Stop in for a cup of coffee
I have a question....
What have you not done? Really? You have done more in your what, 30, 35 years, then most in there entire life's.
Well I started working a w2 paying job at 14. Grew up on a working farm, raised my my maternal grandparents since my parents had 5 kids and I was the oldest, I got sent to live with my grandparents. so it was pretty much learn a variety of skills and how to adapt.
From the time I was 12 on, I literally was only home to sleep. Everything from doing search and rescue missions with CAP and the American Red Cross. At 14, I started working various concession stands at the area fairs and carnivals. Spent the summer of my freshman year pouring concrete for my cousins construction outfit, my sophomore summer was spent working the top cattle ranch in Indiana with nearly 2500 head of cattle. joined the Guard at 17 because I wanted a steady paycheck monthly. Wasn’t much.
At 18, 2 weeks before graduation, I was homeless, long story there, managed to work a deal with my now father in law and a former Army 1st Sgt, to stay in his garage in exchange for helping him re-do some roofs he’d picked up on the side. I was already dating his daughter and for some reason, he trusted me from the get go. Later that year, I started working security jobs after I finished my army training, and while going to school and ROTC full time. Worked 10p to 6a on a 6 on, 3 off rotation rotc at 645, class at 9, ended around 4-6 depending on the day. Slept my freshman thru junior year mostly in the back of my truck on campus or at rest stops between work and campus.
After i blew out my knee half way thru my junior year, i was forced out of rotc, took most of my remaining courses as distance learning or accelerated test outs, that same time, while I was stuck in bed and couldn’t drive, I started picking up a couple hours at the diesel performance shop down the road from my father in law, rebuilding turbos and injection pumps for them. That expanded into a project R and D role a few days a week giving me a ton of access to the dyno, which is how I tuned and built my truck. , all the while I was still working my night security job and the Guard stuff. I then got to start driving the truck at a few various sled pulling events. Continued that for several years. Then a buddy of mine talked me into getting off night shift and starting out as a building maintenance man for a company in Indy building mining and oil drill machines. A couple months of that, they figured I could weld and fab well enough, moved me into an apprenticeship role as a fabrication specialist. Company CFO got caught stealing the company’s Money, but before they could recover, he’d left the country with it. Ended up closing that place down as a result, right as my wife was pregnant with our first.
So I was laid off, worked a seasonal job driving forklifts for Menards, after that, Toyota hired me as a temp, I drove parts tuggers for them for about a month before I got talked into getting my insurance licenses and started my own insurance agency and was selling insurance for Farmers, 21st, and Bristol west for a couple years, wasn’t doing very well at all with it, so I got picked upto be a residential advisor for the Department of Labors Job Corp program, eventually closed up the insurance gig and took a Supervisor position with DoL. then I got a call from a job recruiter, she’d ran across my resume online and was looking for an entry level tech writer and someone to train up on CAD work for Cummins. So I took it, taught myself various CAD software in my evenings And 5 years later now, I’m a Design Engineer with a Masters degree in Business.
I’m not as clueless and stupid as I let on In here I suppose. And I never give up learning and trying to get better.
