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Imagine this: You’ve just landed your dream job. You and your spouse are expecting your first child; a child you hoped and prayed for. Unknowingly, your new job will pair you with a person who also wanted that job and has been desperately trying to conceive.
Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday episode 672, Living Someone Else’s Life. My name is Darrell Darnell. About 1 in 8 couples in the US struggle with infertility, affecting approximately 6.7 million people annually. And I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living.
Today’s story starts in the summer of 2002. I’d just landed that dream job as a buyer for the bookstore chain I’d been working at for 8 years. I brought with me all sorts of knowledge about the company and various skills I’d picked up along the way. However, I knew virtually nothing about buying.
As I mentioned recently in episode 668, I was fortunate enough to begin my journey as a buyer with an excellent assistant, Susan. It was several months before I learned of the struggle she went through during that process. Susan also dreamed of becoming a buyer. As an assistant buyer, she thought she’d be in line for the next opportunity for advancement. She’d even been considered for the job by the head book buyer, Charles.
Instead, she was passed over. Not only that, she was asked to help train the person who DID get the job. And to her credit, she did it with total professionalism. I had no idea that she’d dreamed of the job or interviewed for the job. She never once said anything about it or treated me with any sort of contempt.
Perhaps an even more difficult thing for her to deal with was the fact that my wife and I were expecting. As I mentioned in the intro, she and her husband had been trying to conceive for quite some time. As our relationship grew and she eventually opened up to me about the struggle she felt during this time, she said that what made it so hard for her was looking over at me every day and feeling like I was living the life she wanted. I had the buyer job and I was about to have a baby. She wanted both of those things and yet had neither.
Of course, if you remember the details of episode 668, you know that it wasn’t long after that Susan did get pregnant. And she also came to terms with the job situation. Our time working together was professional, and friendly. We even hung out as couples outside of work. The way she handled that situation was graceful and inspiring.
I’ve also mentioned that I spent a lot of time with that company setting up new stores and helping relocate existing stores. When I worked in that role, my responsibility was typically that of setting up the books, Bibles, and software department.
A couple years had passed since I’d been let go as a buyer. If you’ve been following my story that I’ve shared in recent episodes, during that time I’d gone back to school and completed my bachelor’s degree. At this time, I’d accepted the role as ecommerce director, but that role had not been publicly announced and I’d not moved into that role in any official capacity yet.
Our website was purely informational at that time. It gave our store locations and hours, shared our mission statement and history, shared links to a few of our non-profit partners, and listed our best-selling books, albums, and videos. All of this was managed by a guy in our marketing department named Shannon.
Shannon and I had known each other for years by that point. Our daughters were born about two weeks apart and we had a joint baby shower for them. Although I was no longer working at corporate, we often saw each other at store setups as he was in charge of the signage throughout the store.
So there we were setting up a store and both working on things in the book department. He was working on the signage strips that we put on each shelf throughout the department, sitting on the floor as he diligently worked on loading each acrylic strip with the proper category sign.
Knowing he knew a thing or two about the website and was the primary person people reached out to about the website, I knew he would have valuable insight on what the next version of our website should look like. I wanted to get his insight, but I couldn’t reveal that I’d been selected to take the website to the ecommerce level. After all, he’d been considered for the role too and I wasn’t sure how much he knew about the decisions that had been made.
I remember sitting down next him on the floor and carefully trying to get insight from him without revealing why I was so curious. It was a fun and memorable conversation and I walked away from it glad that I’d taken time to get his point of view.
I held that job for the next 8 years until I left the company in 2013. During those years, I received nothing but support from Shannon. Shannon was great to work with. He avoided office politics, had impeccable work ethic even in times of difficulty, which is something I can’t say for myself. He always did whatever was asked of him and did it with a great attitude. Always.
After I left, the company hired someone from outside. I’ve never met or spoken with her, so all I know is through second-hand information. So I’ll just say that it was not a good fit and she was gone after either two or three years. After she left, the company looked for her replacement and this time Shannon was selected. When I learned he’d been promoted to that role, I was excited.
While never super close, Shannon and I remained in occasional contact after I left. It was mostly via social media, but we did attend the Motley Crue: The End concert together at one of our local theaters.
Earlier this year Shannon and I were chatting and he invited me to come out to the office and check out how much the department had changed over the last twelve years. A few weeks later I took him up on his offer and drove down to my old stomping grounds.
He met me in the lobby and we headed out to lunch. He wanted to know all about my business and get updated on my family. I told him how happy I was when he’d finally gotten the ecommerce director job. He brought up that conversation we had sitting on the floor at the store setup. He also had fond memories of that conversation. He also revealed he was able to read between the lines that day and knew why I was asking him about the website.
After lunch he took me back to the office and we toured the entire facility. I saw a lot of familiar faces and met a lot of new ones. It was great! A couple of members of my staff are still there and it was amazing seeing them again and sharing some laughs.
It was a strange mix of new and familiar. I saw some of the same tools and processes we’d established back in the day, and yet it was totally different. The entire department had grown to be three times the size it was when I was last there. It was incredible. I couldn’t have been happier.
Then something unexpected happened. As Shannon was showing me the office area for the department, he called out to everyone and asked them to come out of their offices and join him in the hallway. Seconds later the hall was filled with his team. He said, “Everyone, I want you to meet Darrell Darnell. He’s the one who started this whole operation nearly 20 years ago. He’s the one to thank for all of this.”
Shannon was being way too kind. Sure I started it all 20 years ago, but what they have today has more to do with Shannon’s leadership and skillset than it does mine. Frankly, I don’t know that I have the skillset to have taken it where it is today. And that’s what I told them. I wanted to make sure Shannon got the recognition he deserves.
Here’s what I learned.
Working with people like Shannon and Susan were the best parts of my time at the bookstore. Nearly all the people there were fantastic. Both of these people took incredibly disappointing and challenging situations and turned them into pleasant experiences. I know each of them weren’t happy when the initial decisions were made, but they didn’t let that get in the way of helping me succeed. In doing so, they also made the work environment enjoyable and rewarding.
Susan and her husband eventually moved back to the upper midwest where they’d grown up, and I haven’t really kept up with them much. As for Shannon, that full-circle moment standing in the hallway of the ecommerce department was wonderful. He and I both share the same sentiment that I was the exact right person for the job when I had it, and he’s the exact right person for it now. Each of us possess the skills needed for the job for our respective times.
And that’s the lesson for today. When disappointment comes, keep your head up. Stay positive, invest in yourself and in those you work alongside. None of us knows what the future holds or when life’s circumstances will change. Bitterness may end up burning a bridge that you end up needing to travel across down the road, or may bring about behaviors that disqualify you from future opportunity.
Change is inevitable, and that means hope springs eternal.
I’m Darrell Darnell, and this has been Stuff I Learned Yesterday.
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