Off the seat of a bicycle
Chapter 59     school interviews, fatigue and arthritis

The University’s School of Business held a job-placement festival at the end of each school-year … and the graduating students signed up for interviews with national companies. If you made-good, you might be rewarded with a second interview, and a job offer.

This was my chance.

My purpose for going back to school was getting a good job with a go-getter company …so at 33, nearing completion of a marketing degree, I scheduled a number of interviews.

And wisely, I purchased a real suit with a button-down shirt and matching necktie. Woo-wee, dress up the pig, but people told me I looked good.

But what a time for me to face interviewers … I was fighting for my future, and fighting a hard depression at the same time. I had been working hard to get A's in school while working hard to run my business for almost two years. Face it, I was flat-out exhausted and completely drained from the arrest seven months before.

Rheumatoid arthritis had virulently emerged ... and the knuckles on my middle fingers had painfully swollen up. I attributed it to years of bike handlebars cutting across those exact joints, but the fatigue was unshakable … which is symptomatic of RA ... but I had no idea a major illness had crumbled over the top of me.

Although the puzzle was incomplete, the New Jersey doctor told me 16 years earlier that I would be in a wheelchair by 40. I scoffed at him back then, but my mother saw my knuckles at 33 and knew it was destructive arthritis.

Mom was a registered nurse and qualified to make the diagnosis. She said later that she was too worried to tell me … and maybe she didn’t want it to be true.

My interviews started off badly. Fortunately the placement department required a ‘sit-down’ appointment to give you feed-back and the councilor laid it out plainly: ‘you have no enthusiasm.’ I bucked for a moment, but she said, ‘Hey, I’m only repeating what they said.’

Ok, thanks.

The reality check sent me spiraling but I regrouped and decided, yeah ‘enthusiasm,’ that’s what sales is all about. I’d always been a good salesman and enthusiasm was the key. I knew my exhaustion and depression were apparent, so I marshaled strength for one last charge and my next interviews went better.

Owens-Corning-Fiberglass shut me out since I didn’t attend their preview party. How was that possible? I would be good at selling insulation to lumber yards … but OCF had a monopoly on home-center sales, and wanted younger men who could create client relationships at a higher level … which explained the ‘invitation only’ party: to see if their pre-selected colts could mix ‘n mingle on the big track.
Well, fit the big rubber cluck-hat on me. They needed people who would move up and make connections, not a person who would move around and make people mad.

Pitney-Bowes of Indianapolis nibbled but didn’t call back.

Proctor & Gamble gave me a second interview, and had me travel with their Indiana representative for a day. Afterwards the regional manager offered me a sales territory. But he said I was not ‘fast-tracked’ and they would ‘never offer a promotion.’ I tried to elicit a fudge on the promotion angle, but he said NO.
 
I appreciated his candor, and he said they only wanted a day-to-day grind-it-out family man with a retail-management background.

So there it was: I indecisively waited to get my college degree and the future passed me by. I was disallowed by society to become a brain surgeon, because you become what you are at an early age … and at very best I was a bicycle activist … and at worst, an unstable ego-maniacal nut.

I discussed the job offer with my girlfriend and she made it clear; her career was in Texas.

Ok then, Texas it would be …

… ‘but hold on there partner,’ she said … no cowboy was moving-in with her, not unless it was official. So I guess she asked me to marry her and that made me smile. We made plans for a fall wedding, but I still had to finish a summer’s work in Indiana before my degree was completed.

Chapter 60) Final summer of school and Dan comes back to town
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