This article was written by Alt-Market's very own Laura Imm
The summer I turned 16 I worked at the restaurant at the local marina washing dishes. It was a good job for someone on the edge of sixteen. The hours were good, day shift mostly, which left plenty of time for my chores at home and time in the evenings with friends. The restaurant was less than a half-mile walk from my parent’s home and I didn’t need to depend on anyone to get there and back. The best part was that one of my girlfriends worked there, washing dishes too.
My girlfriend’s older brother had helped us get the jobs and looked after us. Both of us got on well with the rest of the kitchen staff, most of whom were many years older than us, and mostly male. In polite sweetness, they called us the “dishwashing dolls”, but I still haven’t figured out what was so cute about them shoving stacks of dirty plates our way and an endless stream of pots and pans at the end of the shift. Still, we all worked well together and the job was enjoyable, if dirty.
All of that changed when a new kitchen manager was hired. We were all required to attend an after-hours meeting where he and his new, authoritarian methods were introduced. The changes didn’t mean much to me. I was only a dishwasher after all. How could the changes on the cooking line affect me?
But they did. This new person was given complete autonomy in the kitchen and his methods were not well received. The mood in the kitchen immediately changed. The good rapport that helped everyone work efficiently together was completely disrupted. Worse, this person’s total authority gave him the audacity to take liberties that were not his to take and not long after he assumed power I found myself the target of his inappropriate sexual attentions.
I retreated to the safety of the presence of the cooks with whom I got along with so well, but he would not leave me alone. It didn’t take long until he was finding me on the dirt side road I took home from the marina trying to offer me a ride. I knew it was only a matter of time before anything I said wouldn’t matter anymore. But I didn’t know what to do. The idea of “tell someone” seemed a little absurd at the time. I had only seen the restaurant manager once, at that meeting where he introduced the new kitchen manager, and he seemed to be in total agreement with him. It was small chance that he would take me seriously even if I was ever able to approach him.
Then the day came when I was helping one of the cooks wrap potatoes for the evening shift. The kitchen manager stepped between us and made a startling comment about my chest. Something snapped inside me. I’d had enough. I said something rude and insubordinate back to him. He fired me on the spot. I retaliated with a, “You can’t fire me, I quit!” and walked out.
At that moment, I had never felt so free and so good! I had done what should have been done when it all started. I complimented myself that I had put things to rights and smiled at the sun shining down upon me.
But by the time I got home, I felt awful. The reality that I had just quit my job had set in. I wanted to step up and at least start covering my own expenses. How would I do that without a job? There was nothing worse than a no-win situation and that’s what I thought had befallen me. I couldn’t abide that man’s attention. I knew my parents would support me in that decision, but I needed to start supporting myself. Getting rid of the former had cost me the latter.
I told my mother what happened. She listened without comment. I knew that she was unhappy. This was the second time I had quit a job. I was proving myself unreliable. If this continued, I would have a history, and be overlooked with future applications.
Later that night, she opened the door to my bedroom and presented me with a letter, written in her perfect, cursive scrawl. She handed me the letter and left. With curiosity, I looked down upon it.
It began, “To Laura, for all the disappointments you will be forced to endure.” And ended with a poem:
How Did You Die?
(Edmund Vance Cooke)
Did you tackle that trouble that came your way
With a resolute heart and cheerful?
Or hide your face from the light of day
With a craven soul and fearful?
Oh, a trouble's a ton, or a trouble's an ounce,
Or a trouble is what you make it,
And it isn't the fact that you're hurt that counts,
But only how did you take it?
You are beaten to earth? Well, well, what's that?
Come up with a smiling face.
It's nothing against you to fall down flat,
But to lie there -- that's disgrace.
The harder you're thrown, why the higher you bounce;
Be proud of your blackened eye!
It isn't the fact that you're licked that counts,
It's how did you fight -- and why?
And though you be done to the death, what then?
If you battled the best you could,
If you played your part in the world of men,
Why, the Critic will call it good!
Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce,
And whether he's slow or spry,
It isn't the fact that you're dead that counts,
But only how did you die?
With that letter my mother was trying to tell me, in the best words that she knew how, that bad things would always happen in my life, and the only control I had over those events was how I chose to react to them. Better times would come, but only if I put in the effort to create them. Although there was plenty of ways life could beat us, we are never truly defeated unless we allow ourselves to be beaten.
