Nobody informed me that I could carve wood. I guess that nobody knew, because I did not even know, myself.
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My Story
During my thirteenth year of teaching, a "friend's" promises for a more profitable career convinced me to resign from my secure position, going against the advice of wiser people to work for him. Then sure enough within a month I found myself without a job. In desperation after working several temporary manual labor jobs, I accepted a generous offer of a position with a family run window and shutter installation company. The owner, who was my neighbor, informed me that his sons preferred the window side of the business and that he had accumulated a year's worth of back orders for hurricane shutters. I was relieved to be able to count on a year's worth of job security. This would give me time to (hopefully) clean up the mess in which I found myself.
The anger that boiled deep within my core coupled with my already healthy dose of above average work ethic and an eagerness to demonstrate my gratitude for the position became the catalyst that motivated me to work with the utmost driving passion to exceed all expectations. And that I did. I was so focused that like an aircraft catapulted from a military carrier my skill level quickly soared to a level that afforded me the emotional relief that I needed to keep me from dwelling on fantasies of revenge toward the lying scum that broke all his promises to me.
I began to notice that after a month the four coworkers that were hired to assist me in the "catch up back orders" plan, each began to leave one by one over the next five week period. The rumor was that they had found better jobs, but now I think that maybe I maintained such a high level of production that it distressed them. (I do not know.) Either way by the middle of the third month I was working alone, but I was happy to be busy. As soon as I completed an order they would hand me the specs for the next one.
However, throughout the following month or so I began to notice that when I completed an order it was taking more and more time for them to give me the specs for the next order. It was explained that the numbers had not been figured yet, but now I realize that they were trying to slow me down. Apparently, the customers who were subcontracting installers were not prepared for the new faster production time that my craving to impress had brought about which in turn created for us a storage problem by trying to contain all the completed orders that had not yet been claimed.
I was oblivious to the situation that I had inadvertently created. So during the times of waiting I began to use the shop tools to create things out of the available scrap materials. Then I discovered a plethora of wonderful hardwood scraps in the dumpster behind the woodworking shop across the street. I began to whittle and carve things because I could only sweep the shop so many times. To my surprise most of my ideas worked. It was a joy to watch my skills bloom in this industrial oasis, but it was bittersweet because I felt guilty that I was not able to continue my high output of hurricane shutters.
Finally, after five months the boss handed me a spec sheet and said, "Well, this is our last order." His statement shocked me. I was counting so much on "a year's worth of work" that I had relaxed my "survival mode" mentality and now I realize that I will have to find another job. It was like a sucker punch in the belly after gorging on a scrumptious Thanksgiving feast. In my horror I responded, "I thought we had a year's worth of back orders!" He explained, "You completed those a long time ago, and now you have also finished all the new orders. There are no more." Now this was really bad news because contrary to the national weather predictions of Florida suffering many hurricanes for the next decade, they had actually dissipated. Consequently, no new orders were pending. I asked him if he was going to lay me off? He consoled me by informing me that the business had netted enough profit from my five month production fury that he would continue to pay me until the business picked back up.
Well, only a handful of orders came through during the next six month period. I was enjoying the free income, but the guilt of weekly taking what I had not honestly earned plus my fear that his generosity surely must be limited (even though he gave me no indication that it was anywhere in sight), drove me to resign. He seemed very disappointed that I had not previously shared my feelings about this with him, but he respectfully accepted that this was something that I had to do.
So we sold our home in West Palm Beach, FL and moved to Claxton, GA, but I was certainly ignorant of the adventures that were about to move me from the pot to the frying pan (so-to-speak).
A Hand carved classical guitarist' music stand designed and produced by Charles Van Deursen
