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tealin · 4 years

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Basler to the Beardmore 1: You See a Plane, You Take It

As always, the original post is up at the official blog – the formatting definitely works there, if you are having issues with it here.

When planning my research trip with the Antarctic Artists & Writers Program, I had to make a wishlist of places to visit. One of the more important ones was the Beardmore Glacier, the route by which Scott and his men climbed from the Ross Ice Shelf (or, as they called it, the Barrier) to the Polar Plateau. It's one of the largest glaciers in the world, but is hardly visited anymore so is rarely photographed, and despite the blessing of Google Image Search, I had too poor a sense of it to draw a journey up or down it with any confidence.

Setting foot on the Beardmore turned out be prohibitively demanding, logistically, but there are regular LC-130 flights between McMurdo Station and the Pole which traverse the Beardmore en route. The plan we made was for me to get on one of those, and snap as much as I could from one of the small windows as we flew.

November 2019 turned out to be a terrible time for Pole flights – if the weather was OK at Pole, there was a problem with the planes, or vice versa. However, the weather delays worked in my favour, because they affected not only Pole flights, but one particular season-opening flight, which had been bumped so many times that it still hadn't gone when I turned up. That meant I could get a seat.

The big flights ffor the USAP’s operations in East Antarctica – cargo and passenger flights on/off continent, and to major stations like Pole and WAIS Divide – are handled by the New York Air National Guard, and their fleet of enormous military airplanes, namely a C-17 and small handful of LC-130 Hercules. There are lots of smaller trips from McMurdo to satellite stations, and these are serviced by Kenn Borek Air, a Canadian company which operates out of Calgary, Alberta. At the start of every season, they fly their fleet of Twin Otters and Baslers down the length of North and South America, then leapfrog depots down the Peninsula and thence to various hubs including McMurdo. From there they move people and stuff where they need to go, and also restock those fuel depots. There was one depot flight that remained to be done, and it happened to be to a cache near the base of the Beardmore, so they agreed to take me along.

I was not the only extra job tacked on to the flight. After depoting the fuel, we were to scout out a camp in the Transantarctic Mountains which had been in regular use until a some fierce winds a few years ago had scoured great furrows in the landing strip. Was it landable again? What state was the camp in? We would find out. They also wanted to scope out a historic site that left no physical trace, to get updated intel on its condition. Then we would fly north again via the Beardmore and the coordinates for One Ton Depot.

As soon as the Basler had finished her more pressing engagements, we were put on alert for the depot run. Everything in Antarctica is weather-dependent, and that can change on a dime, so one is always on standby. Because they needed to make the most of the Basler's time, they would put two missions on for any given day, then the one with the best prospects would be activated. For five days I was ready to go – breakfasted, fully suited up, lunch packed, ECW bag to hand – at 7 a.m., in case my flight was the one that was going. Flight status would be announced on the screens at the entrance to the Galley.

For four mornings I joined the poor Thwaites Glacier team anxiously hanging on the screens – they were trying to get out to WAIS Divide (the high point of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, from which they would catch a flight to the Thwaites camp) where the weather had been abominable for a month. One of those mornings my flight was activated and I got all the way out to the airfield only for it to be called off at the last minute because of a change in forecast for the depot site. But finally, the fifth morning, it was all systems go!

There are two airfields that serve McMurdo: Phoenix, which is designed to take the massive C-17s on a packed snow runway where they can land with wheels, and Williams Field, of groomed snow, for ski'd aircraft. The extra special thing about Williams Field is that it's more or less where Scott's 'Safety Camp' was located – so named because it was far enough onto the ice shelf not to break up and float out to sea – so the view to Ross Island from there would have been very familiar to our explorers. On the day of my false start, while waiting to find out that the plane wasn't going after all, I got to take some good pictures of the view from there. It was also a good day to get a sense of the 'bad light' that obliterated contrast on the snow and made navigation difficult:

The Sea Ice Incident took place between us and the conical hill to the left! Wild!

Anyway, Try no. 5 was on a much nicer day. Here is the magnificent bird with her spanking new paint job:

It was a funny experience – I mean, besides sharing the fuselage with many hundreds of gallons of flammable liquid – in that it was an island of Canada amidst all the Americans. The crew all lived in BC when they weren't in Antarctica, and next to my seat were the usual set of flight safety brochures, in English and French, just as if we were flying out of Calgary.

Our pilot was named Steve, and I learned from him that, if you're training to be a pilot in Canada, you have to do your qualifying hours in the North. Most people put in their time and then get a comfortable job flying passengers between major southern cities, but Steve liked the North so much he stayed and stayed, until he got the job with Kenn Borek and ended up South. As much as I feel obliged to make a facetious quip about my flammable fellow passengers, I can honestly say I have never felt safer in an airplane than this one. This was just as well, as one of the first things we did once we were in the air was rather exciting.

The Basler is a workhorse, and one of the Antarctic planes (though I never found out if it was this one) had actually flown in WWII – they just keep going and going. However, the hydraulics that lift the landing gear were designed to lift just the landing gear, not the landing gear plus 650-pound skis, so in order to get them up we had to lose some weight. And we did this by climbing steeply up and then nose-diving, bringing us temporarily closer to zero G. We had to do this every time we took off, and it took 2-3 goes to get the skis up successfully. You'd expect someone with a history of nervous flying and a sensitivity to motion sickness to find this unpleasant, but it was just plain awesome.

This post is getting long already, so I will describe our errands in detail over the next two posts. I really must take the time here, though, to give my regards to Kenn Borek Air. I don't think anyone in Canada knows how absolutely vital they are to everything that gets done in Antarctica; their vermillion planes keep camps supplied and people moving around, and are the everyday lifeblood of the continent, in the most literal circulatory sense. Steve and the Basler may possibly have saved the Thwaites Glacier project this season – after a month of delays getting people and freight out to the field camps, it was reaching a point where they might have called off the massive international project for this year. But they allocated the Basler to the WAIS flights and Steve landed it in conditions that the NYANG wouldn't – the Basler couldn't fly nearly as much cargo as a Herc, but they got enough out there that some work could begin. I haven't seen this mentioned in any of the Thwaites coverage and I'm sure it hasn't been covered in Canada, but for a country that doesn't even have a national Antarctic program, they should be mighty proud of the central role their people play in making other countries' programs happen.

