El Con Mall - the worst job I ever had...
As men age, I am in my seventies, one ponders backwards - you know - best dinner, best year, best job (worst job).
I've had six careers in my working life. My late wife Janet photographed me against a P-51 Mustang at an air show in the Pacific Northwest at one time.
Looking at that pic a psychologist might say it speaks volumes about me and my life: written on the bright yellow fuselage is the title, " Restless." Janet's jacket that day was the same color. Hmm.
Digressing no further, the worst job floated across my mind this Sunday morning. I live about a half mile away from where I labored in it 30 years ago. It was as the manager of the formerly great El Con Mall in Tucson, Arizona. Now, I know the story about "I made the decision to work there, and I had the responsibility to stay, blah, blah..." But taken as a whole, it was the worst job I had ever had, paying the worst money I ever received for what I was asked to do.
I was so lucky to have wonderful co-workers in my office. It was - "The Alamo," or Custer's Last Stand, if you will, with me hollering " where did all those crazy Indians come from?"
Inhospitable employers, Bored of Directors, politics for breakfast, know-nothings directing the Ship of Fools we used to call it.
I lost sleep, the love of and for my family, was called out on week-ends, hostility at home, it was like a gunfight- everywhere. I lost all perspective, for what? Money? Mortgage payments?
There was NO peace of mind, from anyone, anywhere in the system even from my family, and I don't blame them. I had become hard to live with.
The former Director left and went to LA. As a result of the tension he suffered he died of a heart attack at my age.
Two years ago, I had a ulcer removed that the doctor said was the biggest "monster" he had ever seen. Guess what that came from?
Managing to put my job in front of my children (and for the sake of..)
I eventually left. When I look back, I should never have taken that job in the first place. I know, I am responsible, but communication in my family was non existent, we were not talking, at least about that.
Former Senator Bob Kerry once was asked do you have any regrets and he said we don't have enough time to go over them all. I like that man, he has a conscience. Same for me. See the above. That El Con job and what it did to me and what I eventually did to my family is one huge regret I wish to God I could take back.
"The Gods of the Copybook Headings," a poem by Rudyard Kipling speaks of the merchant class in terms that I now understand. In the office we used to say that if we went down to each shop and handed out $20 bills, they would complain to us that we were blocking their cash registers. At any given time in my three years there, we could poll the members as to their satisfaction rating and one-third would love us, one-third would hate us, one third couldn't pick us out of a line-up.
Each month, the fractions would change.
The mall at the time was so poorly run, owned by two families who constantly fought each other over leases, money splits, they once had to be physically separated in an attorney's office.
In the seventies I was there during the enclosing of the entire mall and it became the 7th largest on the globe. Today, they are pulling all of that down, having failed to compete with the malls that have opened up elsewhere in town. Now they consist of just a few major stores and a shoe shop with street side restaurants and an office supply store.
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I've had six careers in my working life. My late wife Janet photographed me against a P-51 Mustang at an air show in the Pacific Northwest at one time.
Looking at that pic a psychologist might say it speaks volumes about me and my life: written on the bright yellow fuselage is the title, " Restless." Janet's jacket that day was the same color. Hmm.
Digressing no further, the worst job floated across my mind this Sunday morning. I live about a half mile away from where I labored in it 30 years ago. It was as the manager of the formerly great El Con Mall in Tucson, Arizona. Now, I know the story about "I made the decision to work there, and I had the responsibility to stay, blah, blah..." But taken as a whole, it was the worst job I had ever had, paying the worst money I ever received for what I was asked to do.
I was so lucky to have wonderful co-workers in my office. It was - "The Alamo," or Custer's Last Stand, if you will, with me hollering " where did all those crazy Indians come from?"
Inhospitable employers, Bored of Directors, politics for breakfast, know-nothings directing the Ship of Fools we used to call it.
I lost sleep, the love of and for my family, was called out on week-ends, hostility at home, it was like a gunfight- everywhere. I lost all perspective, for what? Money? Mortgage payments?
There was NO peace of mind, from anyone, anywhere in the system even from my family, and I don't blame them. I had become hard to live with.
The former Director left and went to LA. As a result of the tension he suffered he died of a heart attack at my age.
Two years ago, I had a ulcer removed that the doctor said was the biggest "monster" he had ever seen. Guess what that came from?
Managing to put my job in front of my children (and for the sake of..)
I eventually left. When I look back, I should never have taken that job in the first place. I know, I am responsible, but communication in my family was non existent, we were not talking, at least about that.
Former Senator Bob Kerry once was asked do you have any regrets and he said we don't have enough time to go over them all. I like that man, he has a conscience. Same for me. See the above. That El Con job and what it did to me and what I eventually did to my family is one huge regret I wish to God I could take back.
"The Gods of the Copybook Headings," a poem by Rudyard Kipling speaks of the merchant class in terms that I now understand. In the office we used to say that if we went down to each shop and handed out $20 bills, they would complain to us that we were blocking their cash registers. At any given time in my three years there, we could poll the members as to their satisfaction rating and one-third would love us, one-third would hate us, one third couldn't pick us out of a line-up.
Each month, the fractions would change.
The mall at the time was so poorly run, owned by two families who constantly fought each other over leases, money splits, they once had to be physically separated in an attorney's office.
In the seventies I was there during the enclosing of the entire mall and it became the 7th largest on the globe. Today, they are pulling all of that down, having failed to compete with the malls that have opened up elsewhere in town. Now they consist of just a few major stores and a shoe shop with street side restaurants and an office supply store.
The future Michelle Melin-Rogovin and Laura Alexis Morgan with their dad
In America, free enterprise gives us the ability to succeed, and the free-will to fail. I often joked about Fulton's Famous Theory of Economic Relativity. (No, they didn't teach me THIS at Wharton) It says, " Brains, and the ability to mass large sums of money, are NOT necessarily related."
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