Chapter 5 My Absolute Favorite Spectacular Failure
Most failures involve bad luck, ignorance, and sometimes ordinary stupidity. One day in college, I managed to combine all three into one experience. It was breathtaking.
In the winter of my senior year, I started to think I might have the right stuff to become a good accountant, perhaps someday a CPA. I figured that career path would be a good way to learn the innards of business from the numbers side. I would need that sort of experience no matter what kind of business I someday started on my own. All I needed was an entry-level position with one of the so-called Big Eight (at the time) accounting firms. I managed to line up an interview in Syracuse, New York, a two-hour drive from campus.
The day of the interview featured a typical upstate New York half-blizzard with ass-freezing temperatures. I decided I didn't need a jacket for the trip because I was only going from building to car and back. This was only one of the remarkably stupid decisions I made that day.
My second mistake was not realizing I should wear a suit and tie to an interview with an accounting firm. I figured they knew I was in college since it said so on my résumé, so why not dress like a college student? Yes, I was that ignorant. Remember, I didn't even know anyone who worked in a traditional white-collar environment. Nor did I own a suit or a tie.
My interviewer took one look at me and remarked that apparently I didn't know why I was there. He escorted me to the door and suggested that the next time I go to an interview perhaps I should wear a suit. I was devastated. But my evening was far from over. So far, I had only exercised my ignorance and my stupidity. The bad luck part of the day was ahead.
On the way home, I took a newly constructed highway through a sparsely populated valley in the Catskill Mountains. My engine conked out, and I managed to coast the car into a snow bank on the side of the road. There were no other cars on the road in either direction. It was after dark, and the already-frosty temperature was dropping fast. I saw no signs of civilization for miles. The temperature was about zero Fahrenheit. It wasn't a good day to leave my jacket at home. In the days before cell phones, this was the worst-case scenario.
I knew I couldn't stay in the car for long. The temperature inside started dropping the moment the engine died. I knew I couldn't run back in the direction from which I came because it had been miles since I saw a house. I wouldn't make it that far. My only hope was to run forward and hope there were homes around a bend or over a hill. And so I started running.
In less than a minute, the frozen air sucked the warmth from my body and distributed it into the atmosphere. My feet were like blocks of ice clunking on the frozen pavement. My breath formed cumulus clouds around my head. I lost most of the feeling in my hands. My ankles hardened. I figured I was about thirty minutes from falling into a frozen death sleep in the nearest snowbank. And now my legs were failing. I couldn't go much further, and when I stopped running, I knew the cold would finish me off.
As I struggled to stay upright and keep moving, I made myself a promise: If I lived, I would trade my piece of shit car for a one-way plane ticket to California and never see another f@$#!#& snow flake for the rest of my life.
Headlights appeared on the horizon. I stood in the middle of the road and signaled, like the frozen idiot I was, for the car to stop. A traveling shoe salesman in a beat-up station wagon saved my life. He drove me all the way back to campus.
A few months later, I kept my promise to myself. I bought a one-way plane ticket to the vibrant economy and easy climate of Northern California. It was the smartest decision I ever made. The experience of nearly dying in the frozen tundra of upstate New York inspired me to move to California. Thank you, failure. I no longer fear death when I go outdoors.