The travels I have taken and the experiences that resulted.

Thursday, April 22, 2004

Below is a forward I received from a friend. I feel it is well written and wanted to share.

Growing 20's

They call it the "Quarter-life Crisis." It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are many things about yourself that you didn't know and may not like. You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now. You start realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you thought you were so close to aren't exactly the greatest people you have ever met, and the, people you have lost touch with are some of the most important ones. What you don't recognize is that they are realizing that too, and aren't really cold, catty, mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as you. You look at your job... and it is not even close to what you thought you would be doing, or maybe you are looking for a job and realizing that you are going to have to start at the bottom and that scares you. Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing and find yourself judging more than usual because suddenly you realize that you have certain boundaries in your life and are constantly adding things to your list of what is acceptable and what isn't. One minute, you are insecure and then the next, secure. You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and scared and confused. Suddenly, change is the enemy and you try and cling on to the past with dear life, but soon realize that the past is drifting further and further away, and there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward. You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such damage to you. Or you lie in bed and wonder why you can't meet anyone decent enough that you want to get to know better. Or maybe you love someone but love someone else too and cannot figure out why you are doing this because you know that you aren't a bad person. One night stands and random hook ups start to look cheap. Getting wasted and acting like an idiot doesn't seem as fun. You go through the same emotions and questions over and over, and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision. You worry about loans, money, the future and making a life for yourself...and while winning the race would be great, right now you'd just like to be a contender. We are in our best of times and our worst of times, trying as hard as we can to figure this whole thing out.

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."



Sunday, April 18, 2004


A blissful fall

We should all pay homage to our favorite scientists.

On random nights when there is nothing to do one should go for a drive in a convertible or hopefully a car that has at least a sunroof. Admiring the universe and all it contains is something Galileo would be proud of. Have you worked out and really noticed how your body performs? It really is a machine and the accuracy to which Da Vinci sketched the human form is remarkable. Today I decided to practice what Isaac Newton discovered. Gravity.

The weather was nice this weekend and I needed to clear my head. I am young and have much of life left to live...hopefully. Basically accidents can happen, you just have to hope to God they don't. Still as you may know I have this list of things to do before Death comes knocking on my door. Today my pencil made another lead X next to skydiving.

My roommate joined me and I was on the road by 9:30. We were on the way to Mount Pleasant, I was on my way to put on a flight suit and experience what living is all about. After 15 minutes of instructions and 7 pages of signing my life away we were off in a plane. That was the scary part. This plane seemed smaller than a VW bug with wings attached. Looking around I was amazed this thing would take off from the ground. There were no seats except the pilots. So in a single engine plane sat the aging pilot, two single skydivers, and me and the guy I was to go tandem with. I was leaning on the side of the plane since again there are no seats and he tells me not to as it could open. Looking at the tape that covered the inside of the plane I didn't doubt his judgment. At 6,000 feet one of the skydivers made his jump. My stomach dropped. I am literally three feet away from this open window with no seatbelt and not attached to the other jumper. If the plane rolled right and forward I would have fallen out. Obviously it is safer than what I am describing for they have done this more than once. Still the butterflies unraveled from their cocoon and my stomach turned inside out. At 10,000 feet the door was to open again and this time I would be falling out into the sky. I was strapped in and ready to go. I knew if I was to think about what I was about to do that I would have gotten nervous. 1, 2, 3...and in less than a second I was going over a 100 mph.

I can't describe the feeling. It is one in which stories retold only provide a glimpse of the experience. Remember your first kiss? It is a moment in our lives that we don't forget. Go back to that day whether its junior high or later. Your stomach tighetening, your palms sweaty, your heart beating faster than you ever imagined. Just wrap up that nervousness, curiousity, and desire into one precious moment. Then smile at what happened, for me that is what it felt like.

This afternoon I fell over a mile in less than 30 seconds and those 30 seconds seemed like 5. I checked the altimeter, tried to maintain position, pulled the ripcord, and automatically felt pain. The chute basically stops you from the 130mph in the same time it took to hit that speed. Long story short those straps around your legs(being a guy doesn't help this situation) and shoulders grab you. Then we slowly drifted to the ground. It was peaceful.

I'm not a fan of heights. In NYC I would look at the top of buildings and dizziness would come over me. Still I would look to try and overcome this feeling. Today I helped squash that fear of mine. As we were drifting back to the airport I tried to replay what just happened and in all honesty couldn't believe what had just happened. We landed nicely and now I proudly own a certificate saying I have skydived.

Skydiving didn't so much teach me anything, but it helped reiterate concepts/ideas that everyone should take with them. Risks are worth taking. We don't know the outcome unless we try go out and take that fateful step. We have been given this amazing time on Earth, but why waste it doing something you despise? Go out on a ledge. You can look down if you want, but in the end you need to look back up. Life is in front of you, not in the past. Jump. Make everyone of your living dreams a reality.

Saturday, April 17, 2004

Life, filled with many questions. It’s the answers that are hard to come by.

I graduated this past Thursday. I received another lamb skin, another sheet of paper saying that this young man is qualified. Another diploma to be surrounded by mahogany showing, bragging about an accomplishment. I am no longer a Ford trainee. I am a 100% certified employee. 100% dissatisfied employee.

