From Law School to Tool World
Getting from A to B often means finding oneself at K
The greatest invention, for me, is Google Maps. I can get anywhere if I know the physical address.
I am not blessed with a good sense of direction. I once left Asheville, NC for Atlanta — a trip I had made the day before — and ended up in Bat Cave, NC. When paper maps were all we had to go on, I was no better off.
Being from Atlanta I can get you anywhere in the city. But I can’t tell you how to get there. It’s just not in my DNA.
I’m explaining all this because I’m about to tell you how I started off five years ago for law school and ended up working 2.5 years for Lowe’s. It was a meandering trip.
In 2013 I completed Emory University’s Paralegal Certification Program. Finished 2d in my class — not bad for a guy who stumbled out of college in 1978 with a 2.6 GPA. Too much beer and undiagnosed learning disabilities.
While taking the legal courses I found I was really good at law — the way some people are really good at math. It just made sense to me and for the first time ever I was one of the smart kids. Doing Emory-level work, thank you.
So that plants the seed of going to law school. A friend in Florida even said she’d arrange a full ride at a school down there if I could score high enough on the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT). That is not an offer I ever got back in the day.
Not ready to move I set my sights on scoring high enough to go to Georgia State at night — four nights a week and study all weekend while working full time. And then I started prepping for the LSAT.
The LSAT has precious little to do with the law, instead opting for testing one’s ability to think logically. I looked at a sample question and knew I was in deep trouble. A substantial part of the test has questions like this:
A company employee generates a series of five-digit product codes in accordance with the following rules:
The codes use the digits 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4, and no others. Each digit occurs exactly once in any code. The second digit has a value exactly twice that of the first digit. The value of the third digit is less than the value of the fifth digit.
If the last digit of an acceptable product code is 1, it must be true that the
first digit is 2
second digit is 0
third digit is 3
fourth digit is 4
fourth digit is 0
Remember that learning disability? Questions like the above eat my brain for lunch. Like the old math questions of a train leaving for Macon at 6 going 20 mph and another coming from the other direction going 25 mph but has twice the distance — which will arrive first and by how much time? In both questions my possibly splendid legal mind turned into oatmeal.
I took the LSAT twice, with my score dropping the 2 time. No Georgia State but I did get a nice offer from — seriously — Ave Maria Law School. Tempting but exactly the cradle of great legal scholarship and the loan was going to be steep.
So while wallowing in self pity at my lost law career I started thinking — if I had time for law school why not get an evening and weekend job? The kids have been long gone. The money could come in handy. And the next thing you know I’m a proud member of the Lowe’s family, planted in the hardware department. I even got a red vest and a card entitling me to 10% off in the store.
I never worked retail but the store was five minutes from home and the money was okay. I met a lot of nice people, learned a lot and didn’t run up a lot of student loan debt. I learned some new things and found I like talking to customers. I kept dog biscuits in my vest as many shoppers brought their pups. When it come to dogs their love is for sale and I was buying.
The biggest downside is like many big-box retailers the floor is poured concrete, which is hell on the legs. At first I thought it was just my age until younger associates told me they hated the floor as well.
I won’t go on and on about my time there, save a few tips:
People who work in DIY do not know everything about every DIY. Especially when you say something like: “I think my plumbing has gone bad. What should I do?” Details, people.
I loved customers who took pictures of their problem. It really helped. Unless they took a picture of a wingnut and asked: “Do you have this?” We have lots but we have to know size and that does not come from a picture.
Want to get our attention? Don’t whistle or snap your fingers. You’re not royalty.
When something is out of stock it’s out of stock. Asking for it several times does not make it appear.
I really liked my job but tonight was my last night. I just started a new job with the federal government — a contract job that looks like it’s going to be around and will require long work days that don’t make a part-time gig feasible.
So for someone who started out on the road to law school and ended up selling tools maybe it’s not my sense of direction that is an issue. Maybe one just never knows what the universe has in mind.