My uncle built a multi-million dollar company. He had more money than creation, which meant to me, he shouldn't have very many concerns.
He was in the Air Force at a young age. Met my aunt. Got married and had their first child.
The child, my cousin, shared a one bedroom apartment with his two parents and the clickity-clack of a printing press. My uncle was in the printing business.
Printing businesses run on a tight schedule, which means it was a good business for a former military man.
Everything has to be delivered as ordered and on time. If you don't get it right, you're just wasting resources.
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One week he was in town and we went to McDonald's for lunch. He and I ordered and started waiting.
One minute. Two minutes. Thr.... ERUPTION.
"Ma'am, where is my Big & Tasty?!"
I'll never forget it. Just blew up.
It didn't matter it was lunch rush, or that he made a special order that would take just a little longer, he wanted his sandwich. That was his concern.
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I had gone out to stay with my uncle 20 years before. I was going to learn the business and I was excited. I remember the day I arrived at the office for the first time. It was massive. Two huge buildings. I was in awe.
They did all the printing for Disney specialty, Honda, Caldwell Bankers and hundreds of both large and small businesses.
The plant side was absolutely massive.
I was shown around for about 10 minutes or so and then went into the office. Where I sat. All day. Doing essentially nothing. And, other than my uncle yelling at people, nothing really happened.
That's what happened everyday.
Eventually, weeks later, I was given a task. I was going to create something from scratch and send it through the process. Learn how the process worked.
I never failed to not fail and mess something up.
I ordered wrong, wasted an order form.
My handwriting was chicken scratch, no one could figure out what I wanted.
My dimensions were off, no one knew what they meant.
I even got the spelling wrong on the thing I was trying to make.
500 or so printed items later, it was all pretty much a waste. Seems like everyone around my uncle was wasting things.
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We were driving through the desert. It was a hot day to begin with.
We were basically doing a tour of his house in the desert and seeing all the surrounding area. I was excited. I'd never been to the desert. I'd never seen these places, even in a book.
I had been given a 35 mm camera with the kind of film you have to roll by hand. I was snapping pictures left and right. All over the place. But when we finally got out of the desert there was nothing to snap, so I threw the camera in the back window and started reading the real estate listings for the desert. (I really wanted to be a real estate guy in the desert)
I can't recall exactly where we were but all the sudden my uncle exploded on me. "What Are You Doing?!?! Don't Ruin The Film! Don't Ruin The Film!"
Uh-Oh. I might have just wasted something else.
Did you know that film has to remain cold? Or at least in cooler temperatures? I didn't either until that day.
Once my uncle calmed down he told me film in particular was very important to him. He was always taking pictures, yes (he always had a camera around his neck like a tourist, I almost can't recall him without it), but it was more than that.
He had just spent I want to say over $100,000 building a special room in his office that housed film on data hard drives. 32 Megabytes of storage. Over $100,000.
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Whether it was McDonald's wasting his time, me wasting his employees time, or me wasting film (and believe me, film is time - that's what it captures), my uncle hated wasting time.
He wasn't afraid to let people know in his own, peculiar, yelling and instructive way.
I can never once recall a time when his yelling at me, my aunt, the other cousins, an employee, or anyone else, wasn't somehow directly related to his time.
My uncle taught me many lessons, not the least of which is time is valuable and you only get so much of it.
You can make millions as he did. And you can lose them and make them back (something he also did). But you can't get not even one second of time back.
Sadly, his time here on earth is almost up. I guarantee you, he didn't waste it.
And he has thousands and thousands of pictures to prove it. All stored in a cool place.
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