I share this story with you now because I sense we are all feeling powerless and small against an adversary that is much larger over which we seem to have no control. We are all finding ourselves beholden to leaders we didn’t choose. We are all reeling with betrayal at the endless passage of treasonous legislation that seeks to invade and dominate every aspect of our lives. We are all dreading that change will not come and the worst will come to pass.
But take heart! And think on these words that have guided me for more than twenty years. “It isn’t the fact that you’re hurt that counts, but only how did you take it?” When I learned to see these experiences as ways to improve my own expressions and reactions to people was when I become empowered and not just a passive participant in my own life.
They want you to feel powerless and be passive. Just like my sleazy, bullying kitchen manager, the tyrannical want you to feel like there is no point to struggling for your own independence and freedom, let alone our nation’s. They want you to feel that you can’t create change yourself. They want you to lose all hope and acquiesce. But we all know this in our hearts to be true; when we trade our self-respect for security, when we trade our common sense for compliance, that is when we become slaves.
Which is why it is more important than ever that we don’t give up. That we network with our friends, family, neighbors and coworkers to create the barter networks that will sustain us in the days to come and will be the basis of our Safe Havens in the future. That we continue to let our legislators know their disloyalty to the Constitution will not be tolerated and to support freedom based initiatives in all idioms. That we continue to educate and better ourselves in every aspect of self-reliance and sound money so we can be models and mentors to others.
It is more important than ever that we hold fast to our self-respect and our pride as thinking adults, with the ability to control our reactions and to effect the outcome. Each one of us has the ability to think for ourselves, to realize what is best for ourselves and to create change to pursue that best path, however humble. The only one stopping us is truly ourselves. Only I can create the life I want to live. And only I will be responsible for it when it ends.
So I ask you, how did you die?
written by Ted long , February 13, 2012
Your mom was wise. Little did she know that her wisdom, passed on to you five years ago, would prepare you not only for life in general, but for a special leadership in your nation!
written by Don Levit , February 13, 2012
Laura:
What an inspiring message.
It seems as if too many of us are simply trying to prolong life, but for what? The pursuit of happiness?
There's nothing wrong with happiness, or the pursuit, but, generally for me, happiness comes like a "thief in the night," when i least expect it. And it goes away, too, and comes back again.
In Judaism, there is a statement in the Old Testament, "Justice, justice, shall you pursue."
Now, that's the type of pursuit that can reenergize me when I am feeling feeling down about the natural "progression" of our society.
Don Levit
written by David G. , February 13, 2012
..for sharing this wonderful story, Laura. That is a chord that resonates so true with me, 'How do you choose to live or die?" As you pointed out, this really means 'how do you choose to respond to evil and hardship?'
Courage and grace.
If I can live into those two words I will die well.
written by Oathkeeper_Scott , February 13, 2012
Thank you, Laura. Great story. Great example.
written by Sophie , February 13, 2012
Thanks for the walk down memory lane. Ironically I was just telling my husband about the mean and ugly boss I had when I was 15. I eventually learned to stand up for myself. Thanks for sharing with us.
written by theron , February 14, 2012
This article is so resoundingly true and insightful that it is truly a light to cut through the darkness.
It is the lucky reader who finds your article and takes heart in your example, using courage to clear his head, and to create solutions. You have shown how each of us can work to become free of any need or requirement to encounter these childishly domineering people.
That is our problem, by the way. Look at the Congress and the corporate raiders they take their money from, who also hire and fire them. The Internet has both informed us what the news does not, and also rendered their personalities visible to us.
They are all the kitchen manager. They want to rule the roost and use others for their amusement. Their method is to tell some lies, hand out paychecks, and encourage base desires, so as to increase their venal hordes.
We don't just outnumber these people. They are qualitatively different from those of us whose families created what was the most industrious and respected country in recorded human history, until this crew bought their way into our leadership circles. It is up to us to freeze them and their ways out of society.
Thank you again for blazing the trail, Pioneer Wife! You are a credit to your family, and your family is a credit to us all!
written by Brad33 , February 16, 2012
A coworker of mine once told my boss, in front of me, "you rent me, you don't own me!". And that is SO true!
Employers do NOT own you. Quitting is both empowering AND frightening. You've escaped from the gulag, only to find that the gulug is in the middle of a howling, freezing cold wilderness. Better to die a free man/woman that to die a slave!
