On the Jet Bus, I Have My Best Day on one the Worst Days
I close my eyes and feel myself in another kind of vehicle. The seat vibrates beneath me and I imagine the rumble of the bus’s idling engine is actually the whir of a jet engine. The driver becomes a pilot when he announces, appropriately, “now departing, Line 112 to Edmonds Community College.” I keep my eyes closed and see my bus/plane taxiing down the runway of SeaTac. It turns and enters traffic, taking off as the engines rev up. I am flying. Somewhere. I’m not commuting home on a bus; I am flying in a big jet plane away to some far place.
Now, I can’t say that I have some repressed desire to escape to someplace else at this point and time in my life. Things are finally coming back together. No, I like the way things are going right now. Instead, this is just a game I play. Turning the bus into an airplane. Daydreaming. It’s fun.
* * *
I woke up this morning, turned on the news and saw that the stock market was down 350 points. Blame the Tea Party. Blame Obama. Blame Standard and Poors. It was one of “those days” when the cable news had a permanent tracker of the Dow Jones average in one corner of the screen. When I left the house, the Dow was down 350 points.
I get to work at 10 AM (PT) and it was busy.
“Yes, we’ll take this $1800 fridge.”
“We want to buy that $2200 fridge, $1000 range and $800 dishwasher.”
“This $1300 washer and dryer pair is what we’ve decided on. How soon can it be delivered?”
By my lunch break, I had sold $8000 in appliances, which would be a very good sales day by itself. I didn’t know it at the time, but the Dow had lost a couple hundred more points.
After lunch, things continued popping. I sold a bunch of $300 dishwashers and $400 washing machines too, but the big ticket sales kept rolling. I ended up working 45 minutes past my shift’s end to wrap up the loose ends that come with selling $20,000 worth of appliances in a day.
I might have had that many sales in a day at my previous employer in years past. I don’t remember for sure. In what I do remember, this was the biggest personal sales day in almost two decades of working in stores. $20,000 is my goal for a week. I did that one day today.
And the Dow lost 634 points. 2000 points in the last two weeks.
It’s not just me, either. There is almost more demand than me and my store can handle right now. It‘s obvious that macroeconomic forces do not determine each and every microeconomic condition. Yeah, we got 9.1% unemployment. How can a person actually picture millions of unemployed? Close their eyes and imagine? That is why individual anecdotes about business and markets have an accessibility that big numbers do not. I’m not going to say that the stock market, our national credit rating or the latest buzz out of Washington has nothing to do with how business operates on Main Street, USA, but when the media peddles panic in order to get better ratings for news shows, remember that for some of us (that $20,000 that people spent with me didn’t come from nowhere), things aren’t so bad.
Yeah, the stock market is tanking. But in JokoLand, things are better than ever. If people are taking money out of the stock market, apparently, they are putting it into appliances.
The answer is simple you live in a parallel universe. :entertained:
Thank goodness that some of the American working public does not pay attention to the credit, stock, bond, and the commodity markets. The telling thing in your $20,000 running with the bears day is what the ratio of debit card(cash) to credit card spending was. It would be a fascinating breakdown, for sure…were people aware of the meltdown and spent their credit limit down because there is no tomorrow? Was most of the sales based on cash from checking/savings? Was it as you hinted and people cashed out their 401Ks and IRA’s in some sort of financial seppuku?
My company is in the midst of of our annual summer planned slowdown and it hasn’t slowed down as it usually does. The demand for lawn care, farm, commercial trucking and recreational vehicles from the EuroZone, America and Canada is still strong. To watch the news right now for me is like an episode of the twilight zone—reality just does not match what the media is reporting…
Congratulation J…you know there is nothing wrong with having a great day,and there is nothing wrong with getting a fair wage,from a fair days work,and there is nothing wrong with making a fantastic wage for a fantastic days work..:)
You know it’s not having money that is bad,it’s not having money that is bad.
GezZZZ enjoy it will ya…it’s o.k..lol…:)
D.
By any measure it sounds like you you had an awesome day Joko. Great job.
Life is just dandy for those with good jobs.
That’s one of the problems.
I’m glad you had a good day.
do you work on commission in Lowe’s? could have took yourself a trip on flying plane. .
