Perpetuating a Cliché

Job hunting- or is it pronounced yob? It may be a soft J. Anyway- job-hunting sucks. Let’s be real. Lots of people probably know exactly what I mean. Unfortunately being a pro cyclist doesn’t come with a multi-million dollar contract like a basketball player and many of us need to work work as well. Dozens and dozens of filled out applications brought nothing more than two and a half months of daily rejection. What started out as somewhat fun and mysterious- who is going to hire a pro cyclist?!- became a desperate and depressing activity. So much so that this cyclist nearly became a traveling knife salesman… more on this later.

Say it’s aristocratic but electricity and running water are both at the top of my want list- so needy, blah, blah, blah. Rent and bills need to be paid and only added to the feeling of desperation. Finally, luck fell in my favor with a job. As of last Monday, I’m perpetuating a cliché. I became a cyclist that works in a bike shop. It’s a good fit, really, what with knowing a few things about bikes, interacting with people, being organized and social media.

This came at a perfect time, just 12 hours after being hired to be a traveling knife salesman. Yes, you read that correctly. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and they were the only ones interested in hiring at the time. Fortunately the bike shop interview panned out and I won’t have to study up on Billy Mays videos. While it surely would’ve provided humorous and terrifying content for future blogs or a book, it would’ve been an awful job for me. A one-armed knife salesman could either make a killing or, honestly, be killed hawking knives to strangers. I digress. 

Not only am I able to pay for water- hooray!- I am more productive. Having nothing to do but ride and all day to do it can be difficult and it gets old. It really does. Now, I get up, do a morning workout, eat lunch, go to work, come home, make a snack if I have an evening workout, do an evening workout or recovery session, make dinner, then catch up on emails, phone calls, and house chores. It’s helped me get back in the habit of managing and budgeting my time and using it more efficiently. As addicting as Pinterest is, it’s hardly a productive use of time. In a bike shop, everyone else who works there loves to ride and understands the requirements of training and racing and are willing to accommodate them. More so than an office or even a traveling knife salesman gig. It seems to be the best of both worlds. To anyone else out there looking for a yob, keep your head up, it’ll pan out soon enough. While it’s cliché, it’s another addition to the ever growing list of things to be thankful for.