The Next "Why" Determines the Next "How"
"You don't remember me, do you?" is a loaded question. Often the answer is no. Saying this aloud is a confession that I don't prioritize people over my own thoughts. Nevertheless, this time the answer was a "yes" that was both emphatic and reluctant.
This figure, tall, deep-voiced, and with a calm that could have been command presence was memorable, indeed. Twelve years ago, I hung my hopes on him in pumped full with the helium of heady optimism. As I was bringing my work gifts recognized, finally, and three years of experience into a new chapter in life in which I was also getting married, he stood in for a nice supporting role in my projected happily-ever-after narrative. He was a military veteran who, after retirement, had transitioned into the same human services field in which I worked. Since I was not physically built for military service, there was already, before I met him, masculine validation in the fact that we were going to be working toward the same goal. As is true of many roles we project from a distance, I had been able to idealize everything the military represents, and I envisioned these virtues permeating the whole office because the lead office assistant embodied them.
Like most people or institutions I put on a pedestal, the fall was fast and the condemnation quick. He was lazy. He undermined the boss. With lofty expectations for this chapter in my life ringing in my ears, I remember telling the boss within my first few weeks on the job that he was not serving her well. Neither would I. As time would tell, the setting and the job, along with my maturity level, did not present the right fit. Since I have not missed a meal since then and have, I hope, continued to grow into a better employee and a better servant of those needing my help, I expected a similar progression from the former lead office assistant who in this moment challenged me to recall him. In addition to the residual impact of military ideals, after all, he had repeatedly been reminded of the hallmarks of a higher calling as a bi-vocational pastor.
Alas, he was still more drift than direction. He spoke of looming retirement longingly. In three minutes of conversation he divulged proudly that was coming as close as he could to doing nothing, while working. Although he was still being provided for by such self-admitted slipshod work, now in the service of fellow veterans, he nevertheless took the opportunity to look backward bitterly. He spoke against our former boss and reframed the circumstances of his dismissal to his own advantage. Time and experience, it seems, can as easily serve to crystallize flaws as to confront them.
With this experience to launch me into my work week, I was ready to redouble my efforts as a humble, eager worker, or so went my internal narrative. I don't want to end up where HE is, I told myself with an odd mixture of pride and repentance. Imagine my surprise, then, when a coworker in another department with a reputation for overinvolvement in other people's jobs questioned my effort in a particular student interaction. For the sake of efficiency at the busiest times in the student cycle, I have developed ready templates I can use to answer the most common questions. What's more, I can utilize these general templates with only a few seconds of effort in order to point the student or the applicant in the right direction by giving him or her a web link to follow. This efficiency, sometimes necessary, is the equivalent of a salesperson pointing in the general direction of that for which the customer is looking, and this response didn't meet the standards of a coworker not in my department or chain of command. The student asked about courses in a particular discipline, she challenged. Did you tell her what we had? I gave her the directions to find the information herself, I responded defensively, at least in my mind adding educational gilding to my actions aimed at empowering the prospective student to find the information for themselves.
Had I forgotten from a few days before the disillusioning destination of those who do only the minimum, even when time permits and more individualized effort? I got another chance to determine the motivation of my work at 7:54 on Friday morning, and my initial response STILL showed a lot in common with the former coworker I was ready to condemn. Grudgingly, despite the fact that I don't work until 8:00 and the few minutes between, I like to think, are some of my most reflective before the workday begins, I said yes where I could have said no. Characteristically, the cautionary tale that started the week and the corrective confrontation that marked its middle were rounded off with upswing of inspiration. My 7:54 encounter was with another figure who has learned how work works, but this one still radiated enthusiasm near the end of a career working with insurance companies and customers these companies were hoping to return to work. A dozen years ago, even as I consistently extolled everything every person with military experience would automatically represent, from my bureaucratic perch I demonized the "dark side" of private rehabilitation. The caseworker in my office, with a white beard and a twinkle in his eye, exuded nothing dark. What he looked back on was were years developing a reputation for fair mindedness so irreproachable that he had been hired both by insurance companies and plaintiff's lawyers. Even nearing the end of his career, he was ready with a mischievous chuckle when he considered that he had already gone over his projected budget in order to equip his client, and my student, for long-term success. If I lose my enthusiasm for the person, he said, I might as well be selling shoes.
My wife, as usual, was at least days ahead of me in this. When I asked her what pictures she had in her mind during her formative years and helped to determine her work attitude, I anticipated someone extolling the grim focus and gritted teeth necessary for work accomplishment in the face of distraction. Instead, what she learned from her grandfather was a more tender spark as the origin of a determined worker's flame. My grandfather, she said, worked hard because he always treated people like family. There it is. By a subtle shift over a few interactions or a matter of days rather than as a one-time decision, people can be consigned to commodity, or viewed as an opportunity to put into action our highest purpose. The question may not be so much, what kind of worker am I once and for all, determined by my family interactions, my education, and the kind of worker I was yesterday. The question, with a new week of opportunities on the horizon is, what will I envision as I help or am hassled by the next opportunity I have to serve?
This figure, tall, deep-voiced, and with a calm that could have been command presence was memorable, indeed. Twelve years ago, I hung my hopes on him in pumped full with the helium of heady optimism. As I was bringing my work gifts recognized, finally, and three years of experience into a new chapter in life in which I was also getting married, he stood in for a nice supporting role in my projected happily-ever-after narrative. He was a military veteran who, after retirement, had transitioned into the same human services field in which I worked. Since I was not physically built for military service, there was already, before I met him, masculine validation in the fact that we were going to be working toward the same goal. As is true of many roles we project from a distance, I had been able to idealize everything the military represents, and I envisioned these virtues permeating the whole office because the lead office assistant embodied them.
