Ep. 86 What To Do With A Crap Sandwich – Career Tips

What To Do With A Crap Sandwich – Career Tips

Hate your job? Despise your clients? Or is that bridge-job feeling more like a torture cell than a bridge to anywhere? What do you do when you look around and you’re not where you want to be?

In this episode, Torie Mathis and her cohost Sean talk about their journey to escaping low-paying, misaligned, crappy side jobs for their true passion and why being served a crap sandwich doesn’t mean you have to make a meal of it.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION –

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SAF 86

Torie: [00:00:00] $7 an hour. Part-time we had just bought a house.

Hey guys, what’s up? It’s Torie Mathis, your host, and I’m here with the one and only Sean Mathis, founder of Miles Through Time Automotive Museum.

Sean: [00:00:25]  Hey 

Torie: [00:00:25] One of Sean and I’s biggest pet peeves is when people complain about their job yet to have that take no action to fix it. Both of us have had jobs that were crappy. Both of us had clients that are crappy. And I think that’s just part of life. That’s just part of, what’s going to happen, being in the workforce, you might end up with a job or a boss that you don’t like, and being an entrepreneur, you’re probably going to end up with clients that you don’t like. It happens 

Sean: [00:00:57] There’s days of your life that you’re not going to and you can fix those, could you imagine you’re getting yourself in some sort of rut that you’re just, you absolutely are miserable. And you do nothing to change it. So you just day after day, you’re miserable. When people do that with their jobs they go Monday through Friday or whatever their schedule is and they bitch, and they complain.

But they go every time, which is great, then they’re not quitters in essence, but you’ve got options and that’s what people don’t realize. Like you don’t have to just do that. 

Torie: [00:01:29] And I wonder if that’s what it is. If either they don’t think that they have options, maybe that’s what’s going on or that they think that this is what life is supposed to be like.

Cause I hear these people like. Who was it? Somebody said something about another day, another dollar Monday again, thank God it’s Friday. Like it’s almost like they feel. That life is supposed to be that way. And I completely disagree. Like life is not supposed to be a constant drag on awful thing. And if your life is like that, like you can make changes.

Sean: [00:02:07] It should be interesting, if going to your job is that drab and you just, you’re not finding any joy in it. We’re not saying don’t quit. Don’t show up or do any of that. But yeah. Look for option. There are a ton of different jobs out there. If you just want a different job, if you want to try something on your own, focus on that, where you’re trying to build your own business on the side.

Until one day you can go in and quit that job, but you don’t have to put the energy into bitching about the job that you have now, because you got to pay the bills, focus that energy on creating that new, whatever it is. It’s exciting and is going to bring you joy. 

Torie: [00:02:43] And Sean was even told when we’ve moved, like in order for us to move across the country.

After Sean got out of the military, we were able to move wherever we wanted. And so we followed some of Sean’s family that went to the east coast. So we came this way And Sean had to go through a couple of crappy jobs just to get us over and to get us where we needed to be. It happens like I’ve done the same thing.

I’ve had a couple of crappy jobs and he was told by people, by someone specific that you should, you need to get a job and stay there because people won’t hire you. If you’ve changed jobs. Do you remember that? 

Sean: [00:03:17] Oh yeah, I remember that. What do you want me to do? Like I’m not going to stay there and be miserable.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. One job sucked. It wasn’t for me. The other one, I actually it was completely outside the scope of things. It was actually this pest service, something, I have really zero interest in, but I have a management degree and I, I wanted to utilize some of the skills that I have I’ve learned.

And I thought that I could bring, from even my deputy days and being a police officer. So I was like, all right, I’ll start at the bottom. I’ll learn the ropes. And I’m going to try to go and become a manager and go up the ladder and do all these things to, rather than staying at the bottom.

Although I didn’t really enjoy the job or that current position, I looked forward to doing more and more. And it just, the more I learned about the job, the company, the next position, it was not going to be for me. And as soon as I realized that I was out again, 

Torie: [00:04:18] And that was okay though, that you decided that wasn’t for you.

