Some Get All the Breaks

By Dan Miller
48days.com

CBN.com – I believe every one of us has a unique calling. It’s certainly not something reserved for a chosen few who end up as pastors, priests, or monks. We all fulfill that calling by being excellent as we express our talents and abilities, and our dreams and passions. Anyone can do a job, but a calling is lived out by a person who has tapped into wisdom that goes beyond education and intelligence.

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Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle…(or) Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.. (or) the Second Theory of Thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love. —Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Wish I Could Get a Break

This last Friday night, Joanne and I had dinner at one of our favorite restaurants. This restaurant opened last April – in the same location as a previous failed venture. They need a staff of about 35 people. In the 10 months since they have been open, they have hired in excess of 850 people. That means that some worked two weeks, some 30 days, and some left at their lunch break on the first day of work and never came back. (There is actually a name for that common phenomenon – it’s the Burger King in the sky – where someone goes to lunch and simply does not come back.)

The server we request at this restaurant began there when they opened and has been there ever since. Now, this is a guy who has a full-time job at Saturn – but he enjoys the environment in the restaurant. He makes friends with those he serves and builds relationships with many people like Joanne and me. I was asking him about all the new staff every time we come in, and he told us a little of the history I’ve related above.

He also told us that at Christmastime he had the privilege of serving several company and family parties there. One in particular bears retelling here. A physician brought his staff in for their annual party. Of course, he had made a reservation in advance and had requested Clay as their server. At the conclusion of the meal, the physician left a generous $300 tip. On his way out after all details were completed, he slipped Clay another $1,000 for his exceptional service during the evening.

So here’s a guy in the same environment as 850 others who came and went – confident that there was no real opportunity there. Some heard about a friend who made $100 in one night working at Chili’s. Others grew impatient with the demands of an unrealistic customer and walked off – not willing to be treated like that. But in the midst of that, one guy saw his own unique opportunity and has thrived in the same place.

That reminds me of another business story. A couple of years ago I talked to a guy after a seminar who had a landscape design and lawn care business. He complained bitterly about lack of access to working capital, the stupid customers who didn’t know what they wanted and then weren’t happy with the final plan, and their slowness in paying. A couple of weeks later he called me to tell me he had filed bankruptcy that morning and was closing his business.

That same afternoon, I happened to talk to my lawn care guy. He started his business with a sixth-grade education, bought his first truck for $600, and has grown his business carefully. He told me how he had just raised his prices 10% and did not lose even one customer, and how his customers give him great ideas. One had just offered to build a warehouse for him in exchange for future lawn care – and he wanted my advice on maybe having four apartments in the upper floor of that building that he could rent out to his own workers.

Both of these businessmen were operating right here in Williamson County. Both had the same market conditions, the same customer pool, and the same opportunity. Yet one was going bankrupt and one was thriving and expanding.

Did you get the sense that opportunity may not be an external thing? No, opportunity lies squarely between our own two ears. The apostle Paul told the Galatians: "Let every man prove his own work." The Living Bible gives this passage a particularly colorful translation: "Let everyone be sure that he is doing his very best, for then he will have the personal satisfaction of work well done and won’t need to compare himself with someone else" (Gal. 6:3-4).

Jobs Down: Opportunities Up

USA Today reports that employers cut jobs for a second month in February while the unemployment rate fell as more people quit looking for work in the weakening job market, the government said Friday in a report that led to further calls of a 2008 recession.

Yes, lots of ironies here. Jobs lost yet hourly wages are up and unemployment is down. There is no way the government has of tracking those people who have “quit looking for work.”

I talk to them every day and they are not all discouraged and sitting on the curb – many of them have discovered new and innovative ways to create income and have joined the growing ranks in non-traditional work. They got tired of expecting any “security” as employees and have moved into successful income generation and increased “security” as consultants, independent contractors, contingency workers, temps, electronic immigrants, and entrepreneurs. They also fall under the radar for U. S. Labor Bureau statistics and thus are categorized as “unemployed and discouraged.”

No, don’t worry about us. We are out here enjoying the new opportunities. Keep your measly paychecks and shaky pensions. We are the new workers – and firmly in control of our time, freedom, and unlimited income potential. Thanks for the shove!

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Just Shoot Me!

Police detectives in Franklin County, Washington, say a man had his friend shoot him in the shoulder so he wouldn’t have to go to work. Daniel Kuch initially told deputies he’d been the victim of a drive-by shooting. But when his story details didn’t quite add up, he admitted that he had asked his friend to shoot him so he could avoid work and a scheduled drug test. Now the friend has been arrested for investigation of reckless endangerment. And Kuch is expected to be charged with false reporting.

Somehow that doesn’t seem to be a very brilliant plan. Whatever happened to just pretending to be sick? I know lots of people who call in when they really just plan to go fishing or need to take the car in for an oil change. This dude is definitely over the edge.

So he has the obvious pain of a gunshot wound, medical bills, and charges of false reporting. How do you suppose his employer is handling this information? I suspect that an end result will be losing his job anyway.

Moral of the story: If you hate your job enough to take a bullet instead of having to show up for work, maybe it’s time to start a new job search.

Humor: Time Off

Two men working in a factory were talking. "I know how to get some time off," said one.

"How are you going to do that?"

"Watch this," he said, and climbed up on a rafter. Just then the foreman walked by and asked what he was doing up there. The man replied, "I'm a light bulb."

"I think you need some time off," the foreman said, and the first man walked out of the factory. After a moment, the second man followed him.

"Where do you think you're going?" the foreman shouted.

"I can't work in the dark," he said.

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Dan Miller is the bestselling author of 48 Days To The Work You Love and a renowned Life Coach specializing in career fulfillment. His weekly newsletter reaches 70,000 subscribers. Dan’s articles are featured here at CBN every Tuesday, and you can find out more about Dan at www.48days.com.