THREAT-MANAGEMENT.COM: Recent Comments

Comment on Fierce Looks Just Like This

2012-01-26T00:30:03Z

Thanks, Beth. I found myself feeling like the little mouse in some Disney (?) cartoon where the mouse had to talk to the owl. The naturalist said the owls would kill turkeys but then only eat the meat off the neck. Ok, that's strange. Then, the owl would leave and coyotes would come in to feast on the rest of the turkey carcass. He also said that great horned owls kill more turkeys here than anything except mountain lions. Amazing stuff.

Comment on Fierce Looks Just Like This

2012-01-26T00:10:19Z

Great article, Dave. I find it rather amusing too because lately Jim has had a great horned owl visiting his bait pile and setting off the alert in the house. He will appreciate your story I'm sure!

Comment on Threat Management - Fear is Visible

2011-10-08T09:14:05Z

This is a great article. Gracias for the info.

Comment on Defining Moments

2011-09-20T02:20:44Z

Attaboy. I'm not sure it's so important that you come to a conclusion that you did the right/wrong thing in a given situation. You did what you did. I think what might be most important is that you ask the question as you grow and learn, but don't dwell on it.

Comment on Defining Moments

2011-09-19T14:48:58Z

I agree with you and Mike, so I took my past, put it in my peace pipe and let it float away like the tobacco smoke. Time to move on into the present. I don't know the future but I'm not going to let the past take it away anymore. I'm not even the same person, so I'll make myself a new past ---

Comment on Defining Moments

2011-09-18T23:41:43Z

Dave, back in my foodservice days about 15 years ago, my "partners" sold my franchise to a new group with the consolation "I'd expect you to be heavily recruited." Naturally, the new guy shitcanned me within weeks. I see now that the seeds of that situation were sown years before by my own failings and lack of self-awareness, but that's not relevant to my point. One (and only one, that I know of) of my staff quit in protest of my being fired. On the one hand, I felt good that she valued me. On the other, I felt lousy that she now had to find a new job. As for the rest of the staff, I don't recall feeling a bit of malice toward them (including Jane, by the way) for sticking with their jobs. In fact, the situation was sort of a revelation to me. I was in Jane's apartment feeling sorry for myself when I had a memory burst in my head of my Dad saying, out of the blue, "Its something that should happen to everyone, ONCE." That quote was his description of being (what he felt was) unfairly fired from a job. That was a very big deal to him, a man of intense principles. The recall of that memory and the comfort that it gave me brought me closer to my dad than almost any situation could have since his passing in 1992. As soon as I recalled it, the feelings of depression just evaporated. I saw it for what it was, simply a turn in life's course. I wish I could say that I used that experience to pole-vault to an entirely new and wildly successful career but I can't. It doesn't diminish the value of the sequence, though.

What's ironic is that the new franchisees ultimately ended up calling me back a couple of years later asking if I wanted to return. Apparently their acquisition had gone from making money to losing money with my departure. I thought long and hard about doing it but ultimately decided that I had better opportunities and told them that now I'd been out of the 4am foodservice for a while, I wasn't the guy they wanted. I knew there was another world out there and wouldn't have been able to do the grind. So instead, I went and made the same character mistakes in my new job that had cost me the first one.

So what's my point? It sounds to me like you're assigning a "strategic" character failure in yourself based on one "tactical" incident. I don't think anyone who knows you is going to agree with that. Listen to Mike on this one. The world is full of people who'll beat on you for their own enjoyment, there's no need to help them.

Comment on Age And Experience

2011-09-16T14:40:05Z

So true !

Comment on Wyoming Riding Lessons

2011-09-16T14:38:53Z

Love the "things you learned" from your adventure. Made me chuckle and it made me stop and think and thank God for his creation. Love it !!! :)

Comment on Defining Moments

2011-09-16T13:36:07Z

Remember when we were asked to buy an angel ornament and use it to remember our friend that passed away? I still have mine, and it's hanging next to me desk. I remember her fondly and too miss her very much.

Comment on Defining Moments

2011-09-16T02:10:45Z

You didn't sell your soul, you did what you thought you had to do. Not everyone has the ability to walk away from a job, and that's the only thing that keeps bastards like your former boss afloat. He feeds off it like ~ a parasite.

I was warned about your boss by some pretty prominent people in the county before I took a job there. I said to myself, "What can he do?"

Ha. A lot I knew.

Thank God every day that now you will see worms like this coming a mile away. Grow from it. Stop kicking yourself.