What experiences in life helped you grow the most?
-I remember 11 years ago, my first marriage had fallen apart and I had lost my job. I was struggling hard. After spending the day looking for jobs, I would go home and lie down on the couch just like Andy Capp from the comics, facing towards the wall.
After doing this for a few days, I decided to start working on myself and making my life better. I learned to face the world instead of the wall.
Do you believe in fate/destiny?
I believe that we control our own destiny.
Do you enjoy your job?
I enjoy aspects of my job. I work in college housing and have for 15 years across three institutions. I don’t enjoy all of my job. There are times of high stress and long hours. I get more freedom than I would at other jobs, but I also have more responsibility on me and there are times when I am on the job 24 hours a day.
I enjoy getting to know people from all walks of life and be able to help them fulfill their dreams and grow towards adulthood. I try to make a difference, but don’t know if I really do.
Describe the last difficult “goodbye” you said.
-May 10, 2021. I was masked up and had my bags packed. I headed to the door, but paused at the entrance. Did I really want to do this? Was it too late to back out? I was headed towards the unknown for me.
I had enjoyed life a little too much. My health was okay, but I could feel the slide already. It was time to take control of my life and “pay the check” as a friend of mine said. I went inside and gave my name to the person at the desk as I checked in for gastric bypass surgery.
Goodbye, I said to my old life.
If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be, and why?
Spider-Man. I want to feel what the power is like behind the great responsibility.
Describe the most ambitious DIY project you’ve ever taken on.
-Probably during the pandemic. I work in student housing, and we were left with 9 residents who had nowhere to go. The semester wasn’t half over when we sent the rest of the students home. While students transitioned to online learning, we still worked on getting them fed and entertained.
Our solution to the feeding was to provide each resident with one of our microwave/refrigerator combos that we had on hand. We then turned our common room into a sort of grocery store. Our dining hall workers had cooked and frozen hamburgers, hot dogs, quesadillas, vegetables, chicken, pizzas, and other foods. They also sent us items like cereal, chips, pop tarts, sodas, and bottled waters.
Twice a week, we opened up the “store” to let residents shop. We also had a bunch of canning jars that we sanitized at least twice a week that we would fill with milk and juice. This was to let the residents have some semblance of normal in a crazy world.
If you could permanently ban a word from general usage, which one would it be? Why?
I’ve been reading a book recommended to me by an acquaintance several years ago. The author uses the word basically every other page and it’s distracting. That popped into my mind.
A phrase I would ban would be I can’t. I think we often give up too easily.
I remember last year when Wordle was really popular, the word one morning was moist. There were a lot of comments from people who guessed the word correctly because they hated it.
What is the biggest challenge you will face in the next six months?
A personal challenge for me would be to grow my business of podcasts and YouTube. I want to eventually do that full time and I struggle to balance that with my day job.
What advice would you give to your teenage self?
What bores you?
-People who complain how hard their lives are over and over without doing anything.
The Joey Harris 