#antarctica #travel #airplanes #aeroplanes #beardmore glacier #mcmurdo station #usap #kenn borek air #basler #dc-3 #aviation #williams field #photos

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farfromdaylight · 6 years

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OKAY HERE WE GO, THE STAT POST TO END ALL STAT POSTS

first and most important: what the everliving fuck, i wrote a million words in a year. if you told me this time last year that this was what i was going to aspire to, i would have assumed it was an april fool's joke. like. lmao you're kidding right.

end total was 1,000,111! i had wanted a million and one words but when i calcuated my numbers i had, uh, a million and thirty. :"| so i had to write some 80 words in the like 10 minutes i had left. way to go, me.

october is highlighted for a very important reason: it's the month i switched to colemak. the fact that my wph/wpm has only improved since that time is a pretty strong vote in its favor, i think. i do still experience hand pain, but i think that has more to do with the fact that i write for two hours a day than the keyboard layout. certainly it's nice to have a more ergonomic design. (most of my current pain is actually from my mouse location; working on fixing that issue next.)

more highlights & tl;dr under the cut bc heaven knows this is going to get obnoxiously long

firstly, a project breakdown -- what is that million words made of?

immortal au -- 813,127 words (unintentional but delightful)

everybody says this is your home -- 166,680 words

roughly 20k of cuts, snippets, drabbles, etc

so, not surprising; heaven knows i only worked on two real stories in the past year. this is something i want to change over this next year, though i'm not yet sure what those stories will be.

highs & lows

most words written in a single day: 11,181 (11/1)

most time spent writing in a single day: 8 hours, 20 minutes (11/1) (start of nano, also i was going on vacation that weekend and wanted a buffer)

least words written/day: 80 (9/24)

least time spent/day: 5 minutes (9/24) (i had had zero sleep)

best words per hour/minute: 2159/36 (2/26) (i wrote 203 words in 4 minutes and nearly lost it, because i am That Kind Of Person)

worst words per hour/minute: 599/10 (10/1) (first day of colemak; i didn't even write 600 words in the hour i spent writing)

most time spent writing/month: 107 hours, 16 minutes (november) (duh)

least time spent writing/month: 39 hours (may) (ah yes, back when i was aiming for a thousand words a day... that didn't last long...)

other stats

on average, i write for about 57 hours, 40 minutes per month. no wonder i haven't been able to play many video games lately -- writing took up that timeslot.

that said, i only spent 8% of the past year writing. 691 hours sounds like a ton of time, but it averages out to 2 hours a day. given that i spend 8 hours a day sleeping (...give or take), 2 hours is really not that much of a loss. though as i mentioned in the other post, 1 hour of writing often equates to two hours of real time. even then, 16% of a year/1400 hours is really not that much time in the grand scheme of things.

i have made roughly 500 posts about writing on here in the past year, for which i apologize. the number's rough because there are a few more posts than that on dw but i don't feel like sorting through it at the moment to figure out the exact number. either way: i am so, so sorry. how have you all not unfollowed me. i do not understand.

quartiles

i calculated the quartiles for words/time/wph, and i find them pretty interesting:

words

first quartile (25%): 1,355

second quartile (50%): 2,239

third quartile (75%): 3,555

time

first quartile (25%): 1 hour, 3 minutes

second quartile (50%): 1 hour, 27 minutes

third quartile (75%): 2 hours, 30 minutes

words per hour (wpm)

first quartile (25%): 1,214 (20)

second quartile (50%): 1,407 (23)

third quartile (75%): 1,619 (27)

the reason i find them interesting is that they don't match up at all! you'd think that since the wph is calculated from words over time they'd even out, but apparently not. despite all evidence to the contrary i'm actually not great at statistics, so i'm not sure what conclusion to draw, but my guess is that it has to do with the fact that my wph did something of a bell curve over the past 12 months. but who knows.

(incidentally i do want to turn all these numbers into Pretty Charts, but i... have not figured out that part of google sheets yet, lmao. i'm sure i'll figure it out eventually. so far all i have managed are a bunch of squiggles. they are pretty squiggles but they are squiggles nonetheless.)

etc

so one of my overall goals for 2018 was to write a million words in 2018 specifically (ie starting jan 1--ending dec 31), and i'm not sure if i still want to go for it. on the one hand, i'm about 50,000 words ahead of pace, and like, that's a terrible buffer to lose. i am also Very Bad at giving up goals.

on the other hand...... the reason i am ahead is because i noticed in january that i was really close to writing a million words in 365 days. i tried to tell myself that i wasn't going to aim for it because of how burnt out i was, but. 😐 we can see how well that worked out. 😐

the thing is, though, i am tired. i am unbelievably tired. that chart says that i averaged 2 hours of writing a day in march, and as far as math in concerned, that's true. in actual fact, though, i averaged 1h30m of writing from 3/1 through 3/24, and four hours a day for the past week. i'm fucking exhausted. and it's exactly what i did in february, and in january. i can't do a whole year of that.

so. i am going to aim for 50,000 words next month, because it's camp nano and because 50k is, at this point, a very achievable number. (i mean for god's sake, i just did it in a week. i can do it in a month. in fact i would love to do it in a month.) and i am going to use the rest of that time to work on the worldbuilding, planning, and plotting i have pushed aside for the past five months in pursuit of ever-growing wordcounts.

that's april. the rest i can figure out later.

#we are always in balance #wordcount stats #now that i think about it i'm not sure how many millions i've written #this certainly isn't the first #or the second #it might be most of the third?#one day i will sit down and calculate my Lifetime Wordcount #dear future larissa: i'm sorry

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kristablogs · 4 years

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With the US-Canada border closed, wildlife tourism is hurting

There likely won’t be any trips in the Yukon like this one for American hunters in 2020. (Sloane Brown/YETI/)

This story originally featured on Outdoor Life.

For many of us here in the US, an annual hunting or fishing trip to Canada is a longstanding tradition. And Canadians, particularly those in the more remote western provinces, depend on American tourism dollars to bolster local economies. But the US-Canada border has been closed since March and will remain so until at least July 21. There is also a 14-day quarantine rule in place that will stay in effect until Aug. 31. That means anyone who does come into the country must self-isolate for two weeks. In most cases, Canadian citizens are also not permitted to drive or fly from province-to-province without quarantine.

A recent poll showed 81 percent of Canadians don’t want the border to open to Americans, mainly due to the uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 surges in the US. That’s bad news for outfitters in Canada. Of course, the safety of both countries takes precedence over the financial hit the hunting and fishing industry will endure. But an unfortunate outcome of the pandemic is that some guiding businesses won’t make it through.

It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but when the US is seeing spikes in positive COVID-19 tests, it’s difficult for Canada to open its border and safely allow Americans into the country, though it is possible once the US makes it through this second surge. Iceland has broken through as a shining example, hosting international travelers since June by using a rigorous testing program, saving its tourism industry from financial peril. There have been pleas made by Canadian Travel and Tourism, which generates $74 billion and employs 1.8 million people, to allow healthy Americans into Canada, as US citizens make up two-thirds of international tourists in Canada. But so far Prime Minster Justin Trudeau hasn’t budged.