I wouldn’t have expected you to stick with it just because you shouldn’t switch jobs or you should be scared of switching jobs, like switch jobs, go find something else. There’s so many jobs out there, whether it’s in your town or somewhere else. Online. There’s all kinds of virtual type things. There’s so many opportunities out there that if you start looking around and trying to figure something else out, it totally is possible.

Sean: [00:04:46] It’s so easy nowadays. Like it’s like when it comes to cars, I’ll research cars all day long every day with no intention to ever buy them. I just, I’m curious. I want to know what they go for, what I could potentially get, all these different things. Because it’s so readily available to me and the job market is the same way.

You can go to indeed or whatever it is, ZipRecruiter. It really doesn’t matter. And just look, what is it you want to do? Where do you want to go? Just keep putting them out there. Don’t quit your job. And live on unemployment and run your bills up and all that looking for jobs. Cause it might take a while.

And then when I looked for jobs, I was not finding the stuff that I really wanted to do, but it didn’t deter me from actually trying. Okay. So just think of it as like a bridge job, yeah, exactly. It’s a bridge job, but then you’re also, you’re hunting. You’re hunting for that, that next.

Level job position, whatever it is you want to do. And when it happens, rejoice in that. But in the meantime don’t just put your head down and think that what your current situation is going to be the end all, because there’s no excuse for that anymore. Like it’s so easy.

You live in North Carolina and you want to find a job in Montana. You can do that without having to move to Montana or do it like you, you can find a job like it’s possible. So I don’t understand the mentality of just ah, I can’t do anything and this job sucks. And if you want to start your own business, that’s even better.

That’s easier. There’s so many different resources out there for you to do that kind of thing. You’re miserable at your job, start spending your weekends and your time off and start building something of your own. And eventually, it’s going to work or it’s not going to work 

Torie: [00:06:24] And that’s okay.

Sean: [00:06:25] It is in try something else. At least your mind, your time, and your mind is occupied on doing something that is. Good for your brain and your mental health. Because if all you’re doing is, oh, it’s Monday again. Yeah. I got to go do this job and put the hours in and I’m miserable. And I hate my boss and all the people around me and it’s contagious too, because now you’re gonna make everybody else miserable.

You got a family, a spouse, kid. Like it’s gonna suck for it. Everyone. And you don’t have to do that to yourself or your loved ones. 

Torie: [00:06:57] Yeah. Part of it is knowing what you want, because if you don’t actually sit down and figure out what you want. And you, I think anybody can like have these goals and go for what you want go for whatever job it is, whatever.

If you want to have your own business, but knowing what you want is what’s going to allow you to say, okay, this is a bridge job and I’m going somewhere else. And I think that’s a good way to always be, is like figuring out what the next step is, where you want to go. Because if you’re not pointed in one direction, like you can’t really go anywhere.

When I was in college, I ended up getting a job At and T and it started out as a website. Content collector which meant that I, cause I was going to school for advertising. So I was working in design. It was when websites like normal, like people had websites, but like regular businesses were just starting to get them.

So at and T was actually in their like yellow page type things. They were actually reaching out to their clients and being like, Hey, we’ll design a website for you. You’ll have it up in whatever time. So I was the person that contacted the businesses and got all of their content together. They ended up ditching the after I worked there a couple months, they ended up ditching the whole entire department that was doing that and they were going to move it somewhere else.

But I had been filling in for a girl doing data entry. And so they offered me the job for data entry, making a lot more money than they gave it to me for the website content collection. And I ended up finding a job. That was about an hour away from my house. 45 minutes an hour. 

Sean: [00:08:28] It was a good drive. 

Torie: [00:08:29] It was a drive. And so like at and T wanted to pay me like 23, $24 an hour to do data entry now back in oh five oh six. Yeah. It would have been. Oh six. And so I could have took the data entry position at the $23, or I found this job on Craigslist. That was way the hell away. Craigslist, hard time production assistant for a real estate magazine.

And I was like, holy shit. That is what I need to do. $7 an hour. Part-time. We had just bought a house, but like we figured out could we swing it? Would it work? And, I was spending all this time going to college, spending all this money, going to college and I needed to be in the field that I was doing.

