The Customer Service Industry!

I graduated from college in 2007! Please hold your applause, if you are not already. The world was my oyster, as they say, I don't know why, but they say it. I moved out to Atlanta Georgia, armed with my college diploma, ready to take on the world, to make a name for myself! I'm not sure if you are aware of this or not, but big cities are expensive! I did not let costs defray me from my pursuit to become an adult! Well it wasn't the cost of living that defrayed me from making a name of myself, it was the fact that I lacked what many employers call "experience." Well, surely if employers knew just how tenacious I could be, it would certainly make up for my lack of experience, well,  if it were not for the fact that I am such an expert at taking "no" for an answer! 

The great thing about looking for a job straight out of college in a big city is that there are so many opportunities! Sorry, I forgot to to finish my thought, so many opportunities to be turned down, I got excited from all that reminiscing. Eventually I reached the point where I could ignore my mounting pile of bills no longer, and had to get a job to support me while I continue to search for the beginning of my career. I began to work at GNC, slinging supplements to supplement my dwindling savings. If any of the companies I applied to in the beginning caught a glimpse at the loyalty I showed to GNC, surely they would still have passed me over, because I'd still be under qualified. But I stayed at GNC for nearly three years, I had grown comfortable there, maybe that was an effect of the vitamins. As I stayed there I did gain invaluable experience, experience that they can't teach in schools. Did I say 'invaluable' experience? Dang autocorrect, I meant 'unvaluable' experience. I learned the lost art of customer service, and the ancient secret of sales, the secret of course being that retail sales experience does not translate to real sales experience, they have some of the same letters, but the 'T' and 'I' are disqualifiers.  

I did gain work experience though. When I began to set my sights on other employment opportunities my search criteria changed to seeking work in the customer service industry, because that is the work experience I collected. In my subsequent job searches I was comforted by the familiarity of being turned down and passed over for jobs I was not qualified for. It was a reunion of sorts. Finally I reached reached a pivotal moment in my job search, when contemplating jobs I would enjoy having, that I would be satisfied in, and that would hire me, I had a revelation... I hate working in customer service, and I am terrible at it! Why do I keep looking for jobs in an industry that I hate? 

So that's basically the story of how I ended up going back to school.   I am not good at being an adult.

Branson Hipsters!

Branson shall soon be discovered and taken over by the hipsters!! Allow me to show my work...

The cultural landscape of Branson, though most deny the existence of culture in Branson, is so primed for the invasion of hipsters. I can say this, I am a hipster! QUE my wife's eye roll now. Don't let my clothing, attitude, and lack of a curly q mustache fool you, I am ALL hipster! But a lovable hipster! Hold on, This is my first stand up set, I've got to Instagram this... Trust me, I look like Marcus Mumford, watch Community and Dr. Who and I liked Kings of Leon 5 years before anyone knew who they were. So there are my credentials. My hipster resume if you will. But I digress...

As I was saying, as a hipster, I am fascinated by Branson! My wife makes fun of me for it, but I love it! Oh the ironic things you could do!! You could laugh ironically at Yakov's explanation of "what a country" America is (side note, with the craziness in Russia and the Ukraine, Yakov is about to be relevant again), you can cruise the strip on a moped and see all the flashing lights, but go early, the sun isn't down for that long in the summer before everything closes, and you can spend a day at Silver Dollar City! I'm so surprised this place isn't overran by hipsters already! You can be accepted for whatever type of facial hair you currently possess! This is a haven for those in the self-sustaining lifestyle! The make their own food and candy, they make things out of wood and iron, they make their own soap for crying out loud!  And the style and fashion? Walking around the park is like the Portlandia's music video for the dream of the 1890's is alive in Portland! Sorry Fred and Carrie, the dream on the 1890's is alive in Branson! And the gift shop of Silver Dollar City? That's like the Dream of The 90's! They should skip the middle man and just start selling their line in thrift shops around the country. Yes I want a T-shirt that says I have rode Thunderation and survived! Of course I want a Christmas sweatshirt that has permanent glitter on it! One of my favorite times to go is during their Bluegrass and BBQ festival! It's just like Telluride! The only thing missing is PBR! 