Like most people or institutions I put on a pedestal, the fall was fast and the condemnation quick. He was lazy. He undermined the boss. With lofty expectations for this chapter in my life ringing in my ears, I remember telling the boss within my first few weeks on the job that he was not serving her well. Neither would I. As time would tell, the setting and the job, along with my maturity level, did not present the right fit. Since I have not missed a meal since then and have, I hope, continued to grow into a better employee and a better servant of those needing my help, I expected a similar progression from the former lead office assistant who in this moment challenged me to recall him. In addition to the residual impact of military ideals, after all, he had repeatedly been reminded of the hallmarks of a higher calling as a bi-vocational pastor.
Alas, he was still more drift than direction. He spoke of looming retirement longingly. In three minutes of conversation he divulged proudly that was coming as close as he could to doing nothing, while working. Although he was still being provided for by such self-admitted slipshod work, now in the service of fellow veterans, he nevertheless took the opportunity to look backward bitterly. He spoke against our former boss and reframed the circumstances of his dismissal to his own advantage. Time and experience, it seems, can as easily serve to crystallize flaws as to confront them.
With this experience to launch me into my work week, I was ready to redouble my efforts as a humble, eager worker, or so went my internal narrative. I don't want to end up where HE is, I told myself with an odd mixture of pride and repentance. Imagine my surprise, then, when a coworker in another department with a reputation for overinvolvement in other people's jobs questioned my effort in a particular student interaction. For the sake of efficiency at the busiest times in the student cycle, I have developed ready templates I can use to answer the most common questions. What's more, I can utilize these general templates with only a few seconds of effort in order to point the student or the applicant in the right direction by giving him or her a web link to follow. This efficiency, sometimes necessary, is the equivalent of a salesperson pointing in the general direction of that for which the customer is looking, and this response didn't meet the standards of a coworker not in my department or chain of command. The student asked about courses in a particular discipline, she challenged. Did you tell her what we had? I gave her the directions to find the information herself, I responded defensively, at least in my mind adding educational gilding to my actions aimed at empowering the prospective student to find the information for themselves.
Had I forgotten from a few days before the disillusioning destination of those who do only the minimum, even when time permits and more individualized effort? I got another chance to determine the motivation of my work at 7:54 on Friday morning, and my initial response STILL showed a lot in common with the former coworker I was ready to condemn. Grudgingly, despite the fact that I don't work until 8:00 and the few minutes between, I like to think, are some of my most reflective before the workday begins, I said yes where I could have said no. Characteristically, the cautionary tale that started the week and the corrective confrontation that marked its middle were rounded off with upswing of inspiration. My 7:54 encounter was with another figure who has learned how work works, but this one still radiated enthusiasm near the end of a career working with insurance companies and customers these companies were hoping to return to work. A dozen years ago, even as I consistently extolled everything every person with military experience would automatically represent, from my bureaucratic perch I demonized the "dark side" of private rehabilitation. The caseworker in my office, with a white beard and a twinkle in his eye, exuded nothing dark. What he looked back on was were years developing a reputation for fair mindedness so irreproachable that he had been hired both by insurance companies and plaintiff's lawyers. Even nearing the end of his career, he was ready with a mischievous chuckle when he considered that he had already gone over his projected budget in order to equip his client, and my student, for long-term success. If I lose my enthusiasm for the person, he said, I might as well be selling shoes.
My wife, as usual, was at least days ahead of me in this. When I asked her what pictures she had in her mind during her formative years and helped to determine her work attitude, I anticipated someone extolling the grim focus and gritted teeth necessary for work accomplishment in the face of distraction. Instead, what she learned from her grandfather was a more tender spark as the origin of a determined worker's flame. My grandfather, she said, worked hard because he always treated people like family. There it is. By a subtle shift over a few interactions or a matter of days rather than as a one-time decision, people can be consigned to commodity, or viewed as an opportunity to put into action our highest purpose. The question may not be so much, what kind of worker am I once and for all, determined by my family interactions, my education, and the kind of worker I was yesterday. The question, with a new week of opportunities on the horizon is, what will I envision as I help or am hassled by the next opportunity I have to serve?
If I lose my enthusiasm for the person, I might as well be selling shoes, but the best merchant of footwear knows as much about people as about boots, sneakers, and loafers.
ReplyDeleteAn odd mixture of pride and repentance... Now, that, honest author, is saying something.
ReplyDeleteMore drift than direction... Consider that phrase hereby stolen.
ReplyDeleteTime and experience, it seems, can as easily serve to crystalize flaws as confront them.
ReplyDeleteHome run of a sentence, that is.
If you want line by line grammar policing and/or editor notes, I will oblige, but the bottom line on the mechanics side is... Proofread, proofread, proofread. Then, proofread again. Perhaps not right after writing. Compose. Take a nap. Eat a banana. Then proofread. Then publish.
ReplyDeleteThis is wisdom, but definitely let me know if something is unclear. Whether for grammatical reasons or otherwise, I can't always tell how writing is received.
DeleteI used to, while training new employees in restaurant kitchens, suggest that going the extra mile, taking pride in the work was the path to freedom. If you do the minimum, you're a willing slave, doing what you must. If you choose to take it to a higher level, you're taking the reins, auto-emancipating.
ReplyDeleteThere is much biblical in that, from the fact that God got the Hebrews out of Egypt overnight but that it took 40 years to get the Egyptian slave mentality out of the Hebrews, to the literal extra mile.
ReplyDelete