The Road to Today-”Redemption Part I”
We have covered the major stages of my life through the year 1998:
“Addiction of Instant Gratification”
One commenter had said how sad this story was so far. Years ago I would have commiserated with that comment, and felt sorry for myself. My life has made me what I am. The experiences, and hardships taught me many things; valuable lessons. I appreciate those lessons.
In the spring of 1998, now broke, I moved back to the area of my boyhood home. I temporarily moved in with my father. I started looking for work. Having a degree in business administration, I slowly began to get offers. It was the Internet and Telecom Boom, and the area I had moved to was particularly moving due to our close proximity to the nation’s capitol.
Finally I narrowed the offers down to 2. A helpdesk position supporting software for the US Air Force or an analyst position with a start-up telecommunications company. Loving the idea of a challenge I chose the start up.
I took to the work quickly. I was responsible to review how phone lines were set up, and to figure out why they were not generating traffic. With a huge backlog, and me having a lot of time, I worked nights, weekends, and full time, generating as much overtime as I could. I continued to pare down my “stuff”, getting rid of items I no longer needed.
With the overtime and the sales of my old life, I quickly reduced my debt by half in about 6 months. I was feeling good. I began my spreadsheet junky life budgeting and tracking every dime in and out. Within 9 months my car was paid off, and I had only 9,000 in debt remaining.
My consistent approach to my job had me winning awards, and quick promotions. In less than a year I was running the group I had joined as an analyst. With the promotion came more money, and with another part time job, I found myself out of debt in 18 months. I began to save, and feel good about the world.
I began to date a co-worker, a few years older than I. We got along and were the best of friends. We continued to date, and got more and more serious. Fall of 2000 we got engaged. I had never been married, and she had been divorced for a few years. We decided we would wait until the fall of 2001 to get married, so that I would have enough time to save money. We traveled, and enjoyed life, paying cash for everything.
In the spring of 2001, I was recruited to another company for double my income. I cashed in my stock of the start-up, placing all of it in savings. I bought a car, when my old one died, paying cash for about half, but financing the rest in order to repair my damaged credit. I took the new job by storm, changing many of the processes and reducing the company order processing time by 50%. Again I was promoted and ran 3 separate groups.
I was redeemed. On top of the world, and felt that nothing could stop me. I was ready to get married, buy a home, and start a life of my own. I had 30,000 in savings, and both my future wife and I worked in an industry that was booming.
September 11, 2001 changed all of that. Most of my company’s northeast facilities were destroyed during the attacks, yet confident we would survive. I was married on September 22, 2001. We went on our honeymoon looking forward to our life together. When we returned a week later, I had an urgent call from my boss.
My life was about to change again.
More soon…..
~Another Day
This is a really interesting story, can’t wait for the next installment!
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