"thanks, MTV, for pimping my life!" --Ben
after watching the first episode, season II of Pimp My Ride on MTV, i am convinced yet again that i need a career that exploits my creative talent and my love of cars. my current job is just fine--i manage a car repair shop. and the previous job was helpful too--selling cars. before that, i was managing a detail shop.
great.
but it seems like i'm working backwards, both financially and career-wise.
to be happy with your career, you really have to find a job that isn't a job. something that you wake up in the morning and actually want to get out of bed for. something you don't mind staying late to finish. something that you focus on so intently that you catch yourself drooling.
i've had those things before, just not now. at least for now i can keep telling myself that everything i'm doing is preparing me for a future in whatever i want to do. i scan the classifieds each sunday in hopes of finding that very future, but all i find is jobs that call for people to be Somebody Else's Bitch doing something i probably wouldn't enjoy because i'd be working for someone else's benefit and playing by someone else's rules.
later that night while lying in bed for hours staring at the ceiling, i again conjured up all these crazy ideas about going back to college for Automotive Restoration (yes, that is a major!) or Hot Rod school.. or something. but with the current financial sinkhole that i'm in, anything but staying in the rat race is completely out of the question.
is it selfishness? am i a perfectionist? am i not willing to pay my dues by working for someone else? or is it simply ok to want exactly what i want out of a job and have the sole benefactor be ME and MY future family, instead of my efforts benefiting a boss? is it okay to dislike the corporate, one-size-fits-all mentality?
perhaps i've simply read too many issues of Professional Carwashing & Detailing magazine.
a detail shop would suit me just fine. one with several bays. with an automatic car wash. landscaping out front. impeccable grounds. an asphalt driveway so clean you could eat off of it. a car lift for doing some tinkering and customizing. a couple cars for sale out front. customers who enjoy spending their money on the work i'm peddling.
and i want to be the one with the keys to the building. i want to call the shots. i want to decide the direction my company takes. i want to choose my suppliers. my employees. my services. i want to choose the station we play on the shop radio. everything. i want to play Small Business Owner, like i did as a kid with the "Pop Shop" back home on the farm.
ahh, the Pop Shop. as kids, we had a wooden storefront next to the garage on the farm--kinda like lucy's psychiatric help desk in peanuts. this was where my brothers and i pretended to sell sodas, groceries, and random tractor parts to anyone who would walk by (mainly grandma, mom and dad.) it was my first taste of entrepreneurism. it was also the time i slashed my thumb open on one of those old-school oil cans with the metal lids. it bled like hell.
i digress.
the Pop Shop was the start of it all, i think. as i got older, the Pop Shop faded into memory, especially when someone unloaded some boiler plate on top of it and crushed the fucker flat with the earth. that was the end. but not the end of my entrepreneurial spirit.
anyone want to invest in my business? anyone? *crickets chirping*