I knew what the next step was. I needed to go that way. And the at and T thing didn’t work out. And when I told them, no, they actually offered me another dollar an hour. I was like, I didn’t do it. It was the wrong job. It was not going in my north. It was not going in the direction I wanted to do. Sure.

I could have made a lot more money. I might’ve even been able to work my way up a minute data entry person. I’m not data entry, but I feel like I do data entry. Yeah. I’m a business owners. I do a little bit everything now. So that’s great that I had that experience. I took that experience. And, I still have that to this day that I can do those types of things.

I’m an Excel master, from that kind of stuff. And that’s fine that I got that experience, but my next job wasn’t like, I don’t know. You only worked at   ATT for X amount of months, and then you decided to move. I don’t think you’re a good candidate. No, like I knew the direction I was supposed to be going in.

And because we had talked about it because I knew what, where I wanted to go. I knew that job wasn’t for me. So I quit the very expensive job and took the hour away job for $7 an hour part-time. And it was a huge inconvenience. It took up a lot more time. We did not make as much money at all. I was still going to college.

Like I was still trying to do it, but I think it was a fantastic decision that we made it sucked at the time. But I ended up working my way up at the publishing house. I ended up becoming assistant publisher. A lot of the skills that I learned at that job. We’re about a job costing and printing and how to work out things with clients.

I really started dealing with clients cause I had worked in small businesses before, but I had always been administration and I only did things even for the army. I did admin. So I actually just helped out the people that were actually doing the job. I never did the job. You know what I mean? I was always the help.

So that was like my first time that I was actually doing the job. I was actually working with the clients and making them happy and, figuring out that whole kind of thing. And because I took that incredibly crazy ass leap to do that, it gave me skills that I don’t think if I would have did that and went and worked at the magazine.

I don’t know if I would have went down that one entrepreneurial journey. 

Sean: [00:11:46] Yeah. There’s there’s really no telling at this point. I remember it’s not like he set out to go be a business owner or any of that kind of stuff. When you graduate, like your degree is I tell people it’s like she should be working in a skyscraper in New York.

I That’s what the degree is. That’s what they’re all doing. Yep. And yet take a $7 an hour job at part time for a small magazine company, a niche company, that. Didn’t survive the housing market crash. 

Torie: [00:12:15] Yeah, because the real estate market crashed and all of our clients were realtors. A lot of them went away at that time. And eventually the publishing house went away. And I became an entrepreneur from that.   

Sean: [00:12:28] You had to take the $7 an hour job. But relatively quickly, you did make it to where you’re making five grand a month, which that was huge for us at that time. Right before the housing market, it didn’t last long, but it was, that was good money for him, for us at that point in our heart. 

Torie: [00:12:46] And I think part of that is because it was where I was supposed to be. And because I knew that was the direction like. Oh, when I got out of the army, they said they would rehabilitate me because I broke my hip and I had to get out.

They would give me this vocational rehabilitation program. I had to give them my GI bill and they would pay for all of my college for everything, for me to be, rehabilitated. But I had to do what they said I was going to do. And they said commercial design. So that was the direction I had to go.

So I knew that was the direction they would have been pissed if I would have spent all of their money and I would have got a data entry job at  ATT like that would have been a. Huge failure for, $150,000 education. And I do data entry for   ATT like that, that would have been bad. 

Sean: [00:13:33] Then you would have been the person that complained about going and

Torie: [00:13:35] Going in on Monday, what, the $24 an hour, $7 an hour, like that’s a huge difference.

And I can see that would sway people that would, that’s swayed us too. 

Sean: [00:13:47] Put the blinders on people. It is so easy. I’m not susceptible to it myself. It’s, you start getting money thrown at you and it’s hard to turn it down, especially, if your bills are a certain amount of your living situation requires something specific.

Torie: [00:14:02] Oh, and we did it. We did it though. We held on to Sean’s jobs that were not the right ones because of health insurance. That was our worry. Like we have young kids, we need health insurance. For whatever reason, we can’t get it on our own. It’ll be too expensive. And we looked into, what? We figured it out.

We kinda got like me, getting shoved into entrepreneurship. Sean did too. He hurt his back and wasn’t able to work at his corporate job anymore. 

