Business

I have owned two businesses.  The first business was a landscaping business that I ran from 2006-2010.  Most of the work I did myself.  There were a couple of clients that required additional help.  These projects were done on the weekend as it was easier to find somebody looking for a few bucks so they could blow it on booze that night.

I hated landscaping, but it was an easy enough business to start.  If I didn’t like the clients, I probably wouldn’t have lasted the first summer.  The first five summers were in North Carolina.  It was so hot and sticky in the summer.  Another drawback is the winters, when there wasn’t any work at all.

A college classmate runs a marketing firm in Raleigh.  He had a client in Greensboro whose busiest marketing season was in the winter months.  He didn’t like all of the trips to Greensboro in the winter.  The project was very similar to the group project we aced in “International Marketing” class our senior year.  I took this project because I lived close to Greensboro and it was the perfect supplement to the landscaping business.

The client moved to Jersey City, NJ in the spring of 2008.  After a week of 100-degree plus temperatures, I hired somebody to run the landscaping business and I moved to New Jersey.  I mowed a lawn here and there, but the grass growing season is much shorted in New Jersey than it is in North Carolina.  New Jersey also gets a lot more snow and it stays around a lot longer.

I started getting referrals from my first client and then referrals from the referrals and now I am making a modest living and I don’t have to sweat my balls off in the summer.  (Unless I want to.)

[This is part of the A-Z of Life series. Check out the other posts!]

30 Day Music Challenge – Day 20

Day 20 – a song that you listen to when you’re angry

I don’t get to listen to music when I get angry because I am usually on the road meeting clients.  I also don’t get angry often because I work alone and most clients are pleasant and don’t get me angry.

There was a time when I did listen to music when I was angry.  Most songs did nothing but made me angrier.  There was one song that calmed me down.

My high school days and my early college days were spent in pool of anonymity.  It was hard to deal with because I was an only child and was used to getting attention.  I felt that I wasn’t getting the attention others were getting despite being as talented and good-looking as the others.

It was the Friday after my 21st birthday when a couple of friends of mine took me out for my birthday.  We went to a club in Falls Church, VA.  I walked up to the bar and got a beer.  A girl I had dated in high school walked past me as if we had never met.  It really irritated me.  A few minutes later, the DJ played this song and I jumped on it.