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Random thoughts

Posted 03-20-2009 at 10:40 AM by wombat7
Updated 03-20-2009 at 11:01 AM by wombat7
A collection of random thoughts from the last couple months....

Jobs

I posted a while ago about taking a new job in technical sales. I started in October and after 6 months, I can honestly say it is probably the best decision I ever made. I am extremely happy with the job and have surprisingly found that success has come fairly easily at this point.

The peculiar thing about this 'sales' job is that i don't really sell anything. I work in more of a technical support role. I act as a manufacturer's rep for about 21 different semiconductor product suppliers. My day consists of either sitting down with, talking on the phone with, or e-mailing with engineers, suppliers, and application engineers to try and solve problems that people are having.

I actually like doing this much more than I liked working in motorsports. I don't have any of the problems that I did in racing, it is much more stable (so far), and I'm home every night.

Coaching

When I took the new job, it gave me the opportunity to get back into coaching. I didn't realize how much I missed it until I started again.

While I was in college, I coached for a local volleyball club as an assistant on the 18-1s team. The guy that I coached with was awesome. I learned so much from him and I think he is probably the reason that I like coaching as much as I do. My teams the two years that I coached there consisted primarily of middle class girls from mostly rural parts of west central Indiana. There was never really any drama with those teams. They showed up at practice, worked their asses off, and never complained. Granted, our teams were never very good due to the competition that we played, but they never complained.

I am now coaching for a club in Indianapolis; one of the top clubs in the Midwest. I am an assistant on the 18-2s. I am coaching with a guy that I played with in college. At the start of the season I wasn't sure how I was going to be able to work with this person. He and I never really got along when we were playing together, but got along ok when I was helping coach the college women's team and he was a manager. I accepted his offer to coach with him mainly because it would get my foot in the door at this club and figured that I could deal with coaching with him for a season... it's only 6 months right?

The season started out pretty rough for us, going 3-7 in our first two tournaments. The frustrating part was that they were showing flashes of brilliance, but just could not maintain that level of play for entire matches, let alone throughout a tournament. After the 2nd tournament of the year we sat down with each girl for a couple minutes to go over what we thought she was doing well, and where we thought she needed to improve both physically and mentally. Everything went well for the first couple weeks after that. We actually finished 3rd overall in our next tournament finishing the weekend 4-1.

It was after this tournament that I began getting frustrated with the head coach. I can be very laid back if the situation calls for it, but I'm not afraid of confrontation if it is needed. He on the other hand is completely inept in any kind of social situation. He doesn't know how to communicate with people and often makes things worse when he says things. He's very negative in any situation and does not give the girls much, if any, positive feedback. I have spent a lot of time reading sports psychology books and books written by coaches, all of which say you cannot act in that manner. A coach needs to be an effective communicator and has to be able handle any situation in a 'positive' manner. You can get on your players, but you have to praise them when they are playing well. He continually points the finger at a certain group of players and never notices when they do anything well. Due to his deficiencies, I have taken on the role of 'cheerleader.' I go out of my way to make sure I am giving the girls good feedback on how to improve and to make sure I notice when the do things well. The most frustrating part of it all is that he is completely unwilling to try and learn how to be a better communicator and/or coach. He doesn't believe he has a problem even though everyone is telling him he does!

I have decided that I really want the head coaching position on this team for next year. We could potentially bring back all of our really talented girls and will hopefully add talent in places that we are missing it right now. It totally made my day when the head coach said that he doesn't think he is going to coach this age group next year!!!! Hopefully that is my opportunity to step up and lead!

Family

This will be the last rant for this blog entry....

I am so frustrated with my family right now. When I graduated high school in 2002, I decided to go to school 8 hrs away from home. I wanted that opportunity to be out on my own and to be independent. I was in school for a total of 6 yrs (I took a lot of time off to play with racecars). In those 6 years my parents came out to drop me off as a freshman, to help me move back to school at the start of my 3rd year, to watch me walk in commencement after my 4th yr, and in May of last year for my sister to visit the University of Indianapolis and to be there when I worked my first Indy 500.... A total of 4 times in 6 yrs. If you ask them, the reason they never came out was because I always told them not to. They only ever asked to come out maybe 3 other times and it would have only been for a weekend. Call me crazy, but I didn't feel right having them to drive 16 hrs to spend a total of 2 days.

My sister is now a freshman at the University of Indianapolis. Since she started school in August, my parents have been out here 5 times, one more than they were in my 6 yrs of college. There are a couple reasons for this... First, my parents are going through empty nest syndrome, which I can understand. The second reason is that my sister is EXTREMELY selfish. She doesn't see a problem with asking my parents to drive 14 hrs to come to Indianapolis and see her. Am I the only one who sees the problem there?

I very rarely ask my parents for anything. There were a couple times in college where I had to ask them for money, but it was never over $300, and those times were few and far between. She asks them for EVERYTHING. When she turned 16 she got a 2003 Mini in 2006 because she wanted a 'nice car'... I got a 1987 Nissan Pathfinder, in 2000! They have paid ~$750 in furniture and accessories for her dorm room... I got a $10 used couch... The list goes on and on...

Since she has moved out here, she has taken on the mentality that somehow she is suddenly better than me, which seriously pisses me off. Everything has become a competition with her. She constantly has to bring up ways she thinks she's better than me and how grown up and independent she is... FALSE!!! It is to the point now that I am starting to not enjoy spending time with her because of all of this, which is pretty bad since her and I were getting along great before she came to college...
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John Koa Wood's Avatar
As far as the Family is concerned, let it go, my mother in law and all her siblings are the exact same way as you describe... and they are passing it on to their kids.. I FORBID my wife from asking them to even come to dinner (I'm kidding, they come to our place for dinner about once a month) but nothing else... I make as much as they do combined, so we don't need a thing from them... but my wifes brothers treat her as if her parents do everything for her... it is petty, childish, and destructive in the end..

Let it go, or you will harbor those feeling for your entire life, and it will destroy anything you try to enjoy because you will always be trying to compare what you have to what she is given... Live your life for you... OR...Stand for something, else you'll fall for anything...
Posted 04-23-2009 at 09:14 PM by John Koa Wood John Koa Wood is offline
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Scott C's Avatar
Glad to hear the sales gig suits you well. Be a solid consultant to your customers and money will flow your way.

Next time I'm heading to Indy, I will ping you and buy the beer.

On the family front, I had a similar experience with my mother who lived 8 hours away from my school. She would call me when she was 30 mins away (en route to my sister's house) and ask to connect for lunch....... I lived between her and my sister. The trip had been planned for weeks with my sister but I got 30 mins notice. Some words were exchanged (10+ years ago) and they still get surface today.

Let it go. There is always a double standard between brothers and sisters. Look at it positively, growing up you probably got a lot more freedom than your sis.
Posted 07-09-2009 at 12:36 PM by Scott C Scott C is offline
 
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