the black and the grey

1.01.2013

hill top

Dear Karen, Supervisors and Associates,

It has been my pleasure to work with you all to create a better Hill Top Coffee Shop over the last (nearly) 3 years. We have made some big steps forward towards destroying the stigma of the ‘campus’ coffee shop. Together we have changed the logo, the atmosphere, we have cultivated its personality and culture and we even upped the level of professionalism that was already there. There is now no denying that the Hill Top is a ‘real’ coffee shop. Better than most, but still surging forward.

That is why I am sad to say that my time with the Hill Top is over. I have been offered a position with Tazza Mia that will give me the opportunity to take the lessons I have learned here and build on them.

I feel like I have been blessed to be a part of the team that was headed up by the sweetest, most caring and compassionate boss around. Karen, thank you for all you have taught me about leadership and life in general. I will not forget the times we have spent brainstorming and learning new and different ways to bring the Hill Top up another notch.

For all the supervisors that have worked under me, thank you for all the passion and creativity you have poured into Hill Top. You have stretched me in many ways and I have enjoyed all the frustrations, all the silliness and all the fun we have had together.

To all the associates… you are what makes the Hill Top so special. Your enthusiasm for what that place represents is contagious. Thank you for bearing with me and my crazy coffee obsession (even going so far as to drink bad espresso shots and even good ones with me).

It is a bittersweet thing when you grow up and leave for college. You climb in the car with a few suitcases, adjust your mirrors, and go. Suddenly, you look back at the road behind you and realize, you can come back and visit every now and again, but things will never be the same. That is what this feels like to me. I am driving on and looking back through the rear view realizing it will never be the same. That I will never be the same.

Sincerely,

Eric

12.03.2012

live like no one else...

So, sometimes I get this feeling that everyone else is dumb. This, of course, is a preposterous notion because it is a well known fact that there are, in fact, smart people.

It is not as though I think I am the smartest individual alive- because I don't. I just start to think everyone else is dumb. I could go all Bible-y and tell you that the Lord agrees with me.

"For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God."

But then I would have to admit that I am no Einstein either. If I did that, you would no longer read this blog. (Like anyone would ever read this blog. Ha! It's so long.)

Anyway, what I mean is that nearly everyone hates their job. They don't like the way they look, they don't like politics or the government and everyone hates commercials.

We are all biding our time... waiting for our next weekend or vacation. Waiting for the latest fad diet so we can starve ourselves thin. Waiting for their guy to get in office. Then waiting even longer once he gets there to change Washington. Waiting patiently while we are told to buy beer and batteries, hoping that the next commercial break won't last quite as long as this one.

This is stupid. I do it too. How often have I complained about Facebook and the waste of time the internet has become? And yet I am on the internet right now

Now one of the things I usually find distasteful is the blind repetition of mantras and catchy slogans that commercially viable spokesmen for this or that lifestyle create for the lemmings of America to consume. These are easy to remember and repeat endlessly as you are trying to get your life on target.

One of these sayings comes from financial help guru Dave Ramsey. Now, I do not think that Mr Ramsey is a bad guy. He is just a commercially viable spokesman for a debt free lifestyle that creates catchy slogans to sell his books AND one of those catchy slogans has been rattling around in my brain (For those keeping score at home, so far I have called myself a blind repeater, a lemming and a dummy. I am also not very good at self esteem).

"Live like no one else, so you can live like no one else."

Mr. Ramsey says that you should live on beans and rice today so that you can some day own a Mercedes that you bought with cash!

That is all well and good, but I am not talking about Financial Peace here. IN fact, what I am talking about here is escaping this crappy wheel we are all on. How do we move beyond the mundane and ordinary? How do we get out of here?

We live like no one else.

So the real question is why is everyone on this wheel of boredom and discontent? Because it is easy to get on and so hard to leave. We get used to the comfortably mundane and start to prefer it over the uncomfortable adventure.

I, for one, would rather wake up groggy and cold with a backache if I was waking up in a campsite on the side of a mountain. I think that it is worth it.

I want to live like no one else. IN fact I think I was made to live like no one else. I think that we were all made to live like no one else. We are all individuals.

We were made to be set apart. different. holy. To live a life that is unparalleled. To be open to the call of God to do crazy, complicated and uncomfortable things. To give up worrying about Financial Peace. To trust. To love people.

To live like no one else, so we can live like no one else. I plan to do just that. I think it is dumb not to.