About that time I googled “WHAT IS WEG”…

You might know that I’m a former Groom to Olympian Guenter Seidel. You definitely don’t know how that happened to be. Here’s my story about a flyer, a phone call, and me googling WHAT IS WEG.

You know, the World Equestrian Games. A once-every-four-years international event of all things horse. And I had NO IDEA it existed.

I had been living in SoCal for a few years. I had my own little hot head chestnut horse. I also worked in architecture and construction. I was determined to go up the corporate ladder, because that’s just what I thought people should do. Turns out, it only takes a few things lining up just right to throw some major kinks into your own plan.

The kinks (AKA the stars aligning):

• My boss at the homebuilding company was a literal JERK. Sexist, demeaning, gross, sick, JERK. Please note that I have edited this description in an order to be less cuss wordy.

• I learned about an opportunity to get a Master’s very close to my house, and getting an advanced degree was always on my bucket list. Sure, it’s a weird thing for a bucket list, but hey, I’m sorta weird.

• I found a part-time job teaching up-down lessons to kids and teens. Did I have a burning desire to do this for the rest of my days? Nope, but it sure did beat what I was currently doing.

• SO I QUIT. And reported the JERK to HR. As plain as day, I left that job and never looked back.

• A day later I was enrolled, back in school.

• A week later I was teaching the wee ones on cute ponies named Lucy and Bentley.

Me and G many years ago.

Fast forward a year-ish.

• I had a few weeks left of writing the thesis, and I had stopped on the way home from lessons at the local tack shop. The red-headed lunatic needed something. I casually see a flyer on the bulletin board.

• Something about working for some guy named Guenter a few days a week. Grooming. And a phone number.

• Who is this Guenter? I had no idea. But I thought I could learn some things grooming that might help me with my own horse. I called the number and got Guenter’s voice mail. I left a message, super professional with a touch of casual and a smidgen of “I’ve been working with horses for my entire life”, just for good measure.

• Then crickets for three weeks. Maybe even four weeks! One afternoon, I was having one of those days. The dog was puking up something all day, my thesis was still not finished, I had a final coming up, the phone was on repeat with calls from telemarketers, because in those days we still had landlines.

• The phone rings one more time and I answer in a tizzy. Turns out, Guenter was returning my call. He thanked me for the interest, and then let me know he hired someone else. He also apologized for not returning my call sooner, he was at WEG. I told him thanks, and that I was available if the new person didn’t work out.

?????????????????????????????????

What the hell is WEG? Remember, I still had no idea who he was.

• But I was now wondering how important this WEG thing was that he couldn’t possibly get back to me for weeks.

So I googled it. YES. I GOOGLED “WHAT IS WEG”.

• And as sure as the day is long, I have never been more surprised in my life.

• Imagine my added surprise when Guenter called me the next day to say his team didn’t like the new person, so the job was mine if I wanted it.

And so it began. Needless to say, I was much more nervous to start work now that I knew who he was. But it worked out just fine!