CHESSNOID

I think this year has been a challenging one for most people including myself.  The recession has really affected most everyone I know.   After a few years of this economic downturn, it’s impossible not to know someone down on their luck.

Back when I graduated from college in 1988, I remember we were in a recession too and times were tough but it wasn’t the whole country all at the same time.  It definitely wasn’t in every field either.  I think it took me over 3 months to get a job and it wasn’t anywhere close to the dream job I had hoped to land after finishing school.

Ironically, that is the first job in my career and the first boss (his name was Eric) that  had that motivated me to excel in my work.  Eric  listened to those motivational type tapes and put them to practice.  He was naturally personable and loved all sports.    Those two traits helped him attract all sorts of new business in our field.  I learned many things from him and his management style.  I remember his boss named Ray was a total jerk.  He was the type of guy who walked over other people to get ahead and stabbed them in the back to make sure he didn’t have future enemies.   That may be an exaggeration but that’s the way it appeared to me when I was 21 years old.

Every morning Ray would call each office in his district and yell at the managers  for lack of production or just because he was in a bad mood.  I remember after this daily morning ritual, I  asked Eric why he didn’t yell at us (his employees) since his boss did it to all the managers.  He said it was counter productive and would put him in a bad mood which would result in higher turnover of his own employees.   He also said that it wasn’t worth wasting the time and effort of changing the attitudes of others around you when they were not open to change.  Ray was obviously not open to any changes.

I left that position after 2 years and completing the company management training program.  I took the skills I learned with me and applied them to all the other jobs I had after that. I literally excelled in the other companies I worked for usually being promoted to a supervisor and manager in a short period of time by producing excellent numbers.  It’s funny that the skill set I learned in motivating people was probably the most enjoyable part of my collections career.

I still keep in touch with Eric even after all these years.  Mind you, this relationship started before face book, emails,or even the Internet.  (Wow, I am old!).  Hopefully, the new college graduates coming out into this recession will be lucky enough to get a boss who cares and can teach to succeed.