Hey Joko, we who hike, bike, bus and train ourselves to fly by the seat of our pants as we play it by ear
(sssh, think U jus’ had me take off on one)
in tween time, aint it always the truth, somebody benefits. some where along the line
would prefer nature’s set up to that of man though it simply gives, lets the sun shine, no matter what
presently, i wonder what it would be like to walk in the mystical magic of clear unfettered sky by the light(s) we are now bouncing off the earth on having skim the rivers of glitter and glow as wave on wave the crest N trough in the valleys banking on. . . .
hey, anybody for some figuring. how much work would fall of the map if money was took out of the picture
like how much time do we spend keeping track of how much we are worth, or if indeed you even count
how dare you not be working for a living. . lest off course you went to private school for learning how to milk the masses who have been so hypnotized by the electronic buzz, near zombie state of mental bliss lest tearing through the tragedy, life on earth’s become for more and more. With no let up in sight, from the plight some a truth, laced into you like the black holes in ya eyeballs, now if I had ya voice and time the . . ah that was neat. When the UKE the World, had us swim through the wonder’s of U.Kie Land. as UClueLet on Vancouver Island is fondly known. lands end. . we visited July 31 of 99 and found our selves tearing through how deeply affected we had been by having lost, all our familiar, culture, customs, language, songs family and I’d add friends, didn’t have any, never made any. still don’t much
turn the U.Kie into UKiE and voila, we’ll nUke the PLANeT WE’LL sTop tHEm sHOrT, onCe wE puT thE bRAke on words? no telling how fast we can break, a train of thoughts. .
I’d Crow about the gent handed me an eagle featHer from mid the rocks an logs we were sitting on. . toyed some with it then share. . if . . . I had three wishes , this be my first
I’d share, safe for laughing so hard, we plum forgot as the second ‘of may we all have as much fun as we are having now’ came to mind and shared. . . had trouble thinking of a third, with it all sum up in the second, for when the laughter ran through all life made light of all at once . .
decided, to keep the third for three more some day. . and so far, it has work like a charm ! ! ! !
Joko, wouldn’t anybody with half a brain in their head read that 9 percent unemployment figure the other way around? man, that’s about taking another 80 percent of the work out of living. . be about as much work as it takes you to draw a breath of air, all done with a cosmic grace that fell apart when the sacred trust was broke, tween mother and child
first the twin towers , build to the glory of the almighty buck
then the buildings all round
with enron for encore and banks
as Tony Robinson’s make rich on real estate
finally fell. . and why the move out
let them pay rent to the banks
and now, the Tea Party Crash
didn’t they have one in Boston Bay once?
nature works, in mysterious ways well as oft
goes in reapeat time and again to where those born into would not consider
to question its worth or truth. its just its one and only known
it the cosmic norm for all, safe for humanity who have been losing more and more
as the electric fan fAIR fuel humanity’s short sightedness
I guess I ought have hush . .swear I will by friday, taking 40 days out . . some times ya got to close ya eyes and live in trust ya done all ya can and it is up to each . . and as to what. .
you on Facebook are you not Joko??
The strange thing that I find under reported is that while stocks are going down, bonds for the US government have gone up. People have more faith in our credit than the stocks on the market.
For all the people that are hand wringing(which is warranted), life goes on for everybody else. Congrats on the good day, I hope it stays that way for you!!!
I’m glad to see you racking up the sales. Not a bad way to jump back in the saddle.
Perhaps we aren’t as doomed as they would like us to think. 😆
Depressingly optimistic, unjaded, & totally lacking nihilism. I may have to unsubscribe.
Joko, in the sea of blogs that just remind me just how messed up this country, the economy, and the world is, yours was a PLEASURE to read and put a huge smile on my face. 😀 THANK YOU!!
Just goes to show that in the crappiest of situations there can be a glimmer of hope if we look for it. :love:
And what a cool way to daydream on the bus. But tell me, did you miss getting groped by the TSA? 😯
Things have ben hoping in the animal head biz too. Last month I had a $1900 sale to Canada and this month a Wisconsin Church added four more animals to the one they bought last month for their “nursery” wing.
Maybe people are spending their money because they are scared. Hey, we are looking to drop a huge amount of money on an RV.
After years of saving money in the house, we are pulling some out to play. We are tired of being the frugal adults in town.
Dance around the fire pagans! BUY Now.