Goal: Be Happy

"Goal: Be Happy." 

from a sign I saw on a front porch in an Austin neighborhood last week

I had a conversation with a customer a couple days ago while I mixed her paint at The Worlds Largest Home Improvement Retailer. She looked at the 15 year service badge I (have to) wear on my apron and asked - more or less - how in the Hell I've been able to do it. I mean retail sucks, doesn't it? She didn't say that in so many words, but the look on her face clearly reflected it. She was about my age with a teenage daughter in tow (they were painting the teen's bedroom) and I'm sure she silently breathed a sigh of relief that her career choices had never included a long stint in retail.

And let's be honest, when I started working for my current company I intended to stay six months, maybe. Retail was never my career choice. It was a career that happened. At the six month mark I got promoted, then six months after that I got promoted again. Before I knew it six years had passed and I was getting paid a decent wage and getting three weeks vacation. Fast-forward, nine more years. I've taken two demotions, but I'm still paid a decent wage (fifteen years of piddly pay increases do in fact add up) and I get four weeks of vacation. I routinely tell my boss that they're going to have to dynamite me out of the joint because I'm never quitting (Ok, ok... If I land major book contract that pays real money and/or a job teaching English in [insert European country here], I'll be hard pressed to give two weeks notice). A career in retail may not have been planned, but it is what it is.

I assured the woman that it wasn't all that bad. Just as in life, you have to find something you like and focus on that. For example, when I worked crazy mixed up shifts - open one day, close the next, or close one day, open the next - I found something I liked about each of the shifts. Opening meant I had the afternoon and evening free to do whatever I wanted to do. Closing meant I got to sleep in. What about mid-shifts? Yeah, they always sucked. Same applies for the different jobs I've done. Stocking freight = good workout. Human Resources = helping people. Paint department = fun times being a bartender but with paint. Receiving = powered lift equipment....which oddly enough is one of my true happy places. Front End Supervisor = Sheer Hell.

No matter what job or shift I work, I try to find something that I like, something that makes me happy. Like I've told everyone who has commented over the years about my nearly immutable positive attitude, I have to spend eight hours a day at that store. I can either choose to be miserable or I can choose to be happy. Every morning, when I pull into the parking lot and as I'm making the long walk to the time clock, I consciously decide what my day is going to be like. With the rarest exceptions, I choose to make it a good day. Yes, there are days when peeling off my skin and swimming in lemon juice sounds like more fun than dealing with entitled shit-head customers (and the occasional lazy, annoying co-worker), but eventually the day ends. My watch says 1:30 and I can leave for the day. Once I hit the door, that horrible, awful, no good, crappy day is behind me and invariably I return the next day with my usual sunny disposition.

My job isn't perfect, but what in life is? Over the years, I've gotten a lot of mileage out of a little tidbit of sage advice my mom gave me when I moved from Southern California to Michigan. Regarding the snow, my mom told me that I had two choices - I could either like it or like it. Snow was inevitable. It was Western Michigan where lake effect snow can start before Halloween and continue right up until Memorial Day. Here's the thing. After ten winters, I wasn't able to well up enough like. I had a carport and a snow blower, but the snow and cold were still too much. I visited a friend in Texas over Thanksgiving in '02 and rung in '03 as a Texas resident. Which is why this, my fifteenth HOT Texas summer, has me thinking...

When you can't find something you like about the situation you find yourself in - when you can no longer find a way to be happy - you have to change something. Because - here's the final point I made to the woman at the paint counter - life is too damn short. It sounds trite and we say it all too often, but it's true. I get this one go-round. YOU get this one go-round. Why settle for anything less than happiness?

Ok, ok... Agreed. It's not always easy. There are sick children, car accidents, dying parents, lost dogs, injuries, floods, washing machines on the blink, cheating spouses, and a thousand other inescapable trials life throws our way when we least expect them. Some days, some weeks, some years are more difficult that others. Sometimes no matter how hard we try, happiness eludes us. I get that. I've been supremely blessed in this life...so maybe it's easy for me to say. I don't know...

One more nifty quote before I end this session of Stacee's Life Advice 101 - "Nothing lasts forever no matter how it feels today."  Good happens. Shit happens. It's life. Like it or like it. If I've learned anything through it all (and believe me there have been some SHITTY times), there is only one thing I can truly control - My attitude, how I approach/see/live my life.  I assure you, come what may, happiness will always be my goal.

I assured my skeptical customer at the paint counter that the retail life can be a happy one. Hell, any life can be. It's just takes the right attitude.