Did you tell them you race before they hired you?

[spyderchick]

Is Roger's bike the red/white/blue Honda I sometimes see parked out front?

Yup. '93 F2. And he has less than 1400 miles to go before that baby turns 50K miles. ;D Stop in and say "hi" sometime. They'll probably give you a tour.

[tzracer]

Yup. '93 F2. And he has less than 1400 miles to go before that baby turns 50K miles. ;D Stop in and say "hi" sometime. They'll probably give you a tour.

I'll have to do that some time.

Do Waterfordonians get a deal on a bike?

[K3 Chris Onwiler]

Well, I could see it if someone were an overweight, smoking, alcoholic racer....  ;D

Hey!  What's with the personal attacks?  I thought this was a friendly board?
Oh...  Wait.  I guess you didn't mention me personally...  Never mind. :-[

[spyderchick]

I'll have to do that some time.

Do Waterfordonians get a deal on a bike?

You'll have to ask Richard. ::) (ask me about it sometime) ;)

[spyderchick]

Hey!  What's with the personal attacks?  I thought this was a friendly board?
Oh...  Wait.  I guess you didn't mention me personally...  Never mind. :-[

You might be overweight, you might even be known to smoke a little, but as far as I know your main addiction is racing. OR maybe you've turned to alcohol to substitue for your speed fix? :o ;D

Damn, give this boy a bike, he's gettin' touchy! ;)

[Lowe119]

To GSXR RACER MIKE: That totally sucks that you can't talk about it at work. That would really suck if you had a great weekend of racing and had to just sit there and say nothing.

I hate hiding anything and I hate lying. I hope I never get a job where I have to pretend to be someone I'm not.

[K3 Chris Onwiler]

You might be overweight, you might even be known to smoke a little, but as far as I know your main addiction is racing. OR maybe you've turned to alcohol to substitue for your speed fix? :o ;D

Damn, give this boy a bike, he's gettin' touchy! ;)

I was just trying to be funny.  I wasn't offended.  Not even by Edgar. ::)
Overweight and smoking is my own fault, and not being able to race this year has just made the situation worse.  It's like, why should I deny myself a cheeseburger or a smoke when I can't go racing?  Yeah, that's wussy.  I admit it.
Alchohol is OK sometimes, but nothing could take the place of racing for me.  The people, the competition, and mostly the buzz of going through corners fast is the best thing I've ever experienced.
The Hallett trip was a disaster for me.  I blew up my car and paid $350 to get it home.  I made several hours of phone calls trying to find parts and arrange the ride home.  Just got the cell phone bill.  All roaming.  $350!  Now I know what everyone else cries about with their phones.  Laure got me a phone that works local at all the Midwest tracks, so I've never seen roaming charges before.  I ordered a new $300 distributor for the car, then got it running only to experience an ECU meltdown a few days later.  That's $1000 for a car that I have to throw away now.  
My solution was to go buy a brand new Hundai Tiburon.  I've never bought a new car for myself, but Laura pointed out that my used cars were costing me more that the $350 per month payment, so I caved in and bought new.  Now I find out that my first payment is August 13!  Man, that's only 14 days after I bought the car!  Can they reposess if you're late on the first payment?  Oh joy.  More financial setbacks to the race budget.
Edgar?  Do you need a partner in your Nicaraguan um... import business?  I'm a really fast wheelman...  But of course you already know that! ;) ;D

Gripe session ended.  Sorry for venting.

[spyderchick]

Were you speechless? Cat got your tongue?  :o ;D

[OmniGLH]

When I got my 1st street bike I kept it a total secret at work. Late that 1st year the owner saw me riding on the street and confronted me ASAP the next day at work. He chewed me out for about a 1/2 hour about riding a motorcycle and the fact that he had a vested interest in me. When I asked how, he said that it cost him about $100,000 for the job training I had recieved up to that point and that it would be quite a financial loss to him if I got injured or killed. Of course the mention of anything other than the almighty dollar was never said (no care of the actual fact of me being injured or killed). I continued to ride motorcycles but kept it very low profile at work.

     Moving ahead 5 years after that I got involved in roadracing with CCS. I knew that with my bosses attitude that this would be an absolute no-no. I kept this quiet at work for a few years until someone saw me towing my race bike on my open trailer and told everyone at work. I was never confronted by management about this, but from what I heard they were furious. To this day the upper management will not acknowledge in anyway that they are aware of me racing (I believe partially for insurance purposes). If they see me wearing a racing shirt or see a calender or something they just walk the other way and complain to others how I am playing Russian Roulette with company assests (namely my skills/knowledge of my job). Even when I try my best to not talk about racing at work, so many people still come up and talk to me about it while I am working that it ticks off the management, yet I am still working while talking.

     With 4 weeks vacation time that I can take in any way, shape, or form (as long as I give notice) they can't really deny me taking days off - unless someone else is gone and I have to cover for a hot job. I just wish I could go to work and do my job and not be discriminated against because of how I live my life outside of work, total BS! >:(

Wow.  I didn't have it THAT bad at my last job - not to the point of getting chewed out for it.  They just tried to get in the way of it as much as possible.  They would deny vacation requests when they'd learn it was a race weekend, and try to lay the guilt trip on me stating how valuable I was to the team, and that it was silly to do something where I could get hurt.

So when I started looking for a new job, it was a pretty key priority that they accept the fact that I have this life outside of work.  I think that most companies, when they give you 2 weeks vacation - they expect you to take it 1-2 weeks at a time.  You know, a vacation... go to Hawaii or something.  My last job, they'd get upset when I'd try to take my 2 weeks vacation by requesting a thurs/fri off once a month.  "What do you mean, you need next thurs/fri off?  You just took two days off last month!"  

So I had to make sure that everyone was clear ahead of time, and make sure it wasn't going to be a problem.  And so far, it's worked out.  Both my current employer, and my soon-to-be employer have both expressed their appreciation for me giving them a heads up.

I guess the right company helps too, with the right kind of people.  While it hasn't happened yet, several of my co-workers have expressed an interest in coming out to watch me race sometime... and I usually spend a good hour on the Monday following a race weekend giving everyone a recap.  That is something that NEVER would have happened at my old job.  It's really nice to have the support.

I guess, to me, maybe my racing is more important than most.  It's a hobby, sure, but I feel like it's more of a passion of mine.  Any kind of racing, I love it (well, except NASCAR.)  To me, it's important enough that my job accept the fact that I do it.

[TZDeSioux]

MY company knows that I race motorcycles and skateboard. They give me no grief.. they just think I'm retarded. They say be careful cuz if you get hurt or die racing... we'll have to hire another custodial engineer and you know how hard those are to find. Especially one with a master's degree.

[K3 Chris Onwiler]

Oh, one final gripe.  I don't even have a trophy from this year!  It's like I don't even exist any more.

[GSXR RACER MIKE]

     Luckily I am generally allowed to do the long weekend vacations without too much resistance, unless as I said someone else is gone, then I just stick to the fact that I reserved the days ahead of time. There have only been a few occasions that I was 'force-ably' requested to be at work. I think that the fact that I have only missed 1 unscheduled day off work because of racing since I started in '96 helps too. I crashed at Road America in '98 during a N.A.S.B. national race weekend and tore my shoulder, but I was back to work on Tuesday.

     I am somewhat stuck in my job for the reason that it's in manufacturing and it's the top place in the area. :-/