Sean: [00:14:32] Beyond the health insurance, like just, the mental concept of the losing a steady paycheck, one that, I know for a fact, no matter what, whether, we lose clients or gain client, I’m getting paid every week on top of insurance. So the mental process, I had to go through to eliminate that whether we needed it or not, it’s, that doesn’t even matter. It’s the fact that, that’s no longer there, then it’s do I bring that much value to Tories business to even justify me doing that?

And the thing is it isn’t about the money. Yeah, our lifestyle is so much more improved now, then I don’t go to any kind of job. 

Torie: [00:15:15] And we talked about it in another episode that. It is possible, very possible that Sean could go work somewhere else and work his way up and make more money than he’s making. Right now. 

Sean: [00:15:26] I’ve been offered three, I think, three different jobs just in the automotive world since starting miles at a time that I could easily just. Hang up the towel there on, on the non-profit that we started and, hanging up the towel with working with Torie and her business, wouldn’t be doing this anymore.

And I would just be an employee for somebody else, probably making good money. And I’d probably enjoy it even, but our lifestyle would never be the same. It’s just, we wouldn’t be able to do the things that we do. And for me, Family is more important. And, being able to say, I make a hundred thousand dollars an hour or not an hour, that would be awesome a year, but I work 60 hours a week and I commute two hours a day and I see the kids, 40 minutes a day before they go.

That sounds absolutely miserable to me. It’s art. Like the kids grow up fast. Our daughter, she went from pudgy cheeks to super long and then it was weird as I didn’t see it happen. It just like all of a sudden something like, holy shit, she’s not little anymore. When did that happen? 

Torie: [00:16:37] I’ll tell you it happened during quarantine.

I don’t know what she was eating, but they got out of school in March. And then we didn’t buy them like nice shoes because they weren’t going anywhere. So they were like flip-flops and stuff. And then in the fall, when they had to go back to school, she was two sizes of shoe, bigger quarantined did something.

It turned our little pudgy baby into like this. 

Sean: [00:17:00] I’m seeing her every day for hours. And still, it was like, oh, all of a sudden type thing. I couldn’t imagine not being there as much and having that kind of hat. 

Torie: [00:17:11] I think part of that too, is knowing the season of your life. And I think that our parents. That generation was more. And maybe even like your older brother more of that, like you stay at one job, you get a pension, you work super hard. Grind, and do all these things you put in, you work for the man, you don’t even like your job. You don’t like the company, but that’s what you do.

Cause that’s what you’re supposed to do. And then when you retire, then you get to woo-hoo do all this stuff. Sean and I talked about it. That’s not the life that we want. And so talking about what season you are in your life. When, before we had kids. And when I first started having my own business I worked a shit ton.

I worked on weekends, Sean worked weekends. So I worked weekends. I worked late because Sean worked until what, like seven at night. So I worked late. I didn’t have kids. And so that was the season that I did that when the kids were really little again, I worked nights because they were up all day. Sean worked nights for some of the time Sean had long shifts.

And so in that season, that’s what I did. But now that’s not like I want to be around the kids as much as possible. So again, like knowing what that north star is for us. Like at, when I was in college, it was like, I need to be in the right field in this season. It’s I need to do what I can to spend as much time with the kids still make money.

Obviously I want to make enough money, but I need that free time and flexibility. And now we need that free time and flexibility so that Sean can build Miles Through Time. It’s, but if we didn’t have those discussions and know that was what we were going for, man, we’d still be sitting in North Carolina with, Sean working at a pest company trying to be management because that’s what he’s supposed to do.

Sean: [00:18:55] I hate, with that, you can back it up to her. We’d still be in Idaho or we’d still be in California. Yeah. It’s just. When we lived in California and I worked for Pepsi, I became so efficient at my job that it became extremely boring, great paying job, great job. The whole retirement thing.

Like I, there was nowhere to move up in my department anytime soon. But eventually I, obviously I would have. But even then would it have been worth it? I doubt it. I actually, I knew how much my boss made versus how much I made. I like, what is the point of that even? And I started thinking like, what else can I do?

