Ulikefishsticks
Active Member
- Joined
- Sep 1, 2019
- Messages
- 454
- Reaction score
- 353
- Points
- 68
I hadn't intended to write this much but I just kept typing. It's a slow day at work and I decided I felt like writing about my experiences up until this point in my life. This is very long and it's basically my story from growing up poor then joining the military. What I went through to finally have a career and allow me to purchase a stinger which puts a smile on my face every day and reminds me what I went through to get here.
VERY LONG READ AHEAD.
tldr;
Early life I was poor, joined army, worked at factory. Moved to a big city, got a nice job and drive a nice car.
So 3 months ago I was just finishing up my last semester at school and I was at an internship at an ISP. My job was to drive all over the state and replace a bunch of aging routers with new ones. I had a 2007 accord at the time and with the internship I was putting thousands of miles on the car each week. I was making pretty good money, $15/hour and .58 cents per mile. It was nice but that would not last on my mind/body and my car.
I have been going to school for Cyber Security and Network Management and I knew it would be tough to make it into the IT world as I have heard about it. I had decent grades, not quite 4.00 but close. I had picked up a couple tough certifications also which would look good on a resume. I was applying to tons of jobs while finishing up school and doing my internship. I saw one job that fit my experience down to everything. It was like someone wrote this job posting for ME. I applied to it but I didn't think I would get it. I knew I would be getting a job soon in IT, that could mean desktop support or if I'm lucky something in Cyber Security.
I was looking at a bunch of cars online and for fun looking at more expensive cars. The stinger was one of these I was looking at. It just looked so great. I checked and saw that there was a micro blue stinger about 5 miles away at a dealership. One weekend I took my girlfriend to a few dealerships to test drive some cars. Went to Honda and I test drove a 2019 accord and a 2018 V6 Sport accord. I have had a really good experience with Honda so I figured I would just stick with it. Then we went to Hyundai as it was just next door. I test drove the Veloster N which was REALLY nice and fun to drive. That was a car I was really impressed by. Exhaust sounded great and it had some decent get up. Then my girlfriend said why don't you go test drive the Stinger. I was not feeling it as it was something WAY out of my price range, or at least what I thought my price range would be.
So when I purchase a car, I don't like buying anything but the top trim level otherwise I just feel car envy whenever I'm driving around and see a similar car. I saw the stinger GT2 was over 50k NEW and the micro blue stinger was really low miles 2018 AWD GT2. It was reasonably priced for mileage and it was a Certified Pre-Owned. So I went to test drive it. WOW, that was a crazy first experience to driving a new car. I had never driven anything as powerful. My car history was an old Monte Carlo which was my first car, a Kia Forte then a Honda Accord. I regret test driving the car because that was all I could think about.
Cut to about a month later and I get a call from that perfect job about a phone interview. I was pretty excited but it was just the first step. The hour long phone interview went pretty well I think and I just put it to the back of my mind and kept going to school, working and shopping for cars. I test drove another new Accord and test drove a couple older cars with around 50k miles. That stinger was always in the back of my mind. I actually drove to the KIA dealership a few times just to check out the car and see if it was still there. I never stopped to drive it again as again, it was out of my price range.
I got a phone call one day at work from this company asking me to come in for a 4 hour interview. I was pumped, but then I was like, 4 hours, um 4 hour interview? Ok, I scheduled it for the following week and did the normal studying up of a company and making sure I had all those basic interview questions down. I get super nervous during interviews as I don't have the most experience with them and it's just nerve wracking. So the interview was your standard HR Management interview for the first hour and then the remaining 3 hours was an IT competence Test. I had to use these skills I said I had on the phone interview to make sure I wasn't bullshitting anyone. I managed to take care of that part fine and have some time left over to chat with the interviewer. I was asking him a lot about certain aspects of this company. Then as we got more relaxed I asked about pay and bonuses and stock options. He said he couldn't go into those details but he said if I was offered the position I would not be disappointed.
A few weeks later while at my internship I got a phone call but I was busy so It went to voicemail. I had gotten the job and I was so excited, he had said that someone would reach out to me discuss all the details. Well after a week or so of waiting and driving to a customer site about 4 hours away I got another phone call from a similar number. I pulled over as I answered the phone and she said she was with this company I had gotten the job offer from. She asked if I was still interested in the position which I replied I am. Then the next few minutes was a blur for me as she started with the salary amount I would be making. It was WAY HIGHER than I thought it would be. Like twice if not three times higher than I thought.
