After the Financial Advising thing slipped by, I saw this ad in the Sunday newspaper in big bold letters. "Now Hiring!!
No Experience Necessary. Will Train. Benefits include Health, Dental, 401K... Work in a layoff-proof industry in car sales." Even though I knew nothing about cars and even less about salesmanship, I think what drew me to this was my desire to get off my "family welfare fund," that is, I wanted to be a self-made man not owing anyone anything and with little help from anyone else. I didn't want to be ruled by the Fates or predestined, as they say, to live my father's life as he thought it should go. I didn't want a cookie cutter life without some struggles or strife... because that would be boring. The struggles, the battles, the long road there are what make life worth living. Who doesn't want to have a little challenge, win the battle, and have the prize actually mean something?

I bantered back and forth with Dad about how I should try to take this job. I commented on how like my previous job search attempt, it would be an experience that this time would net me income... It was a job after all, not a career. And I commented on how I wanted to have battles of my own, stories to tell like how he struggled to make his dream of arriving in America to support four children after working through rice paddy farms all his youth and became a strong military airman.

I was still scared of driving. I never drove that far from home before, but Dad was willing to be a passenger with me there to find the location beforehand on a weekend. It was up to me to make the trip again when they actually opened for job hiring a few days later.

Dad treated me as an intelligent person capable usually of making the right decisions and able to listen to reason. One piece of advice he gave me was that even if I took this job, I should at least call back my mail delivery position I had agreed to apply to after college. That way I wouldn't burn my bridges and had a back up plan to fall to if I needed it. It was a great piece of advice and I followed it when the mail delivery position was starting on their second round of interviews a month later.

I did manage to make it to the interview later that week and sweated torpedoes throughout the session. I managed to convince them that I wanted to help them sell cars (and learn more about cars in general because I had bought the same brand as their company and they were a very reliable car brand).