I seem to post about Truck Day a lot in this thread. It's maybe because being in your Sixties makes you contemplate what you've accomplished in the world, and how (relatively) little that inevitably stacks up against what you felt like you could_have had all your chances worked out. Priorities change with age. That (and the money, of course) are the primary reasons why I took the offer to become management at the age of 63. The last 15 months have been a journey, not least because I've been only one in a schema supposed to count two for that whole time. For a while there was a second, but....when you hire a retail manager who has neither retail nor management experience (he was shoved down our throats) you get what you asked for. A dead man walking.
We recently welcomed a transfer into the store, a longtime company employee whose partner accepted a position in Philly lucrative enough to warrant moving across the country. This person is now my new partner in management crime, and she's a beast. Fuck.
So today was Truck Day, and we didn't have any outside help like I've expostulated about here before. Just store employees (did I mention that we've made some pretty good hires lately?). Just us, finally with the amount of management specified for the task.
Veni, vidi, vici. This may have been my favorite day in my current employment. A team that we built hit the task, and knocked it out of the fucking park. The only remaining element was one last leader to make the team what the company says that team is supposed to look like, and she walked into the building a few days ago.
I finally feel like we're nearing what I left my last job to help build, two years ago. It feels good, not least because I'm only a part of it. It took everyone, and we did it. No better feeling.
