing my 4th step before the accident, which was the only one that involved writing. What became evident, as I was going through the process, was my life became much calmer, and the obsessive nature of my thinking was slipping away. I found that I just stopped following the thoughts that previously would escalate into acting out, obsessively. This was truly a gift.
Despite not really living there much anymore, I did spend more time with my father, mostly working with him on some of his furniture repair and refinishing projects. This was his retirement side job, something he’d gotten good at, repairing and refinishing a lot of the furniture we’d inherited from his mother’s house when she’d moved out of it, in 1970.
One time, when he and Mom had friends over to play bridge, someone commented on the antique table they were playing on, and when Dad mentioned that he’d refinished it, they asked if he could do the same for a table they had. From there, his business took off, by word-of-mouth. He always had more work than he had time to do it all, but it was something he dearly loved. I wouldn’t trade the gift of having that summer to work with him at his beloved craft, for anything in the world. It was the start of a bonding process with my father that would eventually lead to a deep and rich friendship, something neither of us ever expected would, or could, happen for us.
Granted, I was a one-handed helper, but I found I could do a lot with my one, non-dominant hand, and I did. Dad taught me a lot about his process. He had two little rocking chairs that he’d picked up, one of which he was refinishing for their house. The other one, he showed me how to refinish, and let me do the job. When I was done, he said, “That’s for you and Kathy. When and if she is ever pregnant, she can sit in that chair and rock back and forth, something that often brings comfort to one who is pregnant.” As a father of seven, I guessed that was something he knew about. It was a true gift.
Kathy did eventually sit in that chair and rock when she was pregnant, and is still a chair she loves, still quite sturdy after all these years. Dad had taught me well. It often makes me think of him, and that summer we had a lot of time to spend together.
One day that summer, I received something in the mail that would change the course of my life. It was an invitation to come into the offices of the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) in the city for a job interview. The job was a Supply Clerk-Typist position, at the GS-4 level (an annual salary of $12,431, which was less than I was making in the machine shop). At first, I wasn’t sure why I was even receiving it — I hadn’t recently been applying for jobs anywhere. I was quite happy with my Machine Shop job.
Then I remembered, when I’d first moved back to the area, I’d done a lot of applying in a lot of places, including down at the Federal Building in the city, where I’d taken a civil services exam, qualifying me for a number of positions. Since I was a fast typist, I had taken their typing test, qualifying at 65 words per minute. They’d put me on a list of qualified applicants, and apparently the USDA liked what they saw, and wanted to interview me for a job with them.
The interview was at 8:30 in the morning. If I had not been off of work with my injury, there’s no way I would have gone in for that interview, since I was used to not getting off work until 3 a.m. But, since I was not working at the time, I went in for the interview, just because I could. I was curious what this job was all about, though still not all that interested in leaving my machinist apprentice gig. The interview went well, but when I didn’t hear anything from them for weeks, I just assumed someone else got the job.
My finger eventually healed up enough that I was able to go back to work. At the end of my first week back, I got a call from the USDA. They wanted to hire me, and wanted to know when I could start. I told them I’d have to get back to them, and hung up the phone with a new dilemma on my hands. What to do?
As I thought it through, I knew I didn’t want to leave my machinist job. I really liked it. But, the government job sounded intriguing. When I talked to my Dad and Kathy about it, both encouraged me to take the government job. For starters, it was in the city. I could move in with Kathy for good, and move out of my parents’ house. I wasn’t quite sure if I was ready for that. I liked the arrangement of spending weekends with her, and the weeks working and living at my parents. I liked living in those two worlds. I really didn’t want to give that up, just yet.
But, the government job really did seem to have the most possibilities for a future, and the most plusses on the plus-minus scale. A bit reluctantly, I decided to accept the job. It turned out to be a pretty good choice. After going through 17 jobs in 4 years, I have remained working for the USDA, FSIS for the past 34 ½ years, and the opportunity for advancement far exceeded my wildest expectations. I started out as a GS-4, and am now a senior executive with the same agency.
I’ll never forget talking to the manager at Precision Automation, letting him know I would be leaving. I needed to find out if they could let me go in a week, or if they needed a few weeks’ notice. He shook his head and said, “You’re leaving this opportunity to become a master machinist for a government clerk job? There’s no future in that. You’re making a big mistake. But, it’s your life. You can go in a week.”
Each time, over the course of my long career with FSIS, that I’ve received a promotion, I’ve remembered that conversation, and his words. For once in my life, faced with a life-changing decision, I made the right one. I listened to the right advice (that of my father and fiancé) and was not swayed by someone else’s self-serving advice. It has been a valuable lesson.