There is no public plan or procedure in place for opening the border, only a projected date that keeps getting moved back, which has been a serious frustration for outfitters. It has left them in limbo, unsure if their outfits will continue to tread water with pre-COIVID profits, or ultimately drown. Alberta’s Professional Outfitters Society reported guides in the province have lost $68 million in revenue since the pandemic began in March. Two thousand people are also jobless due to the lack of clients.

To find out how outfitters across Canada are coping with the border closure, I talked to four Canadian guides. We wanted to know how they are navigating these strange and difficult times, and if they expect their businesses to survive the pandemic.

Sheep hunting on hold

B.C. guide Rachel Ahtila with a harvested Dall Sheep. (Rachel Ahtila/)

In British Columbia, 32-year-old Rachel Ahtila waits anxiously for the border to open. She guides sheep and other big game with Dustin Roe at Backcountry BC and Beyond in B.C. as well as the Yukon and Northwest Territories. There is considerable cost in operating outfits in such places. The overhead is massive. You have to cut trails and ready camps, feed and maintain 60 head of horses, purchase food to sustain an entire roster of clients and staff for up to four months, and charter planes to get everyone there. Plus there is the cost of fuel, trucks and trailers, and the biggest expense—paying back the note on the hunting area/lease you’re in.

“Yes, we need a season,” Ahtila says. “There is so much infrastructure beyond just a hunt that we are supporting, and we are all suffering in the unknown. We want to be in the mountains doing what we love, giving our clients the best experience we can, but we also need to be able to cover a business’ year-round costs. There are thousands of people in Canada that rely on the hunting industry as a source of income.”

A major hurdle in B.C. for guides is the phased re-opening plan. Right now, the province is in Phase 3 of 4. The US-Canada border would re-open in Phase 4 but for that to occur, one of three things has to happen: a vaccine, community immunity, or broad and/or successful treatments. The first two aren’t likely to happen until 2021 at the earliest, and the third has a long way to go on the US side of the border. It will certainly help business if Ahtila can get more Canadian hunters in the mountains, but that’s also up in the air at this point because of last-minute rescheduling and logistics. Some Canadian airlines are either shut down or flying at limited capacities, and travel between many of the provinces is limited.

“Some of it just doesn’t make sense with the allowed protests but mitigated gatherings [in the US],” Ahtila says. “I actually flew from Canada to Arkansas to show that this can be done safely amid COVID-19. I wore a mask, brought hand sanitizer … I think it can be done if we take precautions. Otherwise, our industry is going to take a major hit … More than it already has.”

Once the border is open, that will present another set of obstacles for outfitters. There will likely be testing procedures and other restrictions placed on international travelers. It’s near impossible to prepare for because the Canadian government hasn’t been forthcoming with a structured agenda to re-open the border. They continue to extend the closure month-by-month with little or no notice before announcing the potential re-opening dates. And the recent climb in US COVID-19 cases—and Trudeau’s refusal to visit the White House in early July—doesn’t bode well for open travel in the immediate future.

“It’s going to be hard to get our clients to hunting camps because there are so many unknowns with the continuing border closure,” Ahtila says. “We also have a considerable amount of gear ready to go if we get a green light, but we are planning to work with a reduced staff for the time being. It’s not going to be easy for anyone in the tourism industry.”

Spring guiding in Alberta a bust

Steve Overguard and a client with an Alberta moose. (Alberta Adventures/)

Steve and Debbie Overguard have been operating Alberta Adventures for nearly four decades, guiding clients for moose, bear, wolves, deer, cougar, and fishing. Ninety percent of their business comes from US patrons, and Steve Overguard estimates that since the border closure, their business has taken a $140,000 hit. They hosted a few Canada residents for fishing trips at their cabin in the northern part of the province, near the Northwest Territories border, but had no spring bear hunting clients. If the border doesn’t open by September, keeping the guide service going will be tough.

“I suppose if it doesn’t open by then, I’ll just have to eat fish,” Overguard says. “All our supplies and fuel for our camp have to be trucked in on the ice roads in winter, so I pay for that all up front. Since no one knew this [pandemic] was coming it’s just sitting there waiting, not being used.”

Alberta had already been hit hard by the sharp decline of the oil and gas industry in recent years, and tourism became one of the provinces main sources of revenue. Many laid-off oil field workers turned to guiding for income. But that has ground to a halt and the job market has shrunk considerably due to the pandemic. It’s become tough to find any kind of work throughout the province, and with no detailed plan to open the border, it has outfitters and guides worrying when (or if) they will be able to return to the woods. There are some governmental stimulus packages available to business owners, but Overguard said it’s essentially a loan he must pay back.

“We don’t want a second wave of COVID-19,” Overguard says, “but I think there are ways to control it. The federal government just doesn’t seem that interested in helping us right now. I could take $40,000 in stimulus, but with the border closed, I can’t host clients, so I’m not sure if I can pay it back.”

Overguard is willing to follow tight restrictions and leap over any hurdles to get clients in camp. He thinks there are ways to safely bring hunters into the country and has been working to find solutions, though most of those ideas have fallen on deaf ears.

“I’ll turn a 10-day trip into a two-week trip so hunters can adhere to the quarantine restrictions,” Oveguard says. “I’ll stand outside the plane with a thermometer and take their temperature. It might cost me more money, but at least we can exist.”

Waterfowl season looking bleak

Guide Luke Sherders isn’t optimistic the U.S.-Canada border will open this waterfowl season. (Joe Genzel/)

Luke Scherders runs Wingfeather Outfitters, guiding clients for waterfowl and turkeys in Ontario. Years ago, when Scherders started the business, he recalled his dad half-joking about how he would make a living if all the ducks contracted bird flu one season and died.

“I told him that would never happen, and it didn’t,” says Scherders, “but COVID has done just as much damage to my business as that would have.”

His spring turkey clientele was down by more than 50 percent and he estimates losing between $30,000 and $50,000 in profits. It would have been more if not for so many Ontario hunters honoring their reservations. Scherders isn’t optimistic about the border opening for waterfowl season, which starts in September across much of Canada. He says most Canadians he talks to think the border will remain closed, maybe through the end of the year. There’s too much risk in allowing Americans to cross the border.

Scherders only runs six to ten hunters a day (two groups maximum), and has a few other businesses to keep him financially sound, so if there isn’t a duck season this year, presumably he can pick it back up in 2021 because he doesn’t have a huge operation. He does see potential problems for larger outfitters, particularly ones that rely heavily on summer clients, like fishing camps.

“There’s a major fishing outfitter I know that typically runs 15 guides every day all summer long,” Scherders says. “He’s had three clients total this summer. You go from running 15 trips a day to a total of three clients, it’s gonna hurt.”

Large Canadian waterfowl operations are in jeopardy of folding too if the border doesn’t open, especially in the western provinces where very few residents use a guide. Many Americans guide or freelance in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, and with the window closing rapidly on Canadian seasons, Scherders, who routinely hunts the US, expects to see American outfitters benefit financially from the border closure.