A little bit about my past and me growing up. I grew up in Upstate NY in a small town in a poor family of 6. The only jobs in the town was factories so if you wanted a decent pay (still shit) then you work at a factory. As I was finishing high school I still had no clue what I wanted to do, I didn't want to go to college and I didn't want to work in a factory. I enlisted in the military at age 17. That was what I felt my only option was. I traveled all over the world for the next 6 years. Korea, Ireland, Germany, Japan and a year deployment in Afghanistan. After my 6 of 8 years was up I decided the military was not what I wanted for the next 10-20 years. So I moved back home and then I started working at a factory. The same factory I didn't want to work at years ago.
I had a really close friend that I grew up with and he was working at the same place but he was working in the finance department so it was a little better. I was doing this kind of work for a few years and it was horrible. Long hours, boring work while working with other sour people. My friend who works in the finance department had been applying to other jobs had actually got a job in a nice city hundreds of miles away. He actually asked me if I wanted to go with him because well why not. I actually put in my 2 week notice that day. It was glorious. I moved down south to Raleigh, North Carolina. After a year I enrolled in school which brings me back to the start of this long as read.
So as I finish with the phone call with this lady from this company I'm sitting in this chik-Fil-A parking lot thinking to myself, holy shit that was a big number. Then I think to myself. I could definitely afford this nice Micro Blue Stinger that has been plaguing my car shopping for a while. That weekend I drove down to this dealership and test drove that stinger again. Not to check out a nice car but to test out my future car. I didn't buy that specific car because I did have to wait a few weeks to start the job and get my first pay. That car sold but I bought an identical one as blue is my favorite color.
So now for a little bit of a sad moment.
My father loved fast cars, Nascar and racing and anything MOPAR. My parents didn't have a lot of money and anything my father could do to his Dodge Caliber to make it look nice he would. My father passed away nearly 4 years ago. I wish I could show him this nice car that I bought. He might of been a little disappointed it was a KIA and not a Dodge Charger or a Challenger but i'm sure if I took him for a drive he would of been very impressed.
Feel free to ask me about any of my experiences. If you did read the entire thing then thank you! Again, just felt like writing.
VERY LONG READ AHEAD.
tldr;
Early life I was poor, joined army, worked at factory. Moved to a big city, got a nice job and drive a nice car.
So 3 months ago I was just finishing up my last semester at school and I was at an internship at an ISP. My job was to drive all over the state and replace a bunch of aging routers with new ones. I had a 2007 accord at the time and with the internship I was putting thousands of miles on the car each week. I was making pretty good money, $15/hour and .58 cents per mile. It was nice but that would not last on my mind/body and my car.
I have been going to school for Cyber Security and Network Management and I knew it would be tough to make it into the IT world as I have heard about it. I had decent grades, not quite 4.00 but close. I had picked up a couple tough certifications also which would look good on a resume. I was applying to tons of jobs while finishing up school and doing my internship. I saw one job that fit my experience down to everything. It was like someone wrote this job posting for ME. I applied to it but I didn't think I would get it. I knew I would be getting a job soon in IT, that could mean desktop support or if I'm lucky something in Cyber Security.
I was looking at a bunch of cars online and for fun looking at more expensive cars. The stinger was one of these I was looking at. It just looked so great. I checked and saw that there was a micro blue stinger about 5 miles away at a dealership. One weekend I took my girlfriend to a few dealerships to test drive some cars. Went to Honda and I test drove a 2019 accord and a 2018 V6 Sport accord. I have had a really good experience with Honda so I figured I would just stick with it. Then we went to Hyundai as it was just next door. I test drove the Veloster N which was REALLY nice and fun to drive. That was a car I was really impressed by. Exhaust sounded great and it had some decent get up. Then my girlfriend said why don't you go test drive the Stinger. I was not feeling it as it was something WAY out of my price range, or at least what I thought my price range would be.
