Take this Job and Shove It

Let’s start of part 2 of the Jackson story with a little history on Ryan.

When Ryan was growing up, he wanted to be a bulldozer. Not the bulldozer operator, the actual bulldozer. He loves to play in the dirt, whether it be on a backhoe, bulldozer or four-wheeler. He loves sunshine and the outdoors. He enjoys hiking up mountains, and through canyons. He grew up in the big city of Nashville…but he is a country boy at heart. He loves to piddle at a work bench, on the farm, on an antique tractor, or sometimes with nothing in particular.

Ryan’s love language is acts of service. He will do anything for anybody at anytime. He puts everyone but himself first. More about those last couple of sentences in a moment.

Professionally, Ryan is a civil engineer. For the past 15 years, Ryan has worked as a consulting engineer, mostly working with builders, homeowners, and developers to develop site plans for homes and businesses. Basically, he took a piece of property and figured out what type and size building could go on the property. He sat behind a desk and drew plans, but never got to go outside and enjoy the dirt or sunshine which was one of his reasons for becoming an engineer. He consulted on project after project, but rarely got to see the completion of the project. When doing consulting work, you have to keep up with your time by the quarter hour so that it can be billed to your client. This task gets quite monotonous and tedious and frustrating. Also, when you are working for clients, there is always one who isn’t happy. A lot of the time, the things that made the clients unhappy were beyond Ryan’s control. So the combination of many frustrating things brought Ryan to the point in his career where he was ready to make a major change.

What he really wanted to say to his consulting position was:

Take this job and shove it I ain't workin' here no more
My woman done left and took all the reason I was working for
Ya better not try and stand in my way
Cause I'm walkin', out the door
Take this job and shove it I ain't working here no more

Well, I been working in this factory for now on fifteen years
All this time, I watched my woman drownin' in a pool of tears
And I've seen a lot of good folks die who had a lot of bills to pay
I'd give the shirt right off of my back if I had the guts to say...

Take this job and shove it I ain't workin' here no more
My woman done left and took all the reason I was working for
Ya better not try and stand in my way
Cause I'm walkin', out the door
Take this job and shove it I ain't working here no more

But he wouldn’t/couldn’t make that major change, because remember those few sentences about his love language? Well, see, when you put everyone else first, you don’t take care of yourself. Ryan would have stayed at that job forever, doing his absolute best and taking care of everyone but himself…and being miserable the whole time. But God had a different plan…

Over the summer, as the financial world continued to collapse around us, many builders and developers lost their financing. And when they do not have financing, they don’t use engineers to consult on their new projects…because there are no new projects. Ryan safely made it through several rounds of lay-offs at his office. And because of the potential of lay-offs and his need for change, Ryan started looking for a job in early 2009. He actually went on several interviews with one certain company in Nashville. The job he interviewed for would have been basically the same job as the one he had, with a few changes, and there was a little room for growth, and while that was somewhat appealing, there was always one factor or another for Ryan to not get hired by said company. (We know now that that factor was God and God’s plan.)

Around late July, early August, Ryan learned that his employer was in the process of selling the company, and was told that his job would be “safe”. That he would make the transition to the new company and all would be good. He would continue to do the same job, just with a new company. He continued to pray that he wanted to be doing something different by October 2009. Ryan went to meet with the new company. He came home after the “meet and greet” and said to me, “I just don’t get how my job will be safe…that company already has 10 of me sitting at desks doing my job.” Our sweet Savior was preparing his heart. We just didn’t know it at the time.

Then on a Thursday in late September, (I’m really surprised that I don’t know the date), Ryan met me and Kendall at one of the middle school football games. He was really anxious in his bleacher seat and he kept telling me that we had to talk but we couldn’t talk there. He couldn’t watch the game, he couldn’t eat game snacks, he couldn’t focus…I knew something was wrong. And you don’t tell your OCD, type A wife that I’ve got something to tell you, but I’ll tell you later…drives me crazy…I can’t stand surprises! So I made him get up out of the bleachers and walk to a quiet spot in the grass. He proceeded to tell me that there were problems with the sale of the company. Basically, he was no longer safe. The civil engineering division of his current company wasn’t going to be purchased by the new company. Guess what, they didn’t need more civil engineers sitting around desks. He would only have a job through October 31st. He would receive a small severance package and then he was on his own. He then said, “You know, I prayed in October 2008 that by October 2009 I would not be doing the same job that I was doing in October 2008. I guess God just answered my prayer.” All I could think at that moment was “Why would you pray something like that? Why did you think that this prayer was a good idea?” but by the grace of God, I did not say it…I kept my mouth closed (another one of Jesus’ miracles) and simply hugged my sweet husband and said “everything is going to be okay, you’ll find another job, no problem, I love you and we will make it through this…but you have to have to find a new job, we can’t survive without your income, we’ve got bills to pay, and Christmas shopping to do and…”. Once again, God had different plans….