“If you have private access or guide in the States, this could be a year to charge a premium, because so many hunters are likely not coming to Canada,” Schereders says. “I’ve already heard about American outfitters who typically come up here, setting up shop in North Dakota [and other states] to recoup some of the money they would have made in Canada. It could get interesting when the season opens in the States.”

Scherders has been taking deposits from clients (as many other outfitters have), but his guess is that he will be holding onto those checks and rolling them into next year. It’s nice to have some cash on hand now, but it also means that he will only make half of what he could have in 2021, because the deposit covers the first half of the total payment. He also breeds labs, and still has four pups he can’t get to US hunters due to the border closure.

“I can’t run 24 hunters through my camp a day,” says Scherders. “We just don’t have the bird numbers to do that. So, there’s no way I can make that money back quickly.”

Yukon under shutdown

Jessie Young congratulates Tatum Monod after taking a Yukon caribou. (Sloane Borwn/YETI/)

Midnight Sun Outfitters has been operated by Jessie Young’s family for nearly four decades. Her father started the business in B.C. Young and her brother now run the guide service in the Yukon, hunting sheep, caribou, moose, bear, and wolves. They also host a fishing camp, which will open to Canadian residents this summer, and wilderness tours, which are on the schedule as well.

Young may also guide a few Canadian hunting clients, but she’s resigned to the fact that her American clientele is not going to be in camp this year. Since Midnight Sun is an established outfitter (and she has a full-time job in Alberta as a registered nurse) they will make it through the pandemic and be open for business when the border restrictions are lifted. But she said other outfitters were not so lucky, and went out of business.

“I have to say that the communication from TIA (Tourism Industry Association) Yukon has been phenomenal during this time,” Young says. “They were very open about what the plan was, and so we had a better idea than most on what our season was going to look like and were able to prepare better for it.”

The Yukon border opened to Canadians July 1, which will make it possible to guide a small amount of clients and make a bit of money (there are quarantine restrictions for residents from provinces other than B.C., the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut). Before July, the entire Yukon was shutdown. There was no outside travel allowed. You had to be a Yukon resident in order to enter, and agents were patrolling the border heavily to enforce that mandate. The Yukon is a hub for international travel and tourism—there are many direct flights from Europe into Whitehorse—and officials were concerned the robust tourism that existed before COVID shutdowns might have caused cases to spike even after restrictions were put into place.

Young is looking at the upsides of the phased reopening. Her outfit will be in the Yukon this summer hosting small groups only, but the entire season could have been lost. They will also take this season to focus on the management of the species in their concession (the territory they hunt).

“We are basically making nothing this year, and it’s a wash,” Young says. “But I am feeling pretty resilient. I know outfitters that are way worse off, and we are lucky to have the clientele that we do. We are making the best of it.”

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scootoaster · 4 years

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With the US-Canada border closed, wildlife tourism is hurting

There likely won’t be any trips in the Yukon like this one for American hunters in 2020. (Sloane Brown/YETI/)

This story originally featured on Outdoor Life.

Sheep hunting on hold

B.C. guide Rachel Ahtila with a harvested Dall Sheep. (Rachel Ahtila/)

Spring guiding in Alberta a bust

Steve Overguard and a client with an Alberta moose. (Alberta Adventures/)

Waterfowl season looking bleak

Guide Luke Sherders isn’t optimistic the U.S.-Canada border will open this waterfowl season. (Joe Genzel/)

“I told him that would never happen, and it didn’t,” says Scherders, “but COVID has done just as much damage to my business as that would have.”

“I can’t run 24 hunters through my camp a day,” says Scherders. “We just don’t have the bird numbers to do that. So, there’s no way I can make that money back quickly.”

Yukon under shutdown

Jessie Young congratulates Tatum Monod after taking a Yukon caribou. (Sloane Borwn/YETI/)

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topicprinter · 5 years

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TL/DR at the bottom. Thank you in advance for your suggestions.I am a retired police officer (I became chronically ill after the birth of our son and had to retire from law enforcement 8 yrs ago). At the time, my only option was to allow my house to foreclose because it was in an area with MANY foreclosures (SW Florida) & we were unable to find a buyer for a very long time. I recieve disability and am unable to work physically because of my chronic condition.My husband was a web design/ programmer, making around 80k before the company he worked for folded, which pushed him to start out as a lighting & sound engineer. After a short stint doing events, he got heavily involved in the installation side of technology, and he's now making upwards of $200/hr between installing & programming systems & equipment.He was an independent contractor, but now he's gotten in on the ground floor with a friend's business- the entire business is in the friend's name, but my husband is an intregal part (the business couldn't run w/out his knowledge & abilities). They are doing very well and picked up multiple HUGE contracts for chains of businesses- currently they are working on 180 new vet clinics accross the US and that's only one of many.We live with extended family & have very few bills; no mortgage, no rent- just a single car payment, insurance, our phones. We help out with electric/gas, etc- but the bulk of the household bills are my parents (who we share the house with)- my husband maintains thier vehicles, we renovate and care for the house and they pay the bills.Our only major expense is that we are currently paying for three storage units a month- $1100 total- for a MASSIVE collection of Lego and Lego related products that I've been collecting for many years. This collection has been my way of working towards the business I want to start.The Business; My goal has always been to open a Lego related business consisting of multiple parts;-A new & used Lego shop selling everything from current items, to custom printed parts, build-your-own figures, bulk brick, specialized parts, etc etc etc.-A model building studio- where adult Lego model builders can come work in a place with a massive parts library- (both professional builders who do commission work- artists who work in Lego - as well as hobby builders who work on large complex builds but may not have a place at thier home to work on or store thier builds.)A large museum-like display area w/ interactive exhibits, activities- with large walk-through displays, building challenges, the history of Lego (and displays of many classic themes and sets throughout the ages).Classes & clubs for kids (after school, summer camps, scouts & home school groups)- Based on robotics, engineering, team building, creativity, etc. (As well as birthday parties)We also want to have entertainment based area, themed to Lego- Car ramps where you can build & race your builds. Challenges where you can try to solve puzzles using Lego- an indoor "Lego" Minigolf course where you can experiment with changing the design of the course was/ obstacles similar to giant Legos...-A secure storage area where adult collectors can store thier Lego collections (built, unbuilt, boxed, etc)- because many people have HUGE collections but not enough room at home to store them (and storage facilities are NOT ideal temp and settings for these type of collections).& Finally (but also most importantly)- We are HEAVILY involved in two charities that we have been running(not official 501c3 corporations)- For 5 years, we've been running Project Christmas- adopting local families in need at Christmas & providing everything the families need (5 years old, last year we helped 64 families with 119 kids). We also run a charity that creates custom Lego kits for kids and adults suffering from health issues, chronic pain, etc- and delivers them to families in domestic violence shelters, children's hospitals, etc.We have the entire business EXTREMELY well planned out, we have a focus-group online that has both volunteered to help with the set up and opening, but has been heavily involved in the ideas & planning of the business. We own nearly everything necessary for the inside of the business... Including displays, shelving, signage, promotional & decorative Lego related displays, and all of the Lego necessary for the massive displays, the new & used Lego shop, the model building studio, etc etc etc.What we don't have- is a location for the business. Although my husband makes GREAT money- we don't have any real organization when it comes to our income, and neither of us have fantastic credit thanks to young mistakes. (Mine is all paid-off, with no outstanding debt- and he's been steadily clearing up about $13k in remaining student loans).I have no idea how one goes about starting a business that needs a $300,000 warehouse-like building, and affords to hire contractors to do a $40,000 build-out. (this is approximately the costs we've come up with, through our research).If I continue paying $1200 a month in storage unit fees- I'm throwing that money away. And yet- I need the contents of the storage units to open the business. I'd like to move everything into a rental property and start with SOME of the ideas, growing the business to another location or expanding in the same location if we're able. We contacted a local owner of a 12,000 sq foot building with fantastic road-frontage, a huge parking lot, just minutes from our house- asking if we could possibly rent PART of the building, and then expand as we grow... Because the entire warehouse has sat empty for more than 15 years......but the owners response was that they "would really rather focus on selling it". I can't imagine we could EVERY get a $3000 a month mortgage with our credit & my husband's being self employed. - even if we DID get the mortgage, at $3000/m, we wouldn't be able to afford to improve/build out the empty warehouse. We were really disappointed that they weren't interested - and that they'd rather have it sit empty (it's been through 3 realtors with zero inquiries besides us in more than 10 years).We live in an area with an ABUNDANCE of mixed use space, but this building was really IDEAL in location for our needs.Anyway- I have absolutely no idea how people get started when they have a passion project that they want to turn into a real business. We need to stop throwing away money in storage fees every month- and I genuinely want to move everything into one place, and turn my hobby into an actual business. We have a TON of support from the Lego community, we live in a major suburb of a huge City, and the support for our idea is VERY BIG.... I just don't know where to start.For years, I have been amassing all of the products & display items, retail fixtures, signage- literally everything necessary to open the business - we have it all. Just no place to actually open.Your suggestions, comments and feedback are very much appreciated. I am in no way,.a business major, and I can't thank you enough for your patience with my LONG post.TL/DR; Our family has a huge hobby/project that we believe could be a very successful business- we just have no idea how to transition or get started. We have a good amount of disposable income, but that income fluctuates vastly bc my husband is self employed, and our personal credit is not good (but it IS improving.) Without an investor to start us off with a large sum - I have no idea how to move forward with starting our business. Thank you <3

