From Pinstriped and Italian Shoed Banker to Blue Collar Janitor, Part IV: The Role of My Teachers

by Jim Wellington
(Chicago)

Before and After, Symbols of How I Changed

Teachers come along when we need them; I am now convinced of that. And I needed them as I made the great changes in my life.

Who do we go to when we have a shift in how we think? What we do every day? Who do we go to when our foundations shift?

I had broken the bonds and the ties with the world of materialism and professional success that I had known, and while it was exciting and wonderful to be free of that prison, it was also frightening and intimidating. That had been the only world I had ever experienced, and now it was revealed as hollow and unfulfilling. I desperately needed people who would guide me into a new life where money, titles and outward symbols of success and authority were not the measure of everything. There are no classes to take that give wisdom about this. I had my MBA and my Ivy League degree. They had prepared me well for my white-collar success. Now the white collar was gone.

Teachers also often come in very unexpected forms. At the time I first entered the new world of freedom, I had two teachers, and they were completely unexpected: Pedro, the garbage man who once picked up the garbage at our home and Delores, a waitress and the woman he is married to; they had moved from Mexico ten years before and had worked to build a new life. For ten years Pedro had picked up the garbage outside my upper middle class suburban home every Monday morning as I got into my Porsche and drove to the steel and chrome office building where I worked. As I mentioned in part two, we had finally exchanged a few words. He soon invited me to have dinner with his wife the first of many meals.

I got to know them as a couple and together they helped me to permanently leave behind the way of thinking that went with materialist affluence and the corporate race; I had no real friends at this point only business contacts who no longer needed me - and they took me on as an unofficial pupil. Pedro was stunned by my life decision, but when I explained what happened, Delores did not seem as surprised. It was she who took my new life direction most seriously and helped me think differently as she answered questions.

In looking back, I can see that there were painful and even humiliating things about making the huge transition from being a pinstripe suit-wearing banker to jumpsuit wearing janitor that I do not mention anymore because they have faded with the years. Also, they were small in comparison with the new freedom I now have.

But it's true that it was difficult on the outside to become a blue-collar worker.

On the inside, I knew what I was doing was right, but the different response of others took some time to get used to. My consciousness had changed and now my outer life had to catch up.

They encouraged me to not just rejoice in what I was leaving, but to look forward to what was next.
The first thing they did was to give me a new blue-collar name for my new life! Well, it was not exactly a new one rather, they blue "collarized" my own name to fit with the changes that were taking place.

For all of my working life, I had been called James� or my middle name Richard for those who knew me very well. I was never Jim or Jimmy or Dick. I always insisted on the formal James or Richard. Even my wife called me Richard never Dick! Anyone who forgot was corrected. To my father and grandfather, both bankers, I had always been Richard. My business cards said "James Richard Wellington III�." To Pedro I had always been Mr. Wellington. I considered it to be a sign of dignity and a mark of respect.

But not anymore! My new friends took away the mister title and then they even stripped me of my English names, both first and last, and the privilege and pedigree that went with them! They enjoyed creating a new name for me: they began calling me Rico El Criado.

All of this was done with laughter, but it was serious as well. Delores explained that Ricardo is the Mexican version of my middle name Richard, and that Rico is the nickname. While Ricardo might be a white-collar name, Rico would be the nickname given to a blue-collar employee. They had made me an honorary Mexican. The name James Richard Wellington was the name of an executive. The name had to go! Rico might be a janitor or the name of a Mexican immigrant.

They would call me Rico. I would call myself Jimmy. Jimmy was the new man who would live free of the false facade. From that time I have used Jimmy as my working name. El Criado is a blue-collar man. I learned that Mexicans choose nick-names for friends and use them constantly. I cannot imagine what my father or grandfather, both deceased, would have thought of my new names!

Was it a big change? Of course! But it was invigorating. It meant a new life.

But the artificial sense of power, control, dignity and status that I lost was made up for a hundred times over by the warmth and kindness of this couple and the exhilarating freedom and inner peace I knew for the first time. I had never known this type of open and relaxed friendship.

And was it real dignity I had once known? I had enjoyed the sense of superiority that had come with my old life. I had created a wall that kept others away. It took a few months for that need for automatic respect from others to die away, but it did. I had to earn respect. No longer would people call me "sir"� and see me as a successful and affluent educated man. They would see me as simply a man without an image or a false face.

They encouraged me to simply be�. I had defined myself by what I did. That had collapsed. Now I had to simply get used to living for its own sake! I had no job at the time. I was uncertain as to what to do next. The world of banking and making money was repellent. I had moved from our large suburban home to a tiny apartment near Pedro and Delores. But what should I do with my day?

Plant a garden! That was what Delores told me to do. Develop the plot of land behind the house. Grow vegetables and flowers. Become a one-plot farmer.

Within days I was finding satisfaction in planning, planting and developing the little plot of ground. I had never worked with my hands. This was the beginning. Soon after I began to train as a truck driver, and for a while I accompanied Pedro on his garbage collection route. But for several months I worked in my garden.

Since the day I quit my corporate job, I had continued to wear my watch. Delores told me I had to take it off or I would always live according to time. So I stopped wearing that Cartier watch, and eventually sold it. For weeks I would glance at my wrist until I was free from the tyranny of time.

My facial appearance and hair were important as well. I had been vain and concerned at all times with how I looked until the day of my freedom. It was Pedro who convinced me to let my beard grow after I had stopped shaving temporarily; he convinced me to make it permanent. When I was moving into the new apartment, he picked up my razor and said: "Try to live without this!" So I did.

My perfect, clean-cut corporate profile was already changing; now it slowly vanished behind a bushy graying beard and mustache. My hair, always carefully cut in the short, sharp, sleek style of executives, was already growing. Pedro encouraged me to allow it to grow into a shaggy ponytail. All of the symbols of my old life were disappearing as my new, real self came forth.

Together they helped me find the most deserving people to give my possessions to. All of my expensive business suits, all of my silk neckties, every pair of black dress socks and every white shirt went to a mission for the homeless who would wear them to find jobs. My golf clubs and tennis rackets and workout machine went to a gym for students. My wife had kept the furniture and the house and one of our cars; I then sold the Porsche. I was now without a car.

Most of my stock and bonds went to my wife or were sold and the proceeds given to charity, but I had a great deal of debt to pay as well. I had lived beyond my means and now I was literally paying for it. Soon, my assets had dwindled to almost nothing.

All of my mirror-polished leather shoes and expensive winter boots went to an organization that provides shoes to the poor. All I had left were running shoes, which I wore until they started to wear out; then I bought second-hand work boots. Delores told me to spend as much time as possible barefoot. I would become closer to the earth while gardening and closer to the millions around the world without shoes. I had always worn expensive shoes, even at home. Now, for the first time, I regularly went shoeless and soon became used to it.

Me shoeless! The irony of my story was not lost on me. The man who had once valued his Italian shoes more than anything now spent the work-day planting vegetables in bare feet. What goes around, comes around!

Pedro and Delores gave me advice, but never pushed their opinions on me. They made suggestions. That is how real teachers work. I wanted to buy a car. Pedro suggested that I wait. So did Delores. They encouraged me to live without a car for a while and see what happened. For six months I took the bus when I went out and eventually bought a used pickup truck. I learned what life is like for people who never had a car.

The food I ate was much less expensive, but better for me. Delores helped me find high quality vegetables and fruits. I had never cooked anything. Now I started to learn.


Part V CLICK HERE