7/25/10

♫ I've seen a rich man beg
I've seen a good man sin
I've seen a tough man cry

I've seen a loser win
And a sad man grin
I heard an honest man lie

I've seen the good side of bad
And the down side of up
And everything between

I licked the silver spoon
Drank from the golden cup
Smoked the finest green

I stroked the baddest dimes at least a couple of times
Before I broke their heart

You know where it ends
Yo, it usually depends on where you start... ♫

I have no idea where or when this little journey that has become the topic of these blog posts will end.  Probably the blog posts will have run their course before the journey itself is over, if I had to guess.  Either way though, I think tonight brought a reminder of one of the places where it started.

Several years ago, I was working as the general manager of the Red Robin restaurant on Monroe Street in Toledo.  The job had been considered a step up for me, after eight years of managing pizza shops.  The money was good.  The benefits were good.  The working conditions were good.  I was miserable.  There should be a public service announcement for you ladies out there who think you want a "career-driven" or "goal-oriented" or "successful" man.  (Just a sampling of buzz words that I've heard from various people over the years.)  If those are code words for money, then just say so and cut to the chase.  If they're actually traits that you think you find appealing, then take it from me - you're wrong.  Those traits are all-consuming.  If one is driven to success, then nothing will get in the way of that success.  At least that was my experience.  Nothing got in my way.  I made a lot of money, advanced past a lot of more experienced people, set performance records, won awards and all that shit.  Not coincidentally, my personal life went to Hell at the same time.

Each morning I would take the restaurant's cash from the previous night and deposit it at our local bank.  One of the assistant managers was usually available to make the deposit, but I desperately needed to get out of that place whenever I could.  I would drive over to the bank, make the deposit, and then stare at the steering wheel of my car, trying to summon the motivation to go back to the restaurant.  Some days were worse than others but very few of them involved happy thoughts.  Our bank, as it turns out, was located inside the Kroger store at the corner of Monroe and Secor.

And so it comes full circle.  After making my two stops in Saginaw this afternoon and then returning to the dairy, I headed southward with my second trailer full of milk.  The first stop was in Monroe, Michigan.  The second stop was in Toledo, Ohio.  Yep, that same Kroger with the bank inside.  I live about 49 miles from the corner of Monroe and Secor.  In terms of real life, however, those 49 miles might as well be 49 light years.

So many memories, both good and bad, and seemingly so far removed from my present life.  Yet, after deciding that I couldn't babysit 150 employees any longer, I left the restaurant business for good and got my financial licenses.  Then, when it became clear to me that my 100 financial clients may as well have been another 100 employees for me to babysit, what ended up happening next?  Screw it all.  Time to run away from society for a while.  CDL school in Detroit, training for a new job in Missouri, lots of alone time on the highways and byways, and eventually this blog.  I think we could say that the voyage may very well have started at that Kroger store on some fateful morning.  On at least one of those mornings, I must have thought to myself that there had to be a better way to earn a dollar.  I probably was correct.

The Toledo delivery tonight only involved a few pallets, so I was in and out of there rather quickly.  Then I had to head across Monroe Street to the Sylvania store for my last stop.  Right past the good old Red Robin.  Ahh, the memories.  The guy working in the dairy department at that final stop was likely the most efficient that I've encountered thus far.  He would take a pallet of milk and then return with a pallet of empty cases.  Then, once I got the milk unloaded and found myself a little ahead of his pace, he enlisted the help of another guy to bring pallets of empties into the loading dock area.  Seven pallets delivered and eight pallets of empties removed - 20 minutes.  That ain't half bad.

I didn't quite beat the arbitrary midnight deadline that I was hoping to make tonight.  I really should have though.  At a few of the stores I wound up standing outside for 10-15 minutes and waiting for someone to unlock the door.  Then, on the way back up US-23 en route to the terminal tonight, I stopped at the Pilot in Blissfield and topped off my fuel tanks.  I had half a tank so I could have gotten by without fueling, but I was hungry, so I figured I might as well make a stop.  By the time I took an extra few minutes to clean out the truck and whatnot, I was there for around twenty minutes.  All in all though, a pretty good day on the road.  My two trips paid somewhere around $260 and I knocked them out in just over twelve hours.

Looking forward to a day off tomorrow.