It’s been a rather long time since I was an employee at any type of company. The last time I had a full time employer was all the way back in December of 2004. At that point I had been working in the computer consulting field since graduating from college back in November of 1994 and by that time I had achieved over nine years of sobriety. But ironically, my track record at every place of employment, including that last one I found myself in, was quite terrible. And there was only one reason for that: my alcoholism, yet I wasn’t even drinking.
By December of 2004, I had worked at somewhere around thirteen different computer based jobs in just under 10 years. At that time in my life, my employer was U.S. Customs and I was more sick then I was nine years earlier when I found sobriety. My ego had grown to be a mile wide. I lived in a ton of self-will. And I rarely turned anything over to God. Because of this, I harbored many character defects that ran rampant in every area of my life, especially at places of work, such as U.S. Customs. Prior to that job, I had either quit out of anger or been fired from all of my previous places of employment. The truth was that I hadn’t changed much for the better since finding sobriety. How could I? I was nothing more than a dry drunk who had no recovery program. I had done no step work, and was actually adding to my character defects rather than lessening them. This spilled into every job where I became just as selfish and self-centered as I was when I had been drinking and drugging. Rarely was I a team player. I was always conveniently busy when my jobs wanted me to help out on nights or weekends. I had the best excuses as to why I hardly attended any company social gatherings. Essentially all I did at every job was show up on time, do my work as I was asked to, and go home as soon as the clock hit the hour I was allowed to. So when my reviews came up, while I always received good marks for my attendance and what I actually worked on, I got horrific ones for everything else, like my attitude, my personal behaviors, and my interpersonal skills with others.
The reality was that I got in a lot of arguments with my teammates and my bosses. I probably should have been fired from every single job I ever worked at, but like a good alcoholic I always had to have the last word so I would quit if I knew things were heading that way. In the few times that I did get fired, I was totally surprised and became extremely angry and full of rage. My sickness had me so convinced that those jobs couldn’t survive without me and that I had been the best thing to ever happen for them. Once I even threatened to sue one of those companies that fired me for the most ridiculous of reasons. While that reason is unimportant, the fact was that I had become seriously sick. My disease had progressed so much to the point where I felt I was never the problem at any of these jobs and that it was always them.
In that last place of employment, U.S. Customs, I was also simultaneously trying to start up my own business on the side with an ex-partner. Every Friday, I’d leave my corporate job at 1pm and drive three hours to that business that my ex-partner was running full-time in my absence. I started to get disciplined by my corporate job for leaving at 1pm because it was required for all government employees to leave no earlier than 3pm. For awhile, I whined to my boss about how bad my commute would be on a Friday leaving that late and it worked. But my teammates started to complain as they weren’t getting the same privilege. Finally I was given the mandatory requirement by my boss that I had to stay from then on until 3pm. My response to him on that day was, “I quit!!!” I spent six more years after that running that business into the ground until I lost everything from that venture. Since then, I hit a major bottom and turned my will COMPLETELY over to the care of God and asked for guidance to rebuild me from the ground up. And that has definitely been happening.
Because of that, I know that things will be vastly different for me now at any place I become employed at. While I haven’t officially worked since January of 2010, I have been a team player with many other things I’ve been a part of. I have also done my best to go above and beyond the call of duty in each of them. For these reasons, I’m convinced that when I return to the active workforce, as I plan on doing in the very near future, I will be nothing like I once was in that U.S. Customs job or any of the others prior to it.
Thankfully today I’m able to see that it was my disease of alcoholism that led me to jumping from job to job to job after quitting or being fired at each of them. I know now that it was my character defects that led to my demise with all of them. I’m grateful that I can see now it was never my bosses, my teammates, the type of work, or the companies that were to blame. It was always me, the dry drunk and alcoholic me. With God at my helm now, I can safely say I really don’s see myself having to face the day again where I end up screaming at a boss and saying the words, “I Quit!!! or “You Can’t Fire Me!!!”
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson