Griffs Jobs

I must say I was still a square peg in a round hole but I was working only for
money at this point in my life and was not in love with my job. Work had become
a necessity and I was doing the best I could to pay child support and have
a job where I could still be with my kids every other weekend.
I was getting used to being a single parent and started to date again. I was
enjoying my life again as my Dad had promised me a few years earlier telling me
there would be light at the end of the dark tunnel.
Being a retail guy at an Instant Print Shop I knew was just a job and not what I
wanted to do nor did I want to own a print shop. After a period, as usual I started
to look in the ads for jobs and I found an opportunity paying more money
that seemed more up my alley although it was still print related
Job # 20 Colorscope – Monterey Park, CA – 1994-1996 Asst. VP Marketing
Joining Colorscope I was impressed that I was able to get paid a salary again of
$44,000 annually which put less stress again on my wallet. I moved from the
Newport Beach Mobile Home where I rented a room to a nice two story house
in Irvine which I shared with 3 divorced guys. Living in a nice home in quiet
neighborhood was a bit of an improvement over the Mobile Home Park living
arrangement but ended quickly. Shortly after moving in I came home late probably
at 2AM from a night out on the town. I was startled when I entered the
house. Standing at the top of the stairwell was one of my roommates pointing
a gun at me with a crazed look on his face. Apparently he thought I was an intruder
and luckily, he did not pull the trigger or my life would have ended right
then and there possibly. Well the next day I packed my belongings and moved
out realizing how lucky I was to not have been shot accidentally.
The job at Colorscope turned out to be a very nice job with my own office and
cool hours. I worked from 9am–6pm with some longer days. It was a 5 day
work week with weekends off. My job was selling prepress service to catalogers
nationwide. I landed some pretty cool accounts for my employer including
Fredericks of Hollywood, The Walt Disney Studios, Walmart and the May
Department Stores (almost). For 18 months, I worked diligently calling on May
Department Stores which at the time was based in St Louis MO. I had developed
a nice rapport with their prepress catalog buyer and it took me 18 months
in working on the account to get the chance to bid on doing all the prepress of
the Stores multiple different stores nationwide. After a lengthy bidding process
and travel to several of the Stores Properties which included Meier & Frank
based in Portland, Kaufmann’s in Pittsburgh, Lord & Taylor in New York and
Filene’s in Boston we were informed by the buyer I was working with that we
had been awarded the contract to do all the May Dept. Store Company Store
Catalogs for their various stores nationwide. The contract was worth millions.
My Supervisor was elated and excited as I was that the hard work, investment in
time and foundation had been laid for what we both felt would be a long term
profitable win win relationship for both parties.
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