The Big Life Changing News

Out with the guitar pic...









In with the rubberband ball...

I think the rubberband ball is cute!

I notified my staff tonight that I was no longer going to be their manager. Reactions were as expected...kind of a mixture, but an overall "sorry to see you go" thing. I was sad. I will still have about 10 more days with them.

This has been a decision weighing on my mind for a couple of years. FYE was good to me, but I am ready to move to a different type of environment. I look forward to learning new things and being challenged professionally as a manager at Office Max.

It also didn't help that the EMI Music CEO said last week "The CD is dead."

Music retail has been my business now for almost 12 years. I am going to miss it. In some ways I already do...one way is because "The CD is dead" and the other way is I have moved away from pop culture because I am getting older and also because as a Christian, I am appalled at a lot of the depravity in the recording industry these days, both in audio and visual media, as well as print media. I struggled with that daily and it will be nice not to have that struggle anymore.

I think back to high school when my record collection was just starting. I loved the big vinyl LP album covers and would devour every word on the jacket and sleeve as I'd sit in front of the stereo for hours on end. It was my sanctuary! I always wanted to work in a record store.

In college, pursuing a music degree, I was always applying at the local record stores. No one would hire me. Never even got called for an interview.

Earned my degree...started teaching, moved to MI and landed a summer job at Camelot Music. It was such a great experience! And I always wanted to work in a record store...which was now a CD store. I had found my niche! Basically stopped seeking teaching positions, because I was working in a record store!

Worked my way up the ladder, relocated a few times, and have been managing an FYE store for the last five years in TN. Life changes, and now the time has come for this chapter to end.

I'm feeling a lot of different emotions right now. Excited about the new possibilities. Disbelief that I'm ending my "dream" to work in a record store. Sad to leave my staff and my store. Happy to just get on with things. Rejoicing that I got the job! Bumming that I'll miss my old boss...yet, excited about working for my new one.

A lot of my thoughts are melancholy these days. I'm remembering past jobs I've left and different people I've worked with. Some now on with other things, some still in the CD business, some deceased, some just a faint memory. I've been so blessed to have worked with so many great people. You know...it's not so much the job...it's the people.

Thank you to all of you that have prayed for me that I would get an opportunity like this. Everyone has been so wonderful.

So there you have it...the big life changing news! Instead a passion for music that I once had, I now have a "passion for printers and paperclips!" as was suggested to me by someone when I stopped by the church the other day and announced my news.