But in the end, what I fear will happen is that the hipsters will grow too comfortable. Novelty and irony will transform into reality, and they will never leave. They will buy timeshares, but not the commercialized lofts on the landing, those are for the yuppies, you might know them as posers, they will buy, or let's face it, build, well the lumberjack hipsters anyways, Bon Iver style cabins on Table Rock Lake, and retreat there for solitude. They will say, "wouldn't it be funny if I got a job at the ticket counter for The Duttons?" They will become addicted to going to all the shows, ironically at first, but then they will develop a taste for it. They will begin to identify with The Baldknobbers in theory. And slowly buy surely you can rest assured that the torch will be passed from one set of hipsters to the next (former based on the fact that a large majority of the population have had hip replacements). 

Nerddom

In addition to being a hipster, I am also what many would call a nerd. I realize that the term nerd has just in recent years become social accepted. It was a long slow process, that I have witnessed first hand. It all started maybe when my generation was in, let's say middle school, when it became a funny thing to do to dress up as nerds for spirit weeks. Now of course these costumes were way exaggerated, but they were mostly based on the nerds on Saved By the Bell. Because that is what we watched growing up. Of course we all jumped at the chance to dress up as nerds, because we all secretly wanted to be nerds. We had our nerdy things we secretly loved, now of course it wasn't as exaggerated as the nerds in Saved By the Bell, because we know now that that was a caricature.  The days would wear on and after school we would retire our costumes until the next spirit week, and then reminisce about the time we could reveal the exaggerated version of our true selves. Once the photos were developed we would flip through all the pictures of us with all our friends making stereotypical nerd poses, perhaps someday our children will look back on our pictures and see it for what this pictures really are: Offensive to Nerds, Nerd-Face. When we looked at the pictures we saw that we were, if just for a day, not alone in our nerddom. 

Back in those days true nerds were defined more by their academic interests such as math club and chess team, again, I am basing this almost solely on the nerds in Saved by the Bell, with a pinch of Revenge of the Nerds, a dash of Steve Urkle, and a sprinkling of George McFly, so they were also into the really far out there sci-fi. about the only constant between the nerds of our youth and the nerds of today is D&D, which I am proud to say that I have played. But in those days, we were into things like comic books (my interest in comic books is rekindling, but they are really expensive) particularly for me X-Men. I remember having a really big falling out with one of my friends because he told me, in an effort to try and impress me, which the concept of anyone feeling the need to impress ME seems ludacris, that at home he had purchased a  musical compilation of the X-Men singing popular ballads of the day. AND I BELIEVED HIM, because I wanted it to be true, still part of me wishes it could be true! Every day at recess I questioned him on who sang what song, the only song I really remember asking him about was who sang "I Would Do Anything For Love" by Meatloaf. And without missing a beat he replied, "Gambit, who else?" and my jaw dropped down in wonderment! I was in awe that he possessed such a treasure! Had I done a better job of convincing my parents the need of signing up for AOL and the potential necessity of the internet I could have just surfed over to AOL KEYWORD: Circuit City to search for said album. I should have asked him to let me borrow the cassette tape! So I continued to ask him who sang what song, and I think eventually he realized that there was no such way that such an album could reasonably exist because he had told me like 20 different songs, and each time saying, "Yeah dude, Beast totally sings it and its on the B-Side!" well I must not have been a very good nerd, at least the stereotypical Math kind, because I couldn't see that it just didn't add up. The next day, my buddy comes out to recess to confess to me that he did not, in fact own a tape of the X-Men singing Power Ballads. I feel the need to point out that this was in Elementary school, I know I said earlier that it all really started in middle school, but this particular story took place in Elementary School. So he told me, "Cameron, I've been lying to you, I don't really own this tape of The X-Men singing Power Ballads, I'm sorry. Can you stop asking me who sings "More Than Words" And I was devastated! I took a few moments to calm the commotion of questions rising up in my brain. After a few moments I said, "OK, wow, um... Why did you lie about it?" he told me it was because he wanted me to like him. After a few more moments of trying to piece together this act of betrayal I knew what the next question I had to ask him was. "OK, so you don't really own a cassette tape of The X-Men singing Power Ballads" I took a deep breath, planning my next words very carefully. "Do you know where we can buy it then?"