#/r/smallbusiness #reddit

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jessestoddard · 7 years

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Today’s interview with Karen Marie Chase is part of my ongoing blog-to-book project: Life After High School: Secrets To A Successful Life By Those Who Have Had Twenty Years To Think About It (or) What They Didn’t Teach Us Gen Xers In High School. If you missed the last post, click here, otherwise, you can start at the beginning here.

Karen Marie Chase

(Formerly Karen Marie La Mesa)

Beverly, MA

My Life In High School

Who were you in High School and how did you feel about it?

Who was I in high school? I was a nice girl who didn’t really fit into a group. I was athletic but wasn’t a “jock.” I got good grades but wasn’t a “nerd.” I wasn’t a “stoner,” yet I had friends who smoked and did drugs. In fact, I’ve never had even a single drag off a cigarette or tried a drug in my life. I had lots of friends but wasn’t one of the “popular” girls. A girl who had nothing—but everything.

I am a child from a single parent family—the girl who would help anyone and expected nothing in return. I was an independent, hard working kid, (started babysitting when I was 9, got a paper route (delivering the Skagit Valley Herald) when I was 11, started bussing tables when I was 15 and moved into working in a kitchen when I was 16 and have been working ever since.

How did it make me feel? Honestly, I never really thought about it before, but as I write this I am feeling really proud. I never caved to peer pressure or did anything I didn’t want to do just because other people were doing it or tried to talk me into it. My mom taught me to treat other people the way I wanted to be treated. A motto I lived by then and one I still do my best to live by today.

What did you think your life would become when you graduated?

What do any of us think our lives are going to become after graduation?

I thought I’d graduate from college, get a job, get married, have kids and live happily ever after. Who doesn’t picture some version of that grandeur?

My Life After High School

What happened in your life to you, for you, and by you in the last twenty years (how have you used your time and who have you become)?

As mentioned I come from a single parent family. My mom was proud and didn’t have help from anyone, which meant, we (me, my mom and younger brother) moved… A LOT.

I went to five different first grades alone.

Born in Torrington, CT, we landed on the West coast fairly early. On our way to the west, we lived in South Dakota and Colorado before landing in Reno, NV. We spent time in California, and Oregon as well. When I had just four weeks of 6th grade left we moved to Anacortes.

My brother and I were in shock. We had two aunts there and had visited but never thought we’d live there. My mom sent us ahead of her because she thought it would be helpful for us to make friends for the summer.

The Anacortes School District separated my brother and I. They sent him to Island View and me to Mt. Erie. The week after we got to Anacortes we both got the Chickenpox. Then I got to go to Camp Orkila. Met some great friends at Mt. Erie. Friends I keep in touch with today.

The move to Anacortes wasn’t easy. I’d come from a big busy, 24-hour city with huge overcrowded schools to a small “island” that rolled up the sidewalks at 8:00 every night. We spent four years in Anacortes.

I struggled at first; most kids who lived there had lived there their whole lives. They already had their groups. It took me a long time, but I was beginning to find my way, and then it was time to move again.

I was so ANGRY with my mom for moving us again. It was the summer of 9th grade. I had friends, a boyfriend, was doing well in school and sports, a paper route. I didn’t want to move! I sat in the U-Haul with my arms crossed and didn’t speak to my mom the whole way. How could she be doing this to us again?

I started 10th grade in utter shock. I thought Anacortes was small! We moved to a town called Wilton and in 11th grade the next town over, Lyndeborough. These are truly TINY towns. The junior high and high school were combined, Wilton—Lyndeborough Junior Senior Co-Operative High School and only had 350 kids total for grades 7-12! I learned the definition of tiny. My graduating class had 43 kids and 40 of us graduated!

I started dating a guy who lived up the street from us. I dated him all through the remainder of high school and college. We broke up for a period of time when I was in college. I graduated with a Bachelors Degree in Fine Arts with a Graphic Design concentration. After graduation, I got an apartment with that boyfriend. We broke up about a year later.

Finding a job after graduation was shockingly hard. No one will hire anyone without experience, but no one wanted to give experience. I finally got a job in a business card print shop making $11 an hour.

