Thrown from the Ivory Tower

Under the assumption quality decision making requires knowing every part of the business, after our 6:30AM meeting with the Wilmington service technicians, my VP unexpectedly excused from my day’s assignments, handed me pants that were too small and a shirt that was too large with instructions not not to worry about my dress shoes. I was then sent on a ride-along (read: death march) with a technician we’ll call Steve.

My first stop on the 98 degree day was a trailer park in a city of Magnolia, North Carolina – population 981. Below you’ll see pictures of the dish I helped install, the hole I had to crawl through to fuck with wires, and the neighboring home in a state of modest disrepair.

Not pictured are the scorpion lizard that attacked me, the scenes from my two other stops, the pangs associated with heat prostration and the embarrassment of being ridiculed when asking Steve if he had sun block.

After twelve hours I hated the world, I hated my managers, I hated Wilmington, I hated television, I hated Steve, I hated everyone. It's only in retrospect that I can accept the day as a valuable learning exercise, thank my managers, and appreciate Steve for doing amazing work on a thankless job I could never imagine.