Off topic: I did a thing this weekPosted By Brian McFarland |
Congrats Jim! Enjoy your time off - you certainly deserve it. Don't spend it all on this forum.Originally Posted by Jim MoscheckLong post, sorry guys.
I am retiring after 40 years in the retail food trade. The new owner of my business took over on Tuesday and I'll only be around for the next week to help with the transition and then I'm outta there.
Guess I'll never forget the date as the red faced loser faced a judge for his second set of indictments and another great announced his retirement. Me, Trump, and Pat Sajak. June 12th.
Been getting up at 5:30 am every day/seven days a week for the last 16 years with only a few vacations of a week or less thrown in. Last vacation was to the WSP in 2020 just before Covid.
I'm an old school shopkeeper and still do much of our bookkeeping by hand with a pencil and good eraser. As Joe Walsh said I'm an analog guy in a digital world.
Anyways, I digress.
Looking forward to finally be able to get out to some dark skies whenever I can. My wife has already told me Oki-Tex is fine this fall when she goes back to the classroom as well as the WSP in February. She stays at he brother's place in Ft. Meyers while I "rough it" in the Keys sleeping in my small teardrop trailer.
If you have read this far and aren't bored yet here is part of a post I made on another board. Tried to be a little funny and it is all true:
So, here goes. From the home office.
I have in my hand tonight's Top 10 List:
The Top Ten Things Jim Won't Miss By Owning His Own Business.
(drumroll please)
#10 No more being the boss.
#9 No more bookkeeping (although I really sort of like doing some of it).
8 No more taxes to file and pay every week/month/year. I have nothing against taxes, but just having to deal with them is time consuming and not fun. I'd rather deal with something else.
#7 No more working seven days a week.
#6 No more calls in the middle of the night, usually on a holiday, from the alarm company for a false alarm.
#5 I know I said boss already, but no more dealing with that small group of employees, out of the hundreds we've employed over the years, that truly tested my patience and blood pressure.
#4 No more 7am Sundays!!!!!.
#3 No more being a landlord.
#2 No more sales calls from list buyers, sometimes even asking to speak to my late brother John who passed away 16 years ago. I usually tell them to hang on - I'll see if I can find him, then put them on hold LOL.
And the #1 thing I won't miss:
No more daily commute of over 80 miles during morning rush hour on the Detroit freeways and surface streets. I only live 2.5 miles from the store, but have a daily route that takes me from the SW side of Detroit, which contrary to what the band Journey believes, see what I did there?, we have no midnight passenger trains and there is no south side of Detroit unless you mean Windsor, Ontario, all the way to the NE suburbs and everywhere in between including Eastern Market in downtown Detroit picking up produce, meats, and supplies for the day.
Now don't get me wrong. There are many things I will miss.
The numerous memories that I will treasure and endlessly tell stories about, over and over when I'm old and senile.
Things like our longtime loyal customers, many of whom I consider good old friends.
Our longtime loyal employees and ex-employees, many of whom still shop there who are more like family.
The hustle and bustle around the holidays.
And a whole lot more.
So, 40 years I've been running the place. For the first 24 with my older brother John as my partner, and then Tim T. as my partner for the last 16 years. My Mom and Dad ran it the previous 35 and all four of us kids worked there. I am the youngest. Total of 75 years that my family has sold fine foods in the Detroit area.
Working seven days a week got old many years ago and in the last decade I've had to mostly forgo my hobbies of playing guitar and hopefully playing in a band again, and obviously doing any astronomy. For some reason as I age I get tired earlier, if not falling asleep watching TV and just going to bed by 10.
I haven't had a Summer off since 8th grade. Even though I said above that I liked working around the holidays, I have worked every holiday season right up to 3pm on Dec. 24th for the whole forty years. By then you are so wiped out from the previous week it made it very hard to enjoy the actual holiday. Then the next day right back to work.
I've long wanted to experience Xmas somewhere warm and my son will hopefully be going back on tour on a cruise ship in the Caribbean this fall. I wouldn't mind doing that.
My wife, who I've coincidentally been married to for those same 40 years says I have to learn to slow down and smell the roses. No problem. Just organizing my garage and woodshop will take most of the summer and I'm having an epic garage sale in July or August.