I was so upset at this. I did everything I was supposed to; I went to college and got a degree… And for what? To rack up $80k in student loans to make $11 an hour?! What a freaking joke! I could have skipped school and got a job that paid me $8 an hour and have no student loans.

A woman I was working with sort of put things into perspective for me. She said, “Karen, I’ve been working here 10 years and I bet your starting pay is very close to what I make.” It really made me think.

I stayed at that job for two months because as luck would have it, the job I really wanted called me. The person they’d hired didn’t work out and I was choice number two. I left the BC job and took a design position in Concord, NH. I replaced two designers and they had a temp in to help me but I ended up being the sole designer. I was doing the work of two people but only getting paid for one.

At this job, I learned Life Lesson #1: It was a small family company. One of the guys who worked there gave me the best professional advice I’d gotten to date, “Just remember kid, this is a family business and you ain’t family.”

I worked my ass off at that company. Doing the work of two people and it got me nowhere. I still worked my butt off though. If there is one thing my mom instilled in my brother and me, it was a strong work and moral ethic.

Because student loans were so expensive I needed to find another job to help pay for them. My aunt got me a job bartending at a small bar. From there I went to bigger bars, some a bit nicer, some a bit seedy. But I made good money no matter where I was. On a Wednesday night, I’d make what I made in a whole week at my design job.

I’d been a waitress through college but not a bartender. I LOVED it. It was a natural fit for me. I have never been someone who required much sleep and I love people, so two jobs didn’t effect me in any way other than making it easier to pay my bills. I had a great time bartending.

At the same time, I’d convinced my best friend from High School (Wilton) to get an apartment with me in Manchester, NH, aka MachVegas.

Boy did we have a blast! We had so much fun the cops showed up more than once. Let’s see… They came to our Halloween Party, our Pimp N’ Ho party, our Toga party. Heck, they showed up at our not-even-a-party card playing Saturday night…. Yep, we gave the Manchester police some funny stories to tell!

During this time I learned my second life lesson…

Life Lesson #2: Don’t date a guy you meet in a bar.

Working behind a bar you get hit on all the time and it’s very easy to turn these advances down. I decided to give one guy I met a chance. He seemed different. He was the nicest guy on the planet until you added alcohol!

Early on I disclosed that drugs (even weed) were not something I wanted in my life (this was the main difference between my high school sweetheart and me). Unfortunately, he smoked a lot of it. To his credit, he tried to give it up but that translated to more drinking. He got so bad that my friends and family didn’t want him around. Friends would tell me I was invited to things but that I couldn’t bring him.

I finally had enough when on a really bad snowy night he was being nasty and I said I was going home. It was a bad storm but I ran to leave anyway. I jumped in my car and went to back up and hit my breaks abruptly to his mom screaming to stop. He had thrown himself under my car and I nearly ran him over! Once he got out from underneath he ended up on the hood screaming at me to drive because he was going to die tonight. His parents came out and his father and I ended up wrestling him to the ground and pinning him down until he was foaming at the mouth. I didn’t even know that was real. Thought that was just some special effect you saw in the movies. The saddest part, the next morning he didn’t even remember doing any of it.

Why do guys always do too little until it’s too late then expect forgiveness? I’d been pushed to a point that I couldn’t return from.

I was trying to get away from him when I met David. It was a freak 80-degree day in the middle of February. The print shop I worked at had two buildings and I happened to notice a job sitting on the counter that was supposed to have shipped two days prior. Luckily, UPS picked up from our 2nd building later in the day. I grabbed the box and hurried down the hill.

As I was approaching the building there were two guys at the bottom the hill outside the main entrance to the building. One was on a motorcycle and said something. I didn’t know them so didn’t think they were talking to me and looked behind me. As I got closer I asked if they were talking to me and the guy on the motorcycle said, “Yes, do you need help carrying the box?”

I thanked him for the offer and kept going. When I was heading back they were still there. As I went by, the guy on the bike asked if I wanted to go for a ride. I said sure and kept walking. I caught him so off guard that he stumbled over his response which was, well I’d take you for a ride but I just got this bike today and don’t have the passenger seat yet.

I stopped and looked at him and said well then why did you offer? He tried to give me his phone number and told him if he was serious when he got his seat I worked at Town & Country and was the only Karen there. He could call me when the seat arrived. It snowed 6 inches the next day!

A week or so later I got the call. It was snowing again and he said while he got his seat in, it was snowing so perhaps I would like to get a cup of coffee. I told him I didn’t drink coffee. Radio silence. I laughed and said, “But I do drink other things!”

I invited him to get some friends together as some of my girlfriends and I were going out that weekend. He ended up coming alone…. My aunt said, “Oh, he’s a brave soul.” We dated for a year and got engaged that Christmas. We planned a wedding and sent out invitations and everything then I called it off after he broke my trust. We tried to work on things but it was never the same.

A few months shy of our 4-year anniversary—the day after Christmas—he said his feet were feeling funny to the point that I took him to the emergency room. He was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre´ Syndrome. An autoimmune disease that causes your immune system to attack your nervous system.

David was a Desert Storm Vet and I learned a lot about autoimmune diseases and the elevated number of Desert Storm Vets to suffer from them. The good news is if you are going to get an autoimmune disease this is the one to get. Ninety percent of people recover from it 100%, but it is a long slow recovery averaging 6-plus months. He spent a couple weeks in the hospital and a month in rehab. Every morning I would go to the hospital get him in his wheelchair and do laps around the hospital. Go to work, go home, walk the dogs and go back to the hospital.

By then I wasn’t bartending anymore but was a shot girl at a local bar. It was a hell of a lot easier than bartending and to my surprise much more fun! I met one of my very best friends in this job.

A funny thing that I can say with confidence is that I never judge anyone based on appearance. When being introduced to this girl on my first night, for some strange reason I looked at her and thought to myself: Oh man she’s going to be the biggest bitch ever!

I have no idea why I thought that. I was introduced to Amanda and seriously we were instant friends and have been the best of friends ever since.

That year, I left the bar early on New Year’s Eve—ran to the CVS and bought a bottle of sparkling cider and plastic cups and ran to the hospital, jumped the gate and waited outside the employee entrance until someone came out so I could get up to David’s room for New Years.

He was moved to rehab a few days later where I continued the same routine until it was time for him to come home. Sadly it was a downhill spiral from there.

Life Lesson #3: Don’t go down with the ship.

He had a hard time getting back to norm. In fact, he never ended up going back to work. I don’t remember why but he started doing drugs—heavy drugs. I tried to help, tried to get him back on track and to being well emotionally and mentally but I just wasn’t enough and he continued to spiral. We broke up, I moved out.