I was finishing my degree, so I knew that was coming. So I wanted to utilize that. And so we made the decision I’m going to leave Pepsi. And we’re going to move out of the state. 

Torie: [00:19:44] But we just had our first kid. And so again, like our direction was Shawn’s, needs to be able to use it his degree in days do something that’s mentally stimulating for him, not just the same crappy job. And then it wasn’t a crappy job. It was just not for Sean. 

Sean: [00:20:00] It was actually a pretty cushy job. And, I got a brother that was like, thought it was the dumbest thing in the world, leaving it to me. I’m like, I rode that roller coaster. I’m you need to get off. 

Torie: [00:20:13] I don’t know if they’ll ever forgive you for leaving that job. I think it’ll always be like a stain on you. How do you ever, when you say that, I don’t think that, and some people won’t understand those kinds of things, but we knew that, like that job wasn’t for Sean. And we knew that we didn’t want to stay in California. We didn’t want to raise our kids there.

We wanted something different and we left. 

Sean: [00:20:38] I don’t know what they pay now, but let’s say maybe I’d be making. Maybe 25, 26 bucks an hour doing, just driving around, fixing this stuff. It sounds awful to me even to this day I don’t want to do that anymore. But the thing is like for some people that’s fantastic for some people, they would absolutely enjoy doing that kind of stuff.

And that’s the thing is everybody is so different that you don’t have to get caught up on this. We all need to think the same way and move like Torie and I, we are both the same mentality as far as wanting to conquer, learn, conquer and go to the next level. And go to the next level. Not that nothing is enough.

It’s just that, like when we’ve had enough, I want more, and there’s no scale to measure that as far as it’s never going to be enough. I don’t know that all I know is wasn’t on board with something. I want to try something new and different and harder, whatever the case may be. 

Torie: [00:21:36] Or when that season of life changes. Once the kids got to be a little bit big, like when our kids were really small, we had an opportunity to go live on a lake. We found the most beautiful million dollar house, little, teeny, tiny town. The kids were like, Bella was in kindergarten. Like the kids were so small that it really didn’t matter too much that we just went for two years and enjoyed ourself on the lake, because that was the season.

Once the kids got to an age that like, we really need to think about like school district and where we want to be and try to stay in the same place. We moved again. And it wasn’t because, for that sense, it wasn’t like, oh, we’re bored that we were done with the lake. It was like, okay, we’re done with this season.

Like, where are we going? What’s our new north star. We could have said, oh, we shouldn’t move because moving is bad. Even though I don’t like it here anymore. And that’s what people are doing with their jobs. Ah, I don’t like this job, but I feel like I have to stay in it. And so if you’re happy in your job or you’re happy with your clients, then yay.

That’s great. But if you’re not like you can change it, you can change jobs. We’ve changed jobs. We’ve changed states. We’ve changed cities, we’ve changed career paths, all of these different things in order to get ourselves to that point of, I don’t really know what the point is. It’s we’re always just trying to move to that next level.

And always, even if our, where we want to go adjust. We’re okay with adjusting it. I think that’s part of life, not, getting in a rut and staying the same path, just because you think you have to stay the same path. 

Sean: [00:23:09] We’re constantly altering our, everything in our life to fit our current situation. Even just the cars and how many times a week. We’ve gotten a truck cause we needed to track them. We got rid of the truck cause we don’t need the trucks and we needed a big SUV with third row seat, but then we didn’t need it anymore. So we got rid of it and we needed a commuter car with great gas mileage.

We don’t need that anymore because the car is too small. So we get something else. I mean it’s the list of vehicles is huge in almost all of them were because our lifestyle changed, the commute became longer or shorter or irrelevant or kids. It was the very first one was I got the Mazda speed three, and then we had Riley and the car seat wouldn’t fit in the backseat, 

Torie: [00:23:53] Not put a car seat in that thing.

Sean: [00:23:55] So the car was gone. And then ever since then, man, it’s, if you had to tell a boat, he didn’t have a boat, like all these things make a big travel trailer. There’s all kinds of things. That first time when gas got really expensive, we were, we had a Infiniti QX 56 that got 15 miles per gallon. And the commute was short at that time.

