Have you ever had a life wake-up call?

[Rain Man]

The Rashee Rice thread makes me wonder how often people might have a "wake-up call" to change a behavior. And then I wonder if it's ever permanent.

So...in thinking about things that you might have done that were risky in a bad way, did you ever have a wake-up call that made you permanently change a behavior? If so, what happened and what behavior did it change? And was it a permanent change?

Similarly, have you ever had a temporary wake-up call on something, but then slipped back into the bad habit?

This can be any bad behavior. Maybe it's drugs or alcohol or eatting fatty foods or not wearing a seat belt or engaging in unsafe sex with third-world bargirls or robbing convenience stores or kidnapping hitchhikers or hitchhiking or starting fires by spitting gasoline out of your mouth or doing tightrope walks over deep canyons. Use your imagination.

[Rasputin]

Being shot at by an over zealous husband with a bullet inches from the back of my head as I speed away in my Tahoe. Maybe I shouldn't go out with married women?

[RealSNR]

Originally Posted by cdcox

Top 6 most fork-road moments of my life:

1. I was at a college party freshman year. DJ played "Riding the storm out" by REO Speedwagon. I wanted to dance. I asked a girl to dance I had been scoping --in a non-creeper way -- all night. Together for 44.5 years and married for almost 41.

2. I was about to graduate in engineering, in a recession without a job or a plan. I saw a bulliten board ad for a graduate research assistant in environmental engineering to study flocculation in water treatment using polymers. I didn't know what flocculation was, but I looked it up in the dictionary. Decided to contact the professor who was advertising the position an that set my career in motion.

3. I was working in industry at the interface between engineering and marketing. It was made known to me that I could get a promotion along the marketing branch to a position reporting to a VP at the age of 27. I thought, "I don't want to do that." Second thought,"okay, go ahead and turn down this opportunity, but what do you want to do?" Several months later I was headed to a PhD program.

4. Fast forward. I am now a professor and hold an entry level admin position under the department head. I'm good at it and I love it. I get offered an opportunity to lead a center where I will be in charge. My own boss, my own budget. Within a 10 minute window, I express reluctance to take the new opportunity because l love what I am doing to sending an email indicating that I wNt to do the new position as long as I can keep doing my current admin work.

5. See post 58 in this thread.

6. I'm interviewing for a position at a major petrochemical company. They put two positions on the table, I was very interested in one of the positions and less interested in the other. I made my preference clear and probably indicated an in flexibility that cost me the offeer.

So no near death experiences because you used to be addicted to juggling chainsaws in pits filled with rabid weasels?

Boooooooooooring!!!!!

[Otter]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

Here ya go

The pic that nearly got me killed

Dome of the rock

David’s tower

Israeli truck at the Lebanon border. One like my shirt and allowed me to get in and take a pic

Pic on the kibbutz down past the Dead Sea and 100 or so from the Red Sea

Is shouting "YOU STOLE MY SOUL!!!" in the first pic?

[BWillie]

I remember it like yesterday. I would go to the casino wasted out of my mind after the bars and play cards circa 2007. Would sometimes win, sometimes lose. Really didn't know what I was doing but thought I did. Nonetheless I won a little bit just due to the level of competition. At one point I even backroaded it home through KCK as a drunk designated driver. I saw the KCK police station and slammed on my brakes at 4am. Got out with door open, and pissed all over their plate glass windows while giving the finger. Drove home and nothing happened.

Then I got a DUI around 2011. Best thing that ever happened to me. Lost my license, had nowhere to go so I put $50 on Full Tilt Poker. Lost it. Put $100 on Full Tilt Poker. Lost it. Has to be rigged I says. This is BS I says. But I had nowhere else to go. Had no license. Couldn't do anything and was bored outta my mind so I started actually learning and studying poker. Eventually was able to beat 0.10/.25 online (yeah pretty much none of you could beat 25 cent cash games online, serious) and then joined a staking stable. Got coached up to 0.50/1 and told em to kick rocks from there went out on my own. Soon I was destroying 1/2+ online and could beat any live NL game you put me in. Quit my job and haven't been drunk driving anymore ever sense.

[RunKC]

My brothers best friend had just turned 18 and saved up for his motorcycle. His parents warned him not to get one but he was 18 and was finally free. We both went with him to purchase it and he seemed so happy. My brother and I both rode on it with him, and to his credit he was as safe with that thing as one could be.

We were going to a friends house one day and he was driving in front of us. At a stop light it turned green but some asshole ran a red light and hit our friend. Fortunately he was able to turn a bit and the dumb driver had brakes enough.

