Of course, being somewhat educable, i try to learn shit. Sometimes I succeed. Sometimes it even sticks.
In other words, given past experience, I try not to write about work. And with that, you know I’m going to skate near that particularly rice paper thin ice.
Mostly, I like my job, and I haven’t felt the wrist-slitting perturbations that became daily episodes in my last state of employ. It’s a weird little group of people. A collective building heaped from the chief on down with folks who academically achieved even when it meant ass kicking and wedgies.
A nerd’s paradise in some respects. But, it is fucking work, and trials and tribulations there are.
The other day, I was driving there, before my getting old V-dub decided it didn’t want to drive, and listening to the radio. Specifically, I was listening to that solid, quirky voice of public radio, Terry Gross on Fresh Air. She was chatting away with Stephen Sondheim on the occasion of his living 80 years on earth.
Total aside, I love Sondheim in terms of his work, but after listening to this interview I think he must be a dick if you were ever to hang out with him Very old school marm-ish corrections and stuff. I kind of wanted Terry to take a shot back, like “Yes, so what are you are saying is you find other people, such as me, to be plodding and inaccurate clowns, is that correct?”
One thing he talked about has stuck with me for days now. In talking about working with Leonard Bernstein in the early days of his career, he mentioned that Bernstein always failed grandly. He said he learned from him that “the worst thing you can do is fall off a low rung.”.
If you’re going to fail, fail big. Might as well get to the top rung first.
I think it’s a life philosophy into which I could swan dive and feel at home.
Arguably, in the many employment failures I’ve had, I’ve failed big. Mind you not Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein big. Just big enough for little old me.
Maybe to them, it would be bottom rung junk. But, for me, it’s from the perspective of a micro-millimeter long ant and a conventional-sized ladder. For an ant, I’ve dropped some dizzying distances from what felt like a pretty good rung of achievement.
Sondheim talking about failing big struck me this week, because I’ve been feeling a familiar fear and loathing.
Like in my last gig, I’ve been a reliable workhouse. The higher up types have given me sufficient strokes to make me feel like there’s a corporate future in which I just might feature in some way. And, now, word on the street is that we might be reorganizing.
It’s a road so familiar, I still got the dust on my shoes to prove it. The strokes, the good positioning, the reliableness, the work ethic, the dealing with team dynamics, the helpong to make change happen and reorganizations possible. I have seen this movie before. I’ve lived the scenes, memorized a whole lot of dialog.
Yet, it is different. I gotta hope it’s different. Different folks, different gig, different job, hell, different fucking state. And, maybe, just maybe, I learned something last time at the rodeo, and I’m a little different too.
If not, if my pit of the stomach fears come true. It’s a higher rung and potentially a better failure. I just fucking hope it’s a good story, if the road turns down that same hill.