John Paganetti – Page 5 – john paganetti

Quantifying Regret

$35,841.03

That’s the present day value of stock I sold to start a business earlier this year. That’s more than I made working full time all last year. I put in about $8,000, much of which was inheritance from my grandmother – we both enjoyed watching the markets. It recently became clear that this business is going nowhere, and my two other partners are giving up. It has been a very frustrating experience, and I’m not happy about it. I’m not used to regret, and I’m coping with it poorly.

I had saved up that money to renovate the bus, and justified the investment in the business as a long term investment in my future. I wound up taking out a loan to pay for bus renovations, which was still ok as long as things were moving forward with the business. With the business dead in the road, everything else has been revealed to me as a bad decision. I’m definitely coming away having learned something, but they feel like bitter and cynical lessons.

It’s a big mistake, and one that will be hard to recover from.
I guess it’s fortunate I was tightening my belt anyway.

Jury Duty

I had jury duty today – I didn’t get picked. I would like to get picked for jury duty someday, but the trial was going to overlap with the dates for Grey Fox, and that won’t do. I did manage to take some nice pictures from the room they had us wait in, where picture taking was apparently not allowed.

No Mo Lowe’s

Today is my last day at Lowe’s. Though it was a part time gig, the hours kept me from doing much else. And part time was closer to full time than not. I’m going to be spending more time working on both the bus and Cyclone. I should be able to do a bit of Census work on the side as well, though that’s not for certain yet. I think if I were able to get regular, reasonable hours, I would very much enjoy it there. But it’s retail, and that’s not an option. Anyway, a new and exciting couple of months await me. I’m going to be busy, but I’ll try and make some entries here.

I’ve caught myself a few times over the last month writing journal entries in my head for things I would like to remember. But they don’t make it on here, probably because the hard part of writing them is complete. I’m working on it.

Lowe’s

I started at Lowe’s this week. It’s an easy job, and I like it well enough. They very laid back, which surprised me. It’s easy for large corporations to get caught up in bureaucratic garbage, and it seems they’ve largely been able to avoid it. They also do well by their employees: everyone makes above minimum wage, and even part-timers qualify for health care. I’m impressed, but not in love. It’s definitely a job.

A little over a week ago I went in one night for training, but their computers were down, so we were just sent out on the floor. I didn’t really learn anything wandering the aisles, but I got paid for it. I’m still adjusting, and I miss what my last job used to be. I don’t regret leaving, but I still remember it as being a good job, even if it wasn’t when I left.

I’m hoping I’ll be able to put in some more time on Cyclone, since I’m not exactly working full time for Lowe’s. We launched our webstore last week, but things are moving along slowly. Until we can really put the time in, that’s probably the way things will go for the foreseeable future.

Still Hunting

I have an interview coming up with Verizon for a job in their store.

There isn’t much available in the way of jobs I want / am qualified for. I only have two rules: no 1099 positions, and no cash registers. That’s not true, they’re more like guidelines. I’m ok with commission if there is base pay, and I’m ok with using registers every now and then, but I don’t want to live behind one. Excluding those types of jobs, most of the available positions I’m seeing require education or experience in specialized fields. Not much else.
Still looking.

Can’t Complain

I was walking around downtown Middletown a little while back, and passed a homeless guy with his foot in a brace. He said, “How’s it going?” I responded with my usual “Doin’ alright, how about yourself?” He said,

Can’t complain, it doesn’t do any good anyway. Woke up on the right side of the dirt. There’s no bars on the doors and windows. The hospital is a nice place to visit but you don’t want to live there.

See Tee Bee

I’ve been losing sleep over work. Not things that I have left undone, or problems left unsolved, but larger problems. Kip, my boss, is leaving at the end of the week. He’s one of the founders of the company, and is pretty much singlehandedly responsible for any success managed since it was bought by Tristate. He keeps the trains running on time, so to speak. He has also insulated me from much of the troubles that come out of the New York office. With him gone, all of that will be falling on me. I’m not looking to hang around for that.

I had a talk with our CEO today, he was wondering of I would like to take on a greater role in Connecticut operations. It isn’t worth the money. They’ve been trying to get me to work fewer hours for a while now, about as subtly as they can manage. They don’t want me doing customer service anymore, mainly because they’re already paying other people to do that. I started doing it because they weren’t. This very morning I got a call from a client who said she was hung up on while talking to the main office. Not helpful.

On top of that, we are paying half of what our biggest competitor pays. Trying to get clients in an environment like this is harder than selling refrigerators to Eskimos. My commission so far this year is about what I have made on good weeks in the past.

The worst part is that I was really hoping to stay with this job for some time. I’m not in a position to fix it, and I’m not going down with the ship. I really enjoyed working with Kip.

Ugh. I hate job searching.

Pretty Damn Proud

I’m not one to usually take pictures of my food before eating it, but I was pretty damn proud of this homemade pizza. Scratch made dough and hand shredded cheese, it came out delicious. We made this last night as an early 3rd anniversary celebration. We have enough ingredients for another!

Physical Changes

I’m growing a beard. Slowly. It’s been about two and a half months, and it still only tenuously meets the definition of a beard. My facial hair just naturally wants to be a goatee, and the rest begrudgingly grows. And today felt like spring, so my time with it may be short. I started growing it in mid-December, and I think I’ll need to start far far sooner in the future.

I’m also really quite out of shape. I’ve started trying to exercise regularly again, though I’m having a bit of trouble with the regular part. I think I just really need to be out and about, and I’ll be fine. I just wither away when I’m working inside, but when I’m out doing things my body takes care of itself. At least I don’t have a desk job, but this lifestyle still isn’t particularly healthy.

As the weather is getting warmer outside, thoughts are drifting towards the bus, and what will happen this spring. It’s exciting, and scary. Our landlord really doesn’t want to see us go, she likes us as tenants. I’m honestly a little reluctant to leave, and I know Nishi feels the same way. It’s a nice apartment, in a nice part of town, and I’m sad we couldn’t spend more time here. The savings will be worth it long term, but it will still be sad to go.

It isn’t clear yet when we’ll be moving out of here and into the bus, but I’m hoping for Juneish. I’m a bit excited about the novelty of parking my new house outside my old one, and only moving things once.

Things are changing quickly.

Hibernation

It’s cold out. We got a lovely delivery of snow a little over a week ago, and it’s slowly melting away. I always imagine my ideal winters like snow days in my childhood. When we get lots of snow, we either go out and work, go out and play, or stay inside and get toasty. Trying to do other things in the face of harsh cold and snow is not fun. I think that’s why so many people up here hate winter. I don’t mind shoveling or chopping wood, they keep me warm and able to enjoy the outdoors when it’s quite cold.

We missed a good sledding opportunity with that last storm. I didn’t have any sleds, and we were snowed in. And, AND, the town stopped plowing the side streets, so there were long, flat stretches of space begging to be sled upon.

I imagine future winters without work, where I stay in and stoke my woodstove, and read. I will stay in and try to perfect a skill, like baking or making pizza. Something warm. Then I’ll go out, breathe in that special winter air, and chop more wood for the stove. Shovel a little path to a firepit outside, which I can get roaring hot enough to enjoy the winter night sky.

Summer is for work. Working on my car or my house is a miserable prospect this time of year. That’s what summer is for. Work is easier in the summer. We were offered some gigs selling ice cream at festivals this summer. That’s a nice paying gig that’s fun in the summertime. Maybe that could be a more regular seasonal thing.