Life is Everchanging

Life is so unpredictable and seems to take extreme turns without notice. I am often in awe of how life seems to move you into different directions even without self input. Recently, one of those changes occurred to me that I am very excited about.

For almost 5 years I have worked at PepsiCo as a contract technician. The job came about accidentally like so many life changes often do. The commute has always been awful having to travel 120 miles a day round trip. Then add toll fees, gas, maintenance, repairs, traffic, road rage, accidents, heat, rain, snow, etc. and it doesn't take long to see it's not a good situation just to get there and back every day. At first the job was fine, but soon after and up until I resigned, I found I was so often completely taken advantage of as are most contractors to PepsiCo. The employees have an elevated sense of entitlement and privilege because they are employed by PepsiCo and carry that attitude with them with raised chins and extended necks as they look down upon contractors as sub-workers. My department in particular only had two employees and one contractor, me. It soon became evident that I was to be worked dry while the two employees enjoyed their privileged status by disappearing unaccounted for throughout the day for hours at a time, leaving for lunch and not returning, making their own hours which conveniently seemed to fall outside of the busiest times of the day, while leaving and expecting me, the contractor, to keep up with all of the work while they enjoyed their days at home and play as they drew a paycheck.

Mondays and Fridays were without fail, the two days one of them if not both, would call in with a sudden illness that was so bad they wouldn't be able to make it in for the day. I was always amazed how someone could acquire a new illness every Monday and Friday. The manager would call in sick weekly on one if not both of those days, and then claim to be "Working from home" on another which meant he would answer an email to justify his time sitting at home and getting paid. On the few days he would allow an interruption of his life at home by showing up at work, he would arrive at 9:30am leave at 11:30am for a 2-3 hour lunch, and if he even returned, he would close out his day at 4:00pm. PepsiCo employees rely heavily on the reliability and consistency of  its hard working contractors to keep their company running because, after all, they are too entitled to full fill the work necessary and are often times simply incapable of performing their jobs at all. And through this I was ordered by the manager to make sure our department had a polished look to the company. This was simply a cover up for the indiscretions of the two baffoons I worked with so their inappropriate habits wouldn't be found out. Even after I had left the company justified its typical unprofessional behavior as I had to endure harassing calls to my personal phone from the manager.

At the beginning of 2015 I had enough of the abuse of performing not only my work responsibilities but of the other two people I worked with while they enjoyed paid life outside of work. I made some calls, sent out my resume, did some phone interviews but just didn't have that feel good sense about any of them. I figured this go around, since I was employed, I would take my time searching for something that I wanted to do, not take a job just to keep a check flowing.

Fort Worth Harley Davidson will be expanding and opening a new dealership in Burleson, TX sometime mid summer. I began considering whether working for them would be a possibility. I worked on my resume to have it ready in case something opened up. Then on a Monday in early March, Margaret called me and said they had posted about an opening in Service. I was ready! I sent my resume off immediately to the service manager. That same Monday evening I was taking my bike to the dealership to have a wheel bearing replaced. I walked in, saw the service manager, and introduced myself. I was surprised when he pulled me into his office and gave me a spontaneous 1.5 hour interview. This was one of those times where you know it was meant to be. We meshed perfectly and got along like we had known each other for years. At no time was there any awkwardness. He said he liked my skill sets and personality and believed I would be a good fit at the dealership. He said he had a good "Gut feeling" that I would be perfect for the job.

Obviously I accepted the offer and am excited to be the newest Service Writer for Fort Worth Harley Davidson. The timing and just how the position came about without effort made it clear that I needed to move into a completely new career direction. And to have that career within something that I have a passion for, Harley Davidson, provided further confirmation that life was moving me in another path.

I'll be in training for almost 3 months to learn all of the processes and details of the position. It's a bit of a change from what I've been doing for 5 years but there are similarities in managing processes and organizational necessities that fall directly into the Service Writer position. Next time your around Fort Worth Harley stop in to service and say hello and if you need work done on your bike ask for me and I'll be there for you.