A personal account of how defending your path can affirm the surety of your course.

By Catherine Daleo

I’m not the type of person to second-guess myself on my intended path if that is what I have my heart set on. Instead, I learn, adapt, and reform my trail as needed; for plans never work out the way we intend them to, and the universe has a way of getting us where we need to go, even if we don’t know we need to be there. All that being said, sometimes in life, we don’t know just how committed we are to things until our commitment to them is challenged.

For some that challenge is in the form of the obstacles one must overcome on their way to achieving their goals. For others, it’s the people who tell us we’re crazy or wasting our time. More than likely it’s a combination of both.

The other day I experienced the challenge in the form of being told I was wrong in the way I am planning how to go about achieving my goals. That my heart was in the wrong place; I am misguided; naive. I was told what I “needed” to succeed.

And mind you, this came from, I at least assume, a place of good-intention and albeit unwanted advice. I mean you can only tell someone so many times that you appreciate the suggestion, but you will still elect to follow your course.

In the perhaps one of the most interesting and challenging interactions of my life thus far, I had to defend my dreams and plan of fulfilling them to a complete stranger who berated me about my decisions but did so in such a polite but adamant manner that I began treating it like a game; a contest of my will power and ability to respond quickly while also properly defending myself.

What started as a mildly-stressful experience quickly turned into an annoyingly exciting one. I had JUST walked into work and happened to ask a customer if they needed help with anything, as he was looking at a washer. He wanted to know if it was in stock and available to be delivered the next day.

While I was telling him we only had one left and I had to verify we actually had it, he managed to make me feel a bit uncomfortable because he started to make little flirty passes at me. Mind you I’m 24 and this guy was an older Asian man most likely in his 40s or 50s.

I, being at work, let him make his annoying but otherwise harmless comments. I laughed them off, let the man say he wants to take me out (showed him my ring on my hand in response), tell me I needed a strong man to take care of me, and ask me if my boyfriend was “big and buff”.

“I’m not into big, buff guys, but even so, it’s the size of the heart, not the man”, I replied, followed immediately be me saying I was going to run to the back stock to make sure I had his washer. After finally finding it, and going through an unnecessary amount of trouble too, I go back to set up the delivery with him.

The issue we ran into, or I should say he ran into, was that he thought installation would be free. The delivery was free, but he’d either have to pay the install fee or have his tenant install it. The conversation with his tenant is what kicked this already peculiar situation into what it turned into.

It came down to the fact that when he called and asked his tenant if he could install the washer himself, and the guy said no he couldn’t – please set up the install. My customer was very miffed about that. That and the fact that he would have to pay for it. He decided that he would instead go to Lowe’s, as he adamantly protested that they would sell him a washer, deliver it, install it, and haul away the old one for the same price as the washer itself was here.

Regardless of whether that was true or not, I can’t match another store’s bundle, and I’m on commission only, so once a customer tells me they’re going elsewhere, and I know I’d be wasting both of our time to try and deliver on something I couldn’t, this is where I would be moving on to the next customer to assist.

However, the guy really wanted to discuss his annoyance at the fact that his tenant, a seemingly able-bodied man, couldn’t perform the “simple” task of installing a washing machine himself. But more than wanting to share his annoyance, he again decided to make a comment at me about my boyfriend. This, after I, trying to give the benefit of the doubt, mention that it may be harder than it seems, especially for someone who has literally never done it before, and I too would be worried about messing something up and being stuck with a broken appliance.

To which the guy immediately responds as if I said my boyfriend couldn’t do it himself either, which is the farthest thing from what I said. He tells me something along the lines that I need a man who can help me do things, and why am I with my boyfriend if he can’t do something so simple as installing a washer?

As you can imagine, I’m pretty fucking offended by the audacity of this remark. My coworkers at the podium, two guys around my age I work with, look amused but appalled by this guys argument. But again, I’m at work, and I have to be polite.

So with my biggest smile and most direct stare into this guys eyes as I can manage, I tell him, “My boyfriend doesn’t know how to install an appliance because we’ve never BOUGHT one to install. But, I’ve watched that man build an entire grill from scratch, so I have the utmost confidence that he can handle a washer when that time comes.”

You can imagine the looks on my coworkers’ faces after saying that.

And you’d think that would be the end of this conversation, but then he went from criticizing my relationship, to criticizing my career path.

After I made my comment the guy seemed to get a kick out of my response and said, “Ah you’re a very smart girl”. He then asked me if I finished school yet. I tell him, yes, and he says good and asks what I majored in, and I told him I’m an associate of business, just got my degree.

He LAUGHS. “Associates? That’s it?”.

I tell him yes, and that I’m already working on my business.

“Oh yeah, what’s your business, eh?”

And if you’re reading this article you already know what business I’ve gotten myself into. At the time of this encounter, and of me writing this story for you to read, I am in the process of building the very website that you’re reading this on. But, I digress.

I tell this guy I’m working on an online magazine.
The man ROLLED his eyes and laughed at me and gave me a sympathetic smile that told me just how stupid and misguided I sounded to him.

He tells me I need to work in a corporation before I even think about running my own business. How can I run a business if I don’t know how they’re run?

Mind you I’ve worked at my job for almost six years. And while I started fresh out of high school, and this is mainly the only job I’ve worked at, I’ve learned a LOT about how a business is run, should be run, and should NOT be run.

I had worked in customer service, I was a supervisor of the front check out at one point and was now in sales. I’d dealt with every kind of person you can imagine, both customer and coworker a like.

I don’t claim to know everything about business, but I hold the idea that one doesn’t need to have a bachelors’ degree, let alone an associates’, to have the opportunity to be a successful business owner.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVED going back to school and learning again after waiting four years before going to college after graduating. And I learned a LOT. And I will no doubt be a better businesswoman and manager for having that knowledge than if I didn’t have it.

But my point is otherwise that in today’s world, anyone can do anything they put their heart and soul into. Especially if you know how to take advantage of the resources and opportunities available to us today.

Returning to the conversation, the guy went on to interrogate me about whether I had any business starting an online magazine. He told me that if I want to make money and be successful, that I need to work in the industry I want to build a business around for many years before I even consider myself worthy of doing my own thing in it.

I tell him that while I don’t presently get PAID for it, I’ve been writing my entire life, and I like to think I’m at least decent at it. I then went on to tell him that I don’t need a lot of money to be successful or happy for that matter.

I don’t know why the guy just had to take it upon himself to try so hard to change my mind about things. This man told me my heart was in the WRONG place, that if I don’t have dollar signs in my eyes at all times, I’m basically wasting my time. He started telling me that his son worked his way up the corporate ladder and now is retired young and has a multi-million-dollar home.

Before he had to opportunity to try and possibly push his son on me, I affirmed that I don’t need a million-dollar home. He equated this to as if I said I’d be happy sleeping in a box on the street or some shit. I told him I’d rather have a big yard than a gigantic house with materialistic things.