All city is gas was expensive. So we got rid of it, and we got the CX five. That was great on gas, mileage, tiny little car. Wasn’t very fun. Now, all of a sudden it wasn’t big enough. You know it, then that’s the thing is. You just, you make changes to, to fit whatever makes you happy at that time.

Torie: [00:24:36] And I think we’re really good at doing that in regards to our clients as well, because know, this isn’t just for people that have jobs, I think that this is totally relatable for anybody. That’s an entrepreneur as well. If your clients are starting to be ones that just make you feel achy, or you’re just not like you, what you’re starting to wake up and be like, oh, not again, like you’re attracting those clients.

Like what you put out there is what you’re going to get. And so if you are an entrepreneur, you. Don’t have to keep your clients. There has been clients that have come to us that we didn’t feel was going to be a good fit and we have referred them out. We have had clients that just really didn’t work out.

And so we didn’t offer certain services or certain packages anymore, and we referred them to somebody else. So whether it’s your job that you’re not happy with, or your clients that you’re not happy with, or your car that you’re not happy with. What’s the direction that you want to go and start facing that way so that you can start to make those changes because you can’t make changes until you know which direction you want to go.

And it’s okay. If that direction changes. It should change. Like they’ve changed it so many times and I think that’s fine, we’re figuring stuff out. I think that everybody has the ability to do that. It’s okay. 

Sean: [00:25:49] And yeah, everyone’s heard the phrase. You don’t know what you don’t know. That goes right in line with all of this that we’re saying If you may think you like something or want to do something and you might not, after you go, so start over again and do something else. As long as you keep moving forward you’re good. If you stay, if you step back even, and fall back into something that you’ve done before, I’ve done that, it’s momentary it, you, it’s temporary.

You don’t have to worry about that kind of stuff. And you start the process over again. Yeah. There’s enough things out there. Clients, jobs, houses, car, you don’t have to be miserable. 

Torie: [00:26:23] No. And I think a part of it too. And if we would have done that, would’ve been horrible is listening to other people said, if Sean, you should never change jobs. Sean, you have to keep your retirement. You have to worry about pension. What about health insurance? Like all of these things, like you shouldn’t, you can’t move while the kids are in school. Like all these things that people have told us don’t get a boat. You’re stupid. Like we didn’t listen to them. And I think listening to people, giving you advice, look at what their lifestyle is look at where they’re at.

It’s like all these people that take financial advice from people that are poor, look at where you’re taking the advice from. And just because they’re family doesn’t mean you have to listen to their advice just because they’re your friends doesn’t mean you have to listen to their advice. Like I would actually be very picky and choosy on who you choose to take advice from find some people, even if they’re not even people, you can read books, you can listen to podcasts, you can watch YouTube videos. Like people have shows, find those people to be your mentors and people to get advice from that are going in that direction that you want to go.

And not with people that, that think they know best for you because that’s the decision they’ve made for them. I would never tell those people that stayed there for their retirement, that’s the wrong decision for them. But I do know it’s the wrong decision for us. 

Sean: [00:27:39] Yeah. And leaving your job or, stopping your business or canceling clients. Maybe that’s not the right option for you either, but if you’re miserable, there’s something you’ve got to like mentally, you’ve got to change something. So maybe you don’t change the jobs. You don’t move away. Maybe just change your mentality, instead of focusing on whatever it is, that’s bringing you down, you focus on what is good about it, and you keep trucking along.

Because just being miserable about things like that’s the problem. You cannot do that. 

Torie: [00:28:10] And you don’t deserve that. Nobody deserves that nobody should live a crappy life. Nobody should, hate waking up. And it’s not what we want for you. It’s not what we want for us. It’s not what we want for our kids.

And I think the more that people can realize this and try to adjust their life to be what they want it to be to go after the goals and the dreams that they want without listening to other people, trying to bring them down. I think the better all of us are going to be. The rising tide lifts, all boats, we all got to, we all got to rise up a little bit.

It’s going to be better for everybody. So if you liked this episode, we would appreciate it. If you would share it with somebody that may enjoy it, and we will see you on the next one,

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