The Vig

The title of this blog comes from a conversation I had with a co-worker last summer. He was showing off pictures of his vacation at the Atlantis resort in The Bahamas. One of the pictures he showed was of a fleet of yachts and sailboats anchored at the marina. He asked how those guys made their money.

“On the vig,” I answered.

“Ah…the vig” replied the guys surrounding the display.

“The vig” is short for “vigorish”, a gambling term. Put simply, when you bet $100 on a team, you have to actually lay down $110. If you win, you get $100 plus your original $110 bet. When you lose, the agent/bookmaker takes your $110, pays $100 to a winner and keeps the $10 as a commission. The $10 is the vig.

To me it symbolizes living off the grid. An ability to make a life free of others expectations, and chasing my own dream. It’s quite a leap, I know, but it makes sense to me and that’s all that matters.

I originally wrote about the vig back in September when I left my last employer.

It’s been my dream for a while to untether myself from the cubicle and go chase a dream. The problem was, I didn’t have one. Oh sure, I’ve dreamed of love and a house in the suburbs. But they were all so abstract. And so was a dream career. I thought for a while I wanted to teach, but that never worked out. Like any other shiftless kid of my generation with no drive and no compass, I fell into the cubicle life until I found that which I was meant to do. I’ve bounced across four states trying to find that thing. I’ve tried to appease family. I’ve tried to run away from them. I’ve lost relationships because I lacked that spark. Ultimately I figured out how to find the answer within myself. And here I am today. It’s taken me a decade, but I’ve finally found my dream.

I spent the next three months fanning that spark with moderate success. I called it “mental backpacking” and it was fabulous. Except for the $2500 rebuilt transmission. That really sucked. Other than that, all I had to do was drive around town nine-hours a day and think about nothing. I highly recommend it.

Ultimately a friend talked me into coming to work for his company. Yeah, it’s another desk job, but this one has killer views of Mt St Helens, Mt Adams, and Mt Hood instead of an office corner. And it’s doing something I enjoy. The gig isn’t for everyone, but if there were such a thing, we’d all have the same career, no?

The Vig?  It’s still there.  It’s the whole package.  Rod Tidwell’s got his “kwan” in Jerry Maguire.  I have my Vig in real life.