no such thing as a dream job

I had a job burnout back in 1976 and was in the process of taking an airmail route which ran from DC National to LaGuardia five nights a week. This was the jewel of a job that I had been trying to get for three years. Out of my home town. Turbine equipment. A raise in pay. A really sweet little run which was a piece of cake. But some things developed which made me regret that I had ever quit my cute little four nights a week Boston Logan bank work job in an E Model Pa-23. I was seeing a very cute girl and starting up living with her, and it turned out my boss really liked this girl too, and now hated me and was advising his father, the big boss and owner, to fire me. And there was a new reason every day. Then there was the guy I was flying with on the run who was to check me out as Captain. He was crazy, in a bad, unfriendly, unsafe way. He was a good pilot and had a certain charm. He was known as "Mad Dog". A topic for another day, another post. Then it turned out they wanted me to fly a Commuter during the day, every day, to Newport News, Virginia. The legalities of this were not even close to being workable. And Mad Dog had this little game (of many) that he would play where I could never find the airplane. So if I showed up for work at the gate at BWI ( it was called Friendship then), the airplane would be at it's parking place at Butler. I would rush over there and he would reposition it to the gate and I would be "late". He liked the game so much he did it at night too on the Mail run. One time he didn't speak to me at all for an entire round trip on the mail. At the end of the night he finally unloaded and started screaming and I was physically afraid. I never went back to that job. I started driving out to my buddy's farm in Frederick county and working as a hand, mostly mowing and painting. I had my phone disconnected and I dropped out of sight. There was a mini pilot shortage going on and I had several friends who showed up at my door to try to get me to return to flying with tempting offers. I finally took one. The guy had a nice Aztec and I just started flying him all around and it was summer and it was kind of fun. Then he got a Bellanca dealership and me and my buddy started ferrying brand new Decathlons, Scouts, etc. from Wisconsin to the East Coast. My boss had bought an FBO in Laurel, Delaware and it was a blast operating the Azwreck off grass. All good things must come to an end. One day I was returning from showing a beautiful new 7ECA at Frederick and stopped into Gaithersburg to hang out with some buddies, and show off the airplane which I had been looping the crap out of. This serious looking guy with a tie wanted to talk to me. I could just tell he wasn't a Fed. He bought me coffee and offered me fifty bucks to fly the 7ECA back up to Frederick where they would have me leave it and reposition me to home. He said my boss was in big trouble, and I could get in big trouble too. He said "Charlie" my boss, hadn't made one payment to Bellanca. "Not even on the Viking"? I said. "Not even on the Viking" , he said. I told him I'd have to think about it. I asked my buddy to walk me out to the 7ECA. My buddy is a big muscular guy. The guy in the tie didn't follow. I cranked up and made a beeline back across DC and the Bay right to Laurel, De. I parked and ran into Charlie's office. I panted out the story of the almost Repo, how we were all in trouble etc. Charlie was smoking a cigar. He was leaned back in his chair. He said calmly, "You know Lloyd, one thing I've learned over the years is....You just can't please everybody". G.A. Informal