Friday, August 26, 2011

"Do what you love and you will never work again."

Sausage Fingers at a young age...

As a youth how many times did you hear the phrase:
 "Do what you love and you will never work again?"
Parents, scholars and general know it alls alike they all pounded this phrase over and over until they were blue in the face with repetition.

Looking back at the fun times of my youth which were spent in female pursuit and constant geo-mapping for liquor stores that did not card, I let the worldly wisdom of said scholarly ones in one ear and out the other.
During the summer of 1986 I never thought of picking up a pen and writing a journal or photographing my surroundings or even learning the DOS system of the commodore 64, I let the fresh education weep out of the noggin because I found the holy grail aka Mr. Pak's international grocery market and Mr. Pak did not card! Nice knowing you brain cells...

Fast forward 25 years and I still exist no thanks to Mr. Pak and his loose grip on the American under age drinking policy. 25 years of working and surviving, every Monday seems to be a tougher slog than the last and how fast the years go by when I think of the summer of '86 and Mr. Pak. I never listened to anyone's advice back then, my plan was to join the Navy and make a career of it but due to an unforeseen medical condition Uncle Sam's Navy sent me packing back to South Florida where I came to find out Mr. Pak had died.
R.I.P. Mr. Pak and thanks for the ice cold Old Milwaukee tall boys....

So here I am the proud father of 2 boys one about to embark on his last year of middle school and me with my 25 years of learned bullshit and knowledge of Van Halen lyrics from their 1984 album all I want to get through his noggin is:

Has anyone ever met karma? if you see her tell her Sausage Fingers says she is a bitch.... 

Between then and now I have many challenges ahead, we have already had The talk of all talks, so that leaves me with teen driving, importance of school work and of course to NEVER EVER step inside a store called -  Mr. Paks international grocery market especially when the sign reads:

Mr. Pak's special buy
Old Milwaukee Tall Boys
30 pack $9.99

30 ice cold tall boys in the Florida summer have a very strong allure for a young lad or lass, my suggestion is stay away and go figure out where you want to be in 25 cliche of me.

I have 25 years of experience under my ever changing belt, 13 of which have been self employed.
Self employment has always seemed to suit me best since me and my Scottish temper are not suited for the corporate world of ass kissing and back stabbing, which is kind of like high school with neck ties and BMW's.  I do not dislike my little company, I harbor no ill will for my jobs and customers and I get to spend every day with my business partner aka Mrs, Sausage. That's right me and the wifey both live and work together, it is 24/7/365...sorry no joke inserted here although sometimes she does make me sit in the corner when I am in one of my "Sausage" moods. What I don't feel for my business is total love, it like many other tasks has become a job and every once in a while I run for the hills at the thought of ever seeing the place again, that feeling usually lasts for a day then it's back to putting food on the table for the family.

So what has the last 25 years of working for large companies, working for small firms, working for assholes and working for myself taught me? obviously the answer is listed in the title of the blog, no need to repeat you all know the answer.
I do hope that my two boys will listen to old dad and conquer the world their own way never having to dread that Sunday night feeling of Monday and the work week looming.

Good luck boys, do yourselves a favor and listen to you father...

I have a question for all of you out there in the world, here goes:

If you could start over what would you do? what job would make you smile every day?
Or do you already have your dream career?
Please leave a comment.
Cheers, Sausage...


  1. Ah, Jeez. I love what I do!!!!! I've made $32 this month. $0 last month. Alas, I wasn't carded much back in the day. This lowly income must be the result of a misspent high school career.

  2. $32... do you know how many bottles of Old Milwaukee that would have bought back in the day?
    keep on smiling.....
    Cheers, Sausage.

  3. If I could do it again, I would still be a professional musician. I would never have given up running. I would've treated some of my exes better and some of them worse.

    But then what would I write about? :-)


  4. Came back to say HA!

    Came over following your link on Best Blog Posts of the Week and then again when you left a comment on my post.




  5. Pearl, my sister from another mister..
    A running musician... sounds nice
    I wish I had picked up the sticks after watching my father pound the drums for many years. I also would have liked to journey to Alaska by foot or bike like the kid from the move
    "Into the wild"
    but I would like to come home eventually.

  6. do what you love. oh, what job could pay me for drinkin' and whorin'? (oh, wait... did i just answer my own question?)

    dream job? i'm pretty close. astronaut. and i work in the aerospace tech industry, so that's as close as i could realistically get, i suppose. most days? i still enjoy it. it's the fact that i was apparently functional enough to rise up in management and be in charge of the care and feeding of other souls that's a bit of a buzzkill sometimes.

    perhaps you're due for another career, mr. fingers? never too late?

  7. Excellent advice to your boys!

    I know this sounds totally cheesy of me, but I'm already doing what I love--being a Mom & Wife. (Go ahead, gag people...I don't care!) ;)

  8. Hi, long time, friend!

    Me? Definitely open a small Cafe or try and go on Masterchef. Wait, there is still time for that!

  9. Daisy - drinking and whoring are both recession proof

  10. Boobies - no gag here you keep on keeping on, whatever makes you smile...

  11. Chilean, yeah long time indeed.
    At your young age you have bags of time....
    go for it.

  12. I'd be working with animals instead of humans... When I decided to go into nursing, it was a hard decision between people nursing and becoming an animal health technologist (fancy term for vet's assistant). The schooling was the same length (2 years) but the number of jobs and amount of money I'd get paid in people nursing swayed my decision. I've discovered over the years that animals are nicer people than most people. ;-)

  13. Ponita - ture on the animals eh.. still have not come across an animal that I would classify as an asshole, same can't be said of us humans.

  14. Don't you just hate it when karma comes around and kicks you up the arse. If I hadn't spent the weekends drinking Buckfast and super cheap pisswater that was Lynx lager I like to think I could've made it as a fitba player...scoring the winner at a packed Hampden against the auld enemy.

  15. My karma is shot.

    I will not entertain this question. It will inevitably lead to the next tough question, that being, "Well, then, why didn't you try to do it?" Why, indeed?

  16. Ryan - aye me too, I thought I was going to be the next John Robertson...

  17. UB - Daily survival in gotham works for me..
    keep on keeping on...

  18. You know my answer baj. Drums for life!

  19. G - or a bouncer at Finnegans beachside?

  20. I would be a counsellor. In fact it's still something I'm considering training for. The downside would be, working in Edinburgh, I would be inundated with calls from Hibs fans the day after the Edinburgh derby...

  21. Mike - Or angry members of the TARTAN ARMY looking for a refund...
    as to the wanting to be a counsellor
    all the best, Sausage...