So when I purchase a car, I don't like buying anything but the top trim level otherwise I just feel car envy whenever I'm driving around and see a similar car. I saw the stinger GT2 was over 50k NEW and the micro blue stinger was really low miles 2018 AWD GT2. It was reasonably priced for mileage and it was a Certified Pre-Owned. So I went to test drive it. WOW, that was a crazy first experience to driving a new car. I had never driven anything as powerful. My car history was an old Monte Carlo which was my first car, a Kia Forte then a Honda Accord. I regret test driving the car because that was all I could think about.
Cut to about a month later and I get a call from that perfect job about a phone interview. I was pretty excited but it was just the first step. The hour long phone interview went pretty well I think and I just put it to the back of my mind and kept going to school, working and shopping for cars. I test drove another new Accord and test drove a couple older cars with around 50k miles. That stinger was always in the back of my mind. I actually drove to the KIA dealership a few times just to check out the car and see if it was still there. I never stopped to drive it again as again, it was out of my price range.
I got a phone call one day at work from this company asking me to come in for a 4 hour interview. I was pumped, but then I was like, 4 hours, um 4 hour interview? Ok, I scheduled it for the following week and did the normal studying up of a company and making sure I had all those basic interview questions down. I get super nervous during interviews as I don't have the most experience with them and it's just nerve wracking. So the interview was your standard HR Management interview for the first hour and then the remaining 3 hours was an IT competence Test. I had to use these skills I said I had on the phone interview to make sure I wasn't bullshitting anyone. I managed to take care of that part fine and have some time left over to chat with the interviewer. I was asking him a lot about certain aspects of this company. Then as we got more relaxed I asked about pay and bonuses and stock options. He said he couldn't go into those details but he said if I was offered the position I would not be disappointed.
A few weeks later while at my internship I got a phone call but I was busy so It went to voicemail. I had gotten the job and I was so excited, he had said that someone would reach out to me discuss all the details. Well after a week or so of waiting and driving to a customer site about 4 hours away I got another phone call from a similar number. I pulled over as I answered the phone and she said she was with this company I had gotten the job offer from. She asked if I was still interested in the position which I replied I am. Then the next few minutes was a blur for me as she started with the salary amount I would be making. It was WAY HIGHER than I thought it would be. Like twice if not three times higher than I thought.
A little bit about my past and me growing up. I grew up in Upstate NY in a small town in a poor family of 6. The only jobs in the town was factories so if you wanted a decent pay (still shit) then you work at a factory. As I was finishing high school I still had no clue what I wanted to do, I didn't want to go to college and I didn't want to work in a factory. I enlisted in the military at age 17. That was what I felt my only option was. I traveled all over the world for the next 6 years. Korea, Ireland, Germany, Japan and a year deployment in Afghanistan. After my 6 of 8 years was up I decided the military was not what I wanted for the next 10-20 years. So I moved back home and then I started working at a factory. The same factory I didn't want to work at years ago.
I had a really close friend that I grew up with and he was working at the same place but he was working in the finance department so it was a little better. I was doing this kind of work for a few years and it was horrible. Long hours, boring work while working with other sour people. My friend who works in the finance department had been applying to other jobs had actually got a job in a nice city hundreds of miles away. He actually asked me if I wanted to go with him because well why not. I actually put in my 2 week notice that day. It was glorious. I moved down south to Raleigh, North Carolina. After a year I enrolled in school which brings me back to the start of this long as read.
So as I finish with the phone call with this lady from this company I'm sitting in this chik-Fil-A parking lot thinking to myself, holy shit that was a big number. Then I think to myself. I could definitely afford this nice Micro Blue Stinger that has been plaguing my car shopping for a while. That weekend I drove down to this dealership and test drove that stinger again. Not to check out a nice car but to test out my future car. I didn't buy that specific car because I did have to wait a few weeks to start the job and get my first pay. That car sold but I bought an identical one as blue is my favorite color.
So now for a little bit of a sad moment.
My father loved fast cars, Nascar and racing and anything MOPAR. My parents didn't have a lot of money and anything my father could do to his Dodge Caliber to make it look nice he would. My father passed away nearly 4 years ago. I wish I could show him this nice car that I bought. He might of been a little disappointed it was a KIA and not a Dodge Charger or a Challenger but i'm sure if I took him for a drive he would of been very impressed.
Feel free to ask me about any of my experiences. If you did read the entire thing then thank you! Again, just felt like writing.
. Enjoy your fantastic car and I hope you enjoy attention lol