For the first time since before I graduated college I moved back home. This time, unlike when I left the long time beau, I took my things, things we bought together but I paid for and packed up. I made the mistake the fist time around of letting my Ex keep anything we bought together because my new roommate had furniture and I made better money than him, and I thought I’d be able to replace it sooner. I tried my best but can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved, so I said my goodbyes and moved on.

I started spending time with a guy I met in college. I’d gone back to school to see a friend graduate and bumped into him working. Eric and I became friends my junior year. I was a bank teller while in college and he came to my window.

Little did I know my whole life was about to change.

It turns out this guy worked at my college. We became pretty good friends in our senior year, but after graduation, I never expected to see him again. At my friend’s graduation, we reconnected.

We never talked again all summer then out of the blue he called me that winter and asked if I skied. I didn’t but had just learned how to snowboard. We started hanging out a lot that winter, while David didn’t.

After we broke up, I ended up doing some design work for him and he helped me build my office. I started a graphic design business and my mom lets me build an office and studio apartment in part of a building she owned. He came up on weekends to help me build it.

I got my little design shop up and running. Studio K was in operation for about 3 years. I was also working part-time at the chamber of commerce. I got my name out there, met other businesses and business owners.

I was more or less breaking even and then in May of 2006, my office and apartment were flooded in the Mother’s Day Flood. A huge portion of New Hampshire flooded when 14 inches of rain fell in a short time and flooded much of southern New Hampshire and parts of Massachusetts.

We’d been close but never single at the same time. For the first time in our friendship, we were both single. I also never saw anything working out between us because he had two children. His life was in Massachusetts; my life was in New Hampshire.

At the time I also had a 17-year-old cousin in my care. I wanted him to be able to finish high school and get off to college before I made any drastic changes.

Well, the Mother’s Day Flood changed all that. My office and apartment had been flooded out. Which forced my hand to move sooner than planned. We made arrangements for him to stay with a family friend until graduation and I packed up and headed to Massachusetts to start my life with Eric.

I’m not really sure how all that happened. I never imagined I’d ever go back to Massachusetts—let alone live there.

We had some serious ups and downs and some REALLY trying times with his kids. He was working two jobs so I spent the majority of the time with his kids. At first, it was fine as the kids were really good kids.

As time wore on their mother started to cause all kinds of problems for us. Such major problems that we almost didn’t make it. Jealousy is a very unattractive quality. After years together I finally told him it was time to take things to the next level, that I wanted a family and if he didn’t want the same things as me then we were wasting each others time. I felt if he didn’t know after 5 years, he was never going to know and told him I had a time set in my mind that if he didn’t make up his mind, I’d be forced to make up mine.

His deadline was New Years. If he didn’t make a move by then, I’d be moving out. In October he surprised me with a trip to Mexico. He’d arranged my mom coming to pick up my dogs to watch them. He bought suitcases and a bathing suit for me and a couple dresses. I was floored. I tried not to get my hopes up. We’d never been on a vacation and this was a fancy one and was a gift in itself.

We arrived on the morning of Halloween. My favorite holiday! And that night, to my shock—he proposed!

To his shock, I asked him if I could think about it.

He wasn’t sure if I was serious. I was. I asked if we could have a baby? He said he was close to saying yes. I told him kids were a deal breaker for me. I wanted a family so if we could have a family and do something about the situation with the kids (things were still really rocky) then I’d be happy to be his wife.

We saved for two years to pay for our wedding. I wanted to be married before we had kids. If I had known it would take so long to get pregnant then I might not have waited. I never dreamed of how hard it would be to get pregnant. It turns out there was an issue that was standing in our way, but as luck would have it after several years of trying we were finally blessed with good news. A baby was on the way.

Life Lesson #4: A healthy baby is truly the most amazing gift anyone could ask for.

I took for granted how difficult it would be to get pregnant. Then once I was, a healthy baby became the true blessing in life. During my pregnancy, my best friend (my partner-in-crime shot girl) lost a baby to a very rare umbilical cord accident when she was 7 months along.

She too had a hard time getting pregnant and this was very traumatic for her and her husband. Also while pregnant, another close friend’s baby was diagnosed with a severe heart condition while still in the womb. My niece stopped growing and arrived a month early. I had no idea what a blessing a healthy baby is on top of having the baby in the first place.

We did not know if we’d be welcoming McKayla Marie or Alexander James but were answered when Alexander James arrived on May 30th, 2015. It was a week late but perfectly healthy!

I have never felt more blessed than I do now. Everyone told me life as I knew it would change. I didn’t expect it wouldn’t but I had no idea it was humanly possible to love someone more every day! He is truly amazing.

I know I’m biased but he’s just perfect… If only he’d sleep!

I joke that I followed a boy to Massachusetts. I figure it’s ok since I married that boy and we now have the most amazing little boy and a couple wonderful stepchildren and hopefully a daughter-in-law in the works.

So that’s where I am family-wise. Career-wise, where am I? What was my path? It’s been a little bit of a bumpy ride.

I mentioned I went to college after high school, started out working in a couple print shops, left the second to be the art director at a magazine in Manchester, NH.

I got there and had one of the less-than-awesome experiences in my career.

Life Lesson #5: It’s not lonely at the top.

I got to this art director job and walked into a girl who was acting as art director and being more or less demoted. Their director had left and one of the girls working there had stepped up and was acting as art director.

She didn’t know I was being hired until the minute I walked through the door. What a way to start out!

I should have known better. This was also a small company and also run by a husband and a wife. The husband was fine, the wife—not so much. She was nasty and would play me and the rest of the designers against each other. She told me it was lonely at the top and that I couldn’t be friendly with the girls because I had to be their boss. I do not agree with that philosophy whatsoever. I believe if you are good to people they will be good back to you and I stuck with that philosophy.

Needless to say, it didn’t work out and this was what pushed me to open Studio K Graphics. I knew I could do a good job and make money at it.

I met a friend/former customer for lunch one day shortly after leaving and he told me he had something in his car he wanted to give me. I got there and he opened the back door and in the car was a printer, a fax machine, a computer and a few other office necessities. He said I was talented and could make it running my own business. I, of course, refused the gifts. There was no way I could pay for them. We went back and forth and I only agreed to take them if he’d let me pay him back in some way, even if that meant through trade.

So it worked out and that was how I started Studio K Graphics. Once I closed it down after the floods, I kept some of my customers, I just didn’t take on any new ones. I still have a couple I do some work for today.

When I was in college I worked in the kitchen for work-study. I called the guy who runs the kitchen at Endicott and asked if they could put me to work until I could find a job. I was in luck. So I worked in the kitchen at my old Alma Mater for a couple months until I landed an art director position at a company that published trade magazines.

So here we go again, a small company, run by a guy who had his daughter working there for the summer. Well, she was as “Royal Princess” as the piece of work he was!