Completely shattered my brothers best friends leg. I had never seen someone in so much pain and agony in my life. Will never ride a motorcycle again.

[KurtCobain]

I had something like that.

Age 12-19 : Drugs, homelessness, criminal behaviour etc
Age 19-20 : Prison
Age 20-22 : Rebuilding life, Married, Begginning a trade
Age 23 : Drugs, criminal behaviour, making an ass out of myself on a chiefs message board etc
Age 24-30 : Prison
Age 30-34 : Sober living, family reunification, certifications in peer support, giving back to the community I once harmed, living as "normal" as possible, etc

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by Otter

Is shouting "YOU STOLE MY SOUL!!!" in the first pic?

Yeah some believe that. At the time. I had no idea about the soul being stolen thing. I thought that was another religion at the time. But, I probably wouldn't have given a shit anyway. In this case I think it was just money.

Also, I didn't just tell them to **** off, that wasn't enough of an insult, I had to do the worse insult I had been told you can do to a muslim. I told them "Tiz Di am" (no idea on spelling) and made the motion with the hand. That's what sent them off like a rocket.

I would never have said that once I got my head screwed on right. I really regret saying that. It was their culture and home. I went ugly american. Just the kind of stupid shit I did back then. But, it did wake me up after I woke the **** up and embraced I didn't want to be dead by 25.

[Mosbonian]

One of my first jobs in the Credit industry was as a Loan Officer and Repo man for a Finance Company. My job was to repo security items for Loans we made...it could be vehicles, expensive jewelry, household goods...anything of value equal to the size of the loan we made.

Most of the loans we made had cars or trucks many if which I ended up doing repo's on. Most of the repo's were pretty easy but one job made me make a pretty serious job change.

Went to repo a guys car who hadn't made a payment in 7 months...one day he had it parked on the street outside his house. We got tipped off by a neighbor so I took my trainee and we went to repo the car. (In most towns our company used tow trucks to assist but in this town the only tow service wouldn't do it for fear of losing potential customers)

Back in those days if you financed more than 75% of the vehicle amount you could keep a set of keys to facilitate repo's.

Needless to say this one didn't go well and I ended up facing the wrong end of a gun. And the trainee who was with me drove off when he saw the guy with the gun.

Longer story...but when a the calamity ended I went back to the office and gave my 2 week notice.

[ThaVirus]

Originally Posted by Mosbonian

Needless to say this one didn't go well and I ended up facing the wrong end of a gun. And the trainee who was with me drove off when he saw the guy with the gun.

What a ****ing shit stain of a trainee lol

I 100% would have rocked him in his shit when I got back to the office.

[KCJake]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

Here ya go

The pic that nearly got me killed

Dome of the rock

David’s tower

Israeli truck at the Lebanon border. One like my shirt and allowed me to get in and take a pic

Pic on the kibbutz down past the Dead Sea and 100 or so from the Red Sea

Checks out

[Mosbonian]

Originally Posted by ThaVirus

What a ****ing shit stain of a trainee lol

I 100% would have rocked him in his shit when I got back to the office.

I would have except he went back to the office...told my Regional Supervisor that I was probably dead in the street and said he quit. No worry about me..

I did go to his parent's house where he lived and asked to speak to him but his Mom said he didn't want to see me...so I asked her to have him call me. Instead his old man called me and said if I came near the house again he would have me arrested.

I told his old man that it was the ***** way out that I only wanted to ask why he left me like that. But I did tell him that when the cops arrived that I told them how he had been cowardly and when the local news interviewed me that I used his name several times in referencing that he had left me. He called me a couple of funny names and said if he ever saw me he would kick my *** for torching his son on the local news.

I probably ran into him several times over the next few months and not one peep out of him.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by cdcox

Top 6 most fork-road moments of my life:

1. I was at a college party freshman year. DJ played "Riding the storm out" by REO Speedwagon. I wanted to dance. I asked a girl to dance I had been scoping --in a non-creeper way -- all night. Together for 44.5 years and married for almost 41.

2. I was about to graduate in engineering, in a recession without a job or a plan. I saw a bulliten board ad for a graduate research assistant in environmental engineering to study flocculation in water treatment using polymers. I didn't know what flocculation was, but I looked it up in the dictionary. Decided to contact the professor who was advertising the position an that set my career in motion.

3. I was working in industry at the interface between engineering and marketing. It was made known to me that I could get a promotion along the marketing branch to a position reporting to a VP at the age of 27. I thought, "I don't want to do that." Second thought,"okay, go ahead and turn down this opportunity, but what do you want to do?" Several months later I was headed to a PhD program.

