Full circle completed

Though I initially composed this shortly after finding about my work situation as well as starting to write this shortly after, this is being posted on my last day working at Madden after over 23 years. All my work is complete and similar to a Bloomington, MN hotel the Monday after Marscon, it is time to go.

I did get an offer from the company that will be doing most of the printing that did not go to a competitor and will be starting there on Monday. After touring their facility 4 of the 5 pressman said I could make things there run much smoother like I did here. I do appreciate that compliment and I hope to be able to provide similar value to what I did at Madden.

In 2014, while packing after our house was foreclosed, my wife and I got into an argument about her refusal to find a regular full time job since that is what sparked the events that caused me to decide to abandon the house and move. After she said a real, full time job is boring, she stated that I must love my job since I have been there so long.

I recommended that she call the company main line, ask to speak to a random person, and ask who is the most miserable one there. While making deliveries over Labor Day weekend, I was thinking about things that happened at Madden and all I could recall were bad memories. I am ok with that. It is work.

The good memories from the past 23 years were the ones I have been able to make due to the long hours, weekends, and difficult days. For the first 3 months, I took a bus and a train to work since I didn't own a car. I have driven a car I have owned over 275,000 miles while employed, driven rental vehicles including what became known as the "Marscon Fun Bus" over 20,000 miles, and also flown over 12,500 miles on an airplane and all of this is due to what I made at Madden.

While at Madden, I participated in:

4 Cook County Amateur (ball) Golf tournaments.
30 Scrabble tournaments including the 1998 National championship.
8 conventions solely for comedy music
5 different comedy songs that appeared on the Dr. Demento Show (including one I co-wrote)
17 gaming conventions
50 sci-fi conventions including Marscon for many years.
400 hours broadcasting on Dementia radio as the "Madman on the Loose"
41 PDGA sanctioned disc golf tournaments including the 2018 US Masters Championship

I also with tickets from Madden saw:

The White Sox hit five home runs in a game
Jeff Gordon win the Food City 500 in Bristol (TN)
Dante Hall intercept 4 passes in one game.

(I rejected a chance offered by Madden's VP of production in 2006 to watch in person the 1-5 Dolphins beat the 7-0 Bears 31-13 as I boldly predicted for a month but I was worried about my welfare had I attended. They play in 9 days but with the Dolphins offensive line losing multiple players and the Bears defense, I don't expect Miami to score in double digits)

I also got to meet and talk to some amazing people as well including the people who played or voiced:

Chewbacca
Boba Fett
Tasha Yar
Counselor Troi
Neelix
The Iron Sheik
Winston Zeddemore (Ghostbuster)
Kaylee Frye
Inara Serra
River Tam
Susan Inavova
Frank Poncherello
Walter Peck and Richard Thornburg
Pavel Checkov
Squidward Tentacles
Phillip J. Fry
Tom Servo
Crow T. Robot

As well as:
Joel Hodgson
Adam Savage
Grant, Tori, and Kari, the Mythbusters build team
Eddie Olczyk
Chris Hardwick
Wil Wheaton
Peter Davison (the 5th Doctor)

and of course;
Dr. Demento
Weird Al Yankovic

There is one other encounter. At a local Star Trek convention in 2006, I was there as a "roadie" with the Great Luke Ski who was performing later that evening. We went to a crowded room where William Shatner was talking to the crowd and I stood on the side. Luke then called me to go backstage since he needed me to watch his backpack while he made his way through a narrow corridor. I then realized that stoically sitting on a table with his head down less than 5 feet from me was Leonard Nimoy who had already spoken for a half hour and was going to join Shatner on stage soon.

Since I was backstage at an event I did not pay to attend let alone pay an extra $150 (yes $150) to take a picture with Nimoy and Shatner, I realized that it would be wrong to speak to him unless he said something to me first. I can take solace that by respecting his privacy that I made his life easier for a few minutes.

This list does not include all the other wonderful people who make and support comedy music many of whom I consider friends and as someone who used to only have teammates and opponents, it was a new experience to care about their lives and not just the common interest shared.

Without the early mornings, long days, and weekends, most of that would have not been possible and during times I had to "sell a memory" due to my duties as an employee, knowing that this would help me get to the next big event made it easier.

I am also grateful that when my responsibility as a spouse, parent, or for a few months in 2012 a son became more important than the one I have as an employee, I was able to leave without repercussions even when after a phone call, I had to put on my coat and run to my car without explaining that my 2 year old daughter bumped her head at day care and was dizzy. I am also grateful the four times I had to go on disability for about 10 total weeks due to minor surgeries did not affect my status at Madden.

I also learned about myself. I realized that my brain is like a computer running Linux in a world filled with Mac and PC users in that it is capable of superior function but filled with weird bugs along with compatibility issues when dealing with Mac and PC users. I had a supervisor say that the statement is an example of itself.

Another supervisor (of my supervisor) helped me understand something important. Due to an issue, I had to fill out a report, take out my carbon copy (yes, this was a while ago), and give him the original. After he read it, he had a confused look on his face and then asked me who wrote it for me since I was not "smart enough to write this well".

After getting over the initial shock of the statement, I started to think about why he felt that way and realized that due to the way I speak, act, and appear, he thought that I am stupid. I realized that though it is important to be able to learn and know, having the ability to explain your thoughts and ideas are as important since my bad habit of changing words mid sentence has caused my message to get lost in babble way too many times. When I think about working at a new place, I worry about being able to adapt to others and them to me as I think  unlike others. Even a couple of weeks ago, a person in a toast at a bar made a similar reference to what was said 20 years ago.

I then started applying the idea of watching what is being stated to written work and started to notice a whole lot of poorly written things most notably apostrophes used to pluralize words as well as starting to pay closer attention to what was printing.

Much of what was printed was for alcohol and often the advertisements would tie into a specific time of year or into the world of sports. The idea of these advertisements is to subconsciously cause the consumer to decide to purchase the advertised product over similar ones when they experience what is listed in the ad. That is why sports teams have official products.

I believe when an advertisement that connects to a specific sport or team has an error in the information, it can create the opposite effect and consciously cause a consumer to not purchase a product. Unlike most who work in the printing industry, I look at a printed ad from the point of view of the consumer who is reading it and not the printer. I found so many factual errors over the years in what we were printing (or even going to print), that I was occasionally told to ignore any if I see it in a product since it was already approved by the customer.

I want to thank everyone who had to deal with me over these last 23 years especially the supervisors who more often than they should had to call me to their office to ask what the **** was I thinking as I either annoyed or angered a fellow coworker.

One other thing I should be thankful for Madden is this blog itself. A blog by other coworkers called Fresh Nugget was the thing that inspired me to initially post charts, maps, and graphs about my life and it evolved into more in the close to 10 years since I started. The other reason I created this is for my daughter (who also was a benefit from what I made at Madden) to eventually look at this since she could learn about me more than she already knows.

If the first post I made to make sure everything works is ignored, this is the number 360 and since this whole thing was started and inspired by others at Madden, this blog is ending on my last day here with full circle being 360 degrees. (I did create two other posts after this one started so that is why this is #360) Though some from Madden will be working at the other company, it will be different.

Thank you for reading this journal where I have documented my not so normal world.