What a disaster that place was. This was truly the worse job I’ve ever had. The guy was the type of guy who thrived on conflict. He wasn’t happy unless there was some drama going on and if there wasn’t any he created it. His daughter was a prima donna and ended up staying when the editor left. She took over.

Everything bothered her. You couldn’t put an article in her inbox without “disturbing” her. Augh! I hated that place. The guy squashed every shred of creativity out of me and made me a paranoid nervous wreck. Every day I’d go home crying. I only stayed there a year. I couldn’t take it.

This was during the time when the economy was having a rough time. Graphic design and web design jobs were often being combined into one and I had zero web training. I had several very successful interviews and even a couple second interviews in Boston. Something happened with all of them.

McKay Healthcare had a client they were hiring another designer for but got held up indefinitely with the FDA. They assured me not to worry; it would just be a couple weeks. Several weeks went by and when I checked they said they didn’t know how long it would be held up—could be a year.

The other, NSTAR, a union job working for an energy company needed someone with web experience. They had someone they also liked and had web experience. Elder Hostel loved me and I passed the test they gave me. They didn’t mind I didn’t have web experience because they were willing the train the right person. The manager was going on vacation for two weeks so she said she’d be in touch when she got back.

As luck would have it, Murphy struck again. While she was away, their web designer gave their two-week notice and now the manager was making her hire someone with web experience as there’d be no one there to teach me. Such a bummer. I was really excited about that job.

FINALLY, I was working through the career center to find a job and get my resume in good order and take some classes. I took the Myers-Briggs Personality test that I thought was a total load of crap. A bunch of stupid multiple-choice questions that supposedly would tell you what kind of personality you had. There are only 16 different personalities.

I found out I’m an ENFP and let me tell you it kind of freaked me out a little bit. It nailed my personality to a ‘T’. Also, it tells you some jobs people with your personality types have been successful in and some to stay away from.

What was even more profound was that it gave me insight as to other personality types and traits they exhibit and I learned why this last job was such a pure hell for me. My personality doesn’t need timelines to get things done, actually, they are often counterproductive. I can multi-task and flip back and forth between more than one project and be working on them all in tandem. Quiet time isn’t needed. Music and or people don’t distract me or prohibit my productivity.

The boss’s princess was the complete opposite. She had to have timelines, schedules, could only do one thing at a time, noises, music, and people were distracting to her. Again I learned so much taking this test about others and myself.

I finally decided that I needed to take a web design course or I was never going to find a job. I found a program at the career center that would pay for me to go back to school if I could prove that I needed to be retrained to get back in the workforce. It was a lot of paperwork but I was determined and when I tell you Murphy struck again, it’s true. The day I was supposed to start my first class, I got a call from a staffing agency, I do think the ONLY staffing agency in the area I hadn’t heard of before and likely the only one I wasn’t registered with.

They found my resume online and had a job they thought I’d be a good fit for, and asked if I could come in the next day for an interview. I said sure—why not check it out?

They sent me to Salem Five (my bank) the next day for an interview. They called me later that day, said they loved me and asked if I could start on Monday! I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to work while in the program of going back to school and of course my caseworker was on vacation and no one could answer me so I accepted the job. I couldn’t imagine them telling me not to work.

It was a 3-month contract job to cover a maternity leave. I was fortunate enough to make a good impression on all the right people and 8 years later here I am.

I started out as the graphic designer and when she came back a role was created for me. Half my job was charitable foundation administrator and the other half was an event planner. I was brought on during a hiring freeze so my salary was low but I loved this company so much, I would have cleaned toilets to stay.

One of my first projects I worked on was an internal newsletter. It had a birthdays and anniversaries section. People were celebrating twenty- and thirty-year anniversaries. In this day and age that is unheard of. It spoke volumes to me about the integrity of the company. The first year I worked there I was nominated for employee of the year! Whoot Whoot. I didn’t win, but to even have been nominated after less than a year, I felt pretty good.

My career has evolved at the bank. I started out as the designer, then charitable foundation manager, event planner, to PR specialist and social media manager. Two years ago I was promoted to Assistant Vice President and I know almost all of our 574 employees. The bank has grown from 18 branches when I got there 8 years ago, to 30.

As much as I’ve had a good run and learned a ton, I will be hanging up my hat and heading to another bank where I have accepted a Marketing Manager Position equivalent to my bosses role at Salem Five. I can’t wait! Looking forward to the new role and spending more time with my kiddo. The hours and pay are much better!

My Life Lessons

What were the major life lessons and wisdom that you gained during your journey over the last 20 years?

Nuggets of wisdom I’ve learned: Mom was right.

Work hard, and be a good person and good things will happen to you.

Everything happens for a reason.

Even if we don’t understand it at the time, I have to believe there is some reason/bigger/grander plan.

Old clichés you hear as kids are true, the older you get the faster it goes! People weren’t kidding about that! Eh, what do the grown-ups know? Clearly a lot more than any kid ever thinks.

Don’t work for husband/wife companies unless you are family. As my co-worker told me, this is a family business and you ain’t family.

It’s not lonely at the top. Screw the asshole who said that (Jody).

The former president at Salem Five shared this golden nugget with me. One day when talking to him about character flaws, he said, “Karen, a person’s biggest flaw is often their greatest attribute.” I will never forget that.

Letter To My High School Self

If you could write your 18-year-old self (or however old you were when you graduated) a letter, and send it back in time, what would you say? What lessons or wisdom did you learn? What encouragement or warnings would you give yourself?

If I could leave advice for my 18-year-old self, I’d say:

#1, Mom taught me, don’t ever do anything to someone you wouldn’t want to be done to you—live by that wisdom and you can’t go wrong.

Treat people the way you want to be treated.

Be yourself—don’t let friends or family define who you are.

Believe in yourself and have confidence. If you aren’t there yet, fake it. Confidence comes with experience—it will come.

Tell the people you care about that you care.

Give someone, anyone, a hug daily.

Tell your family (particularly your children and your parents) that you are proud of them.

Live your life for yourself and no one else. You can’t please others if you aren’t pleased yourself.

The older you get the less time you’ll have for drama and bull. You don’t have to be involved. Don’t let it weigh on you, and just walk away.

Be kind and others will be kind to you.

Appreciate the little things and be true to yourself. At the end of the day, the only one you need to please is yourself.

Smile! It increases your face value.

Lastly, roll with the punches. When life serves you lemons, make lemonade and DON’T, I repeat DON’T, hang around with negative or bad influences. People tend to become what their friends are.

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In the next post, I will wrap things up with Chapter 13.

Are you from Generation X? I want to hear what you think! Please comment below and participate in the conversation about What They Didn’t Teach Us Gen Xers In High School. What do you wish someone told you when you were eighteen?

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Life After High School: Interview with Karen Marie Chase Today’s interview with Karen Marie Chase is part of my ongoing blog-to-book project: Life After High School:

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