When I was a young adult, I lived in Newport, RI, which sounds like a fancy place to live. It wasn't.
I shared an apartment with couple of guys my age and we struggled to get by. I was a college drop-out working in a retail store, one of my room mates worked in a bike shop, another was a welder and several were construction workers. We were not well educated, we had limited prospects and we all shared a common dilemma. We had each left our parental homes to live on our own, and for one reason or another none of us had the luxury of ever returning.
Living on a severely limited income, life was very hard, and mealtime was often interesting. Although I only had to look out for myself, any unexpected financial setback could be disastrous and there was no one to turn to for help. My friend (the welder), and I had discussed our options, and they were bleak at best. Basically it came to this; if you could not come up with the money for rent, you could throw yourself at the mercy of the landlord and he would probably cut you a break. If you missed the next rent payment, you had to take the "long walk", 5 houses down the street and then 2 blocks to the right. The Navy recruiter's office was the first stop on the "long walk", but the walk ended wearing a white sailor'scap and chipping paint on a large ship.
Having a car break down could be financially devastating and cause the "long walk" to happen. Since I relied on my car to get to work, each day I prayed that it started. My car was pretty old, and the fear of it breaking down was very real. When things went wrong, you could usually figure out what needed to be repaired or you could ask friends for suggestions. For a 6-pack of beer, most guys would be happy to spend a Saturday under a car helping a friend out of a jam.
Although life was tough, there were fun times. We would all scrape together a few bucks every week and head down to a cheap bar where the locals went. We would hang around with people like ourselves, who worked hard and clawed out an existence that was elusive and fragile. Drinking beer, playing darts and pool was enough to make us happy for a while, and we cherished these moments.
Sometimes I look back at the way life was then and compare it to the way it is now. There are a lot of stories between then and now. It would be easy for someone to say, "Wow, it is so much easier for you now", but that would not be the whole truth. Life is safer now, I am much more educated and I am a bit too old to be a Navy recruit, but like many others, I still work hard to make a living. As the CEO of B2BGateway, I work harder than I ever did, and the hours are much longer. Perhaps my personal mindset of working hard and fighting against all odds has carried over to B2BGateway, to make us the amazing company we are today.
In the past 16 years, B2BGateway has come from a program run on a single computer, to a global EDI company with data centers and offices around the world. We have had our challenges mixed in with our successful times. Not unlike a friend under the car on a Saturday, our staff has spent nights and weekends working through cyber-attacks, processing issues and various other things. When we successfully make our way through the challenge we still have a beer to celebrate getting out of a jam. I guess things haven't changed that much at all.
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