4. Fast forward. I am now a professor and hold an entry level admin position under the department head. I'm good at it and I love it. I get offered an opportunity to lead a center where I will be in charge. My own boss, my own budget. Within a 10 minute window, I express reluctance to take the new opportunity because l love what I am doing to sending an email indicating that I wNt to do the new position as long as I can keep doing my current admin work.

5. See post 58 in this thread.

6. I'm interviewing for a position at a major petrochemical company. They put two positions on the table, I was very interested in one of the positions and less interested in the other. I made my preference clear and probably indicated an in flexibility that cost me the offeer.

I read a quote that I liked the other day. It went something like this: you're only one decision away from having a completely different life.

I think about that sometimes. It's a good reminder that forks in the road occur every day, and we can always change our path going forward.

I like my life, and I navigated a lot of forks in the road in the past to get here. Most of them involve a lot of randomness, though often mixed in with decisions on my part. Things could have turned out way different, either positively or negatively but more likely negatively.

1. I planned to go to a different college, but there was a snafu in my scholarship. Rather than wait it out, I took the safe route and went to my backup school. The backup school was great and I'll never say anything bad about them, but I lament walking away from my top-choice school.

2. I had 3 to 5 job options coming out of college, and picked one of them. I suspect it wasn't the best choice, but I felt cornered by some other factors in my life.

3. I agreed to get set up on a half-blind date with the woman who became my wife, and it happened in large part because she randomly got assigned to the cubicle next to me at work. That ended up working out great.

4. A relative swindled me out of my life savings in those younger years, which really hurt. I was very skeptical, but felt an obligation to help the person out with "a loan" given their sob story and strong request to me. That's the last I saw of that money, and I found out later that they had money and just wanted mine instead. Major suckage on that decision.

5. I switched my grad school degree somewhat on a whim before arriving to school. The second degree led me to a great career, but I suspect the original degree would have done that, too.

6. I got a job offer in Denver and decided to take it even though it was a big step back in salary at the time. The job looked interesting and I was intrigued by Denver. Denver has really become home and I love the city.

7. I quit that job and started my company in large part because my horrible boss said one particular thing to me that was so despicable and psychopathic that I stopped my job hunt because I wanted to quit immediately. I had been looking because I hated the guy, but as a result of that one statement I became self-employed, which ended up being a great thing. The best revenge is living well.

8. I was driving to the airport for work not long after moving to Denver, and saw a really cool condo that was clearly underpriced. I called my wife and we jumped on it, saving and scraping together every penny we could raise for the down payment. I sold it for a great profit 18 months later, which gave me the down payment money for my house.

9. When I was looking for a house, my Realtor jokingly offered to show me her house since she was thinking about retiring. I called her bluff, looked at her house, and to her surprise I bought it from her. It's been a wonderful home and a fantastic investment.

In some of those cases I made a good decision for that particular situation, and in some cases I made a bad decision. But even the bad decisions were good decisions, because they led me to my current happy state. Well, except #4. That one that produced no positive outcome at all.

[excessive]

I posted once on a football message board. A basement dwelling mama's boy figured himself a writer and had written and posted an essay about a Centaur. I thought I'd do him a favor, having editorial experience and all, gave the advice not to keep repeating Centaur every other ****ing line. The response was most ungracious. Lesson learned, reruns will rerun: do not engage.

[ThrobProng]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

7. I quit that job and started my company in large part because my horrible boss said one particular thing to me that was so despicable and psychopathic that I stopped my job hunt because I wanted to quit immediately.

Curiosity piqued. Let me guess:

"Yoko Ono's music is actually pretty good."

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by ThrobProng

Curiosity piqued. Let me guess:

"Yoko Ono's music is actually pretty good."

To make a long story short, he and I were both out on separate business trips and were going to miss a particular meeting. However, I happened to get back early and got there. He didn't know that.

So the next day at work, he came into my office and shut the door, and proceeded to tell me an egregious lie about another employee who was a friend, with the goal of damaging my relationship with that person. It wasn't even work related. It was just pure malevolence. (Edit: he was telling me a lie about what happened in the meeting.)

But he didn't know that I was actually there, and I knew exactly what had happened in that meeting. So I sat and listened to him lie and saw with profound and sudden clarity the type of person that he was. I had already concluded that he was an evil person so I was already in a job search, but this was shocking even with my existing misgivings. As soon as he left my office, I called my wife and told her that I was resigning as soon as possible. I'd been pondering starting my own company, and this event prompted me to do it. It led to a lot of good outcomes for me and a lot of bad outcomes for him, which makes me grin.