Who were your BAD influences?

I'd have to go with my 6th grade teacher. She was the one that taught me that having low expectations and slacking off would be rewarded, and effort and accomplishment would not. An example of this was a reading program that the school had where you would set a target for yourself of how many books you could read in a month, and if you met the target you got a coupon for a free personal size pizza at one of the pizza chains. I set my target at 12 books, many of the kids set their target at 1 book. You can pretty well imagine how that worked out, I read 10 books and got nothing, the other kids read their 1 measly book and got their pizza. Later in the school year we had a geography project where we had to research a country and do a project on it. I did Canada, and busted butt researching climate, population, data about all the provinces, exchange rates. Of course this was pre internet, and pre having computers and color printers in every home, so I even drew the Canadian and all the provincial flags freehand. Three other kids worked together on their project about Mexico and between the three of them all they came up was a piece of posterboard with "Mexico" written on it, and a bag of nachos! So after the class did our display for the rest of the school my teacher told us how proud she was of everyone's work and told us we all would be getting A's on the project, even the nacho slackers! I was completely dumbstruck by this. That year with her broke me, before that I had always taken on the biggest possible challenges and tried harder than everyone else because it was rewarded. After that I did the minimum it took to get by since the minimum was good enough. Unfortunately it wasn't until I got into the real world that I realized just how far adrift I was, and I still have not caught back up.

 

My eldest brother, my manager at a parts store and my fellow manager at an engine rebuilder... each one a retired Marine, an alcoholic and dirt bag. I learned behaviors and did things in the company of these men that are the most unsavory of my life. I can't undo those things, but I can avoid repeating them or leading others down those paths.