The class I have been training with for the last two months sat at tables wanting to eat not wanting to listen. Like every graduation it is time where one must dress up, look interested, and unfortunately sit patiently as a speaker drones with words of wisdom that we have heard one too many times. Sure enough, a middle aged balding man with a bad tie and a worst jacket went on to tell us his career path, the importance of a work life balance, and his respect for the company. A company that I too still have much respect for. He then went on to talk about office politics and said you better follow them. You can't advance in this company if you don't get a grasp on these. I appreciate his honesty. I know office politics exist wherever you go, but to the degree they are present here is shocking. I'm not a republican, democrat, elephant, or donkey. I am an independent with the government and want to stay one at work too.

Still part of his speech made my ears perk up, "Make sure you like the job you're in. Make sure you have a passion for what you do." I hate my job, but love cars. I hate direct sales, but love marketing. So from the beginning I've been in a situation that leaves me queasy. Should I work for a company that has wonderful benefits, great pay, and security or should I be like Robert Frost and take the path less traveled. I'm leaning towards the latter. Two and a half months isn't that long to develop an opinion, but it is a long time to do a lot of thinking about what I want in my life. I will be leaving for the office soon, this may be the last weekend where I do such a thing. I have more interviews in Dallas and an open in invitation in NYC. My vacation days for the year have already been used, which that fact alone is sad. Pursuing either one of these I will have to terminate my employment. I won't be on the other side of some table facing a guy with a comb-over and his two henchmen waiting for those words "You're Fired." I will be a white sheet of paper with 12 point Times New Roman font explaining my reasons for termination. I will drop off the car, the laptop, and other items and say goodbye.

I've been raised to be a practical person. Not having taken any drugs, carrying no credit card debt, and with only one speeding ticket my run ins with the cops have been kept to a minimal. That's a good thing. Still there is this internal battle that goes on, from what society expects from us and from what I except from life. Society tells me to stay with Ford for it is the beginning of a career. I want to live on a beach or the mountains, read some books, do a bit of volunteering, and do a lot of traveling. That is not going to happen either, so now I need to find that happy medium.

This week I started talking to others about the job they are in. Some of them received positions in the office as a market rep, event planner, or advertising coordinator. They enjoy the work they do, they are not looking forward to the day where they have a zone such as mine and are on the road alone through their twenties. I've started talking to the other zone managers and why I thought my opinion was rare turned out to be the opposite. Others started opening up saying they doubt they will make it to years end, they wish they didn't sign a year lease, etc. One thing we all wish was a better description of the job at hand. No where was it explained to me that I would need to sell tires, no where was it said that in order for me to become promoted I would have to track body shop information. More importantly when I placed my John Hancock on those papers did it show that Ford has a career path in mind for me. A path in Ford Customer Service Division. It's the luck of the draw or so they say. Well because of that I might just take my short end of the straw, throw it to the ground and leave all of this behind.

Saturday, April 03, 2004

Death of a Salesman...

Moving to Detroit I brought almost every material item of mine. TV, Computer, Bedding, clothing, and the list goes on. What I still have a hard time understanding is why I brought a shovel. Still there it is, leaning against the side on the cracked painted house of 1900 Brockton. It's your typical shovel with a large wooden handle and a metal spade with dried dirt on it. After the first week of training I went to our small back yard and broke the ground with it. With a solid push it broke the surface. Some grass turned over and small pile of dirt started to form. Weeks would go on and a good size hole started to form. The pile of dirt grew larger.

I haven't liked my job from day one. Whenever I buy a new book it's safe to say I'm going to find a NYC bestseller. Like most people I look at the cover, whatever grabs my attention. However there have been some books I've read where the cover didn't intrigue me, but the story that resulted was one that never had dog eared corners. I was constantly turning the pages. I knew I couldn't judge a job by the first day or the first week. Still, time doesn't stop, it moves on and so do we. As time progressed my opinion held strong. It did not waver, but like a flag in the wind was outstretched. My head was telling me all the reasons I was unhappy. Leaving friends, leaving family, leaving a lifestyle I was accustomed too. Still now and then we need to stop listening to our head and listen with our hearts. My heart beats regulary and much like the life sustaining beat it tells me day in day out that this isn't the place for me. Maybe someday in the future my heart will say Detroit and the automotive industry. In the meantime it is beating to a different rhythm. A beat I can feel deep inside me, a beat that I am trying to find the source of.

Two months have passed here in the Midwest. Two months of learning. This coming weekend I am following my heart. I am boarding a plane to Texas. I am pursuing a different career. There is a chance that I won't get hired. A very likely chance and that is a fact that scares me right to my core. I am confident in what I can achieve, yet sometimes no matter what effort we put in the results come out to our disliking.

In the meantime you can find me in the backyard digging. Every passing day the guilt inside me grows. Ford will recover the financial cost of one David John Hoffman or company id dhoffm38. There have been co-workers who have effected my life and now ones I have effected. There is a trust relationship. A relationship in which great work is expected now and into the foreseable future. I have started to measure my future in weeks and no longer the years that I thought moving here. The guilt is crushing me. The longer I stay the deeper the hole. I've dug myself deep enough that it's becoming hard to see the top. This metaphorical hole is now 6 feet deep. While I'm not dead, this guilt is killing me.