I don’t profess to be the best at what I do. I’m not the worst either. I’m the old-school pitcher. I take the ball every fifth day and I get you six to eight innings. I give up a few runs, but the damage is never catastrophic. I keep you in the ballgame. I don’t get hurt. I show up. Nothing about me or my performance sets your hair on fire – unless you have a thing for steadiness.
These used to be valuable qualities. They used to matter. Now it’s all about the numbers and how we can make good ones even better. It’s not enough that we’ve dug a well that produces more water than we could ever need, we have to try and squeeze water from the rocks around it as well. as well. It doesn’t make any sense.
Harper – my 30-something boss – scheduled a meeting with me yesterday. Our cubicles are right next to one another and we speak no fewer than a million times each day. He reserved time in the conference room and everything.
After a couple of pleasantries, he got right into it, “Roy, what can I do to help you be successful?”
I don’t remember much of the rest of the meeting. My immediate reaction was to imagine various ways of throttling the little turd. Reactions 2-37 ranged from ‘go away’ to verbal encouragement on the insertion and/or removal of body parts from certain orifices.
Then I processed what he’d said, that I needed to be successful.
And that messed with my head. As I laid out above. I show up. I do the work. I’m not the best. I’m not the worst. My numbers are never below the goal, but they aren’t so high above it I stand out either. And now this little shit has the audacity to say to me that I’m not successful!
Never once has he come in and asked me for more or better. All I get are ‘good jobs’ and ‘attaboys.’ Half the office misses days of work as though they were required not to be there. Their results swing from missing the mark to above the line with no predictability and this young punk has the gall to imply I’m not successful.
I’m afraid I don’t understand the work-world (or the world at large) anymore. I’ve been in it longer than Harper’s been alive. If I’m being honest, I can’t say that I care to know any more about it. Hitting all my numbers and being told I’m not a success. Since when is that a thing?
I don’t want to be appreciated for showing up. We’re supposed to, it’s the job. But I show up, and produce steady, bankable results and it’s not enough.
I’ve never understood the business people who would surpass $100 tomorrow for $10 today. I don’t understand the current crop who prefer the possibility of $100 once a month to $10 every day.
Maybe I’m too old. I don’t know anymore. I still have the energy. I’m still up for the work, but maybe the times have passed me by. Maybe I don’t understand what success means anymore. Maybe I never did.
