Drenched To The Bone

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

— Bob Dylan, The Times They Are A-Changin'

With enough distance it all makes sense.

You serve your meager purpose, and subject yourself and those close to you to your routine. You have your insecurities, and if you're secure enough about yourself to show them you ask questions. Or if you're insecure enough to need approval, you do the same.

It is a thankless world. For those that need recognition, morale boosting, friendship and camaraderie, work isn't the place for it. Not anymore. Not by any standard that could be considered realistic. Not by the needs of anyone who needs anything.

I will admit it. I'm a needy person. I put up walls. I played misdirection with the best of them. If a chink in my armor was to be made apparent, what better thing to do than bring up a weakness that someone else had. They don't know this. They can't do that. None of it mattered.

I spent the majority of a career glad-handing to be in a position and the rest of it struggling, fighting, to stay in my spot. Did I earn where I was? Sure. I am talented, or a lot of people with no personal stake in how I feel wouldn't tell me so. Was I well liked? That's not really something I can accurately say given my predilection for deprecation. I am told occasionally that I am missed at my former place of employment. That it "just isn't the same" without my presence.

I suppose the same could be said of the communal stapler. Right?

In hindsight it is all a strategic game. Legitimacy is something you strive for. To be seen as a legitimate authentic relic of a time gone by when people had balls and could do what they said they would do. I would argue points I thought were valid. I would chastise those that were ignorant when I felt it was warranted. I would commiserate with my colleagues about those that were daft, and out of touch, and maybe useless, and probably getting paid more than the rest of us were for no apparent reason.

I was one of the grunts, the cast-offs, the worker-bee's. The Peons.

I would occasionally let my ill-advised (now) attempts at climbing the ladder up to the glass ceiling happen. When in the company of the higher-ups I would let slip carefully crafted half-truths to see what would happen. To see where it would take me. I remember fondly e-mailing a catchphrase spewing, corporate book devouring "company savior" that was formerly President of a major Cable TV network an e-mail vaguely pointing out how excited I was about "new procedures" that we had in place and how pumped I was about "our opportunities to discover new ways to strategize, synergize our teams" and "come to new ways to maximize ROI (return on investment) and to capitalize on what we already had in place. "

He e-mailed me a very positive reply a few days later saying that he would be very interested in sitting and talking with me as I had the right outlook that the company needed and that our company needed "more positive thinkers like me."

I was so very frustrated. I had e-mailed him the equivalent of verbal corporate catchprhase diarrhea and he'd eaten every drop up and probably licked his fingers clean before asking for seconds. I'd said nothing. Seriously. I could look back on it now and have no clue what I even was attempting to say, but I do remember laughing as I sent it, telling my wife "I'm either going to get a raise for this bullshit or I'm going to get fired."

Click. Send. Praise.

Shake your head and carry on. This is what you're dealing with now.

The last two years were a blur. All the inroads I had made in my years at my workplace were being squandered by the monkey business of the new regime in charge. I didn't know the new bosses and living many states away would rarely get the chance to meet them without the local higher-up rats sniveling about looking for a way to stay on the ship.

I made a decision shortly after I had a realization.

The quick ride to the top was over, and there is nothing to do but stay my ground.

Stay my ground and stare at the fork in the road. Weasel's way out or Legitimacy. For whatever Legitimacy is worth, anymore.

I saw and see what the weasel's of the world do. They might make more money, but they have more people wanting to meet them in a dark alley with the business end of a tire iron, too.

I can't live that way. I won't live that way. I couldn't live that way.

"Yes Men" get the raise and the pat on the back. Honest Men get told they are a budget cut that had to be taken.

I regret nothing. I am not ashamed of what I did while I was there. Part of my life under the roof of that job was self-preservation. The other, realer later half was, in hindsight, an act of retribution. Asking the hard questions, and standing for what I believed and not putting up with lies, and pettiness, and ignorance, and refusing to say "Yes" without actually meaning it.

I saw a good friend of mine who was highly praised for his dedication and skill at his profession derided for complaining and essentially treated like shit and pushed from his post for wanting to be treated like a human.

I saw another friend of mine, one of the more talented scribes I've ever had the chance to know personally told that his award winning work "just wasn't enough."

I took pride at a job that I wasn't particularly interested in, and gained skills in a part of my profession that I'd never wanted to be a part of, and made a stand for quality in the face of a "just get it over with, no one cares" attitude only to realize that the people in charge:

1. Don't know what quality is, and wouldn't if it hit them in the face.
2. Don't care about your attention to detail, because they don't have any attention to detail.
3. Couldn't care less what they're doing, as long as they make money. Period.
4. If you are talented at your work and actually make money, you will someday be pushed aside for a younger, less talented version of you -- but it doesn't matter to them because they can rest on their laurels (aka The Work You Did Long Ago) and save money.
   

Don't get me wrong, I like money. Partially.

But sometimes I sit back and wonder, why exactly no one seems to take real tangible pride in their work anymore. Why they don't spend the time, researching the past, seeing what worked and what didn't, no matter what their profession, and try their best to blend old and new, making something special, that hopefully someone in the future will see and go "This...this is the good stuff." I am addicted to the craft of essentially anything. I like to know why things work the way they do.

I don't expect to be famous. I'm not the best at anything. Not even close.

I'd just like one person, somewhere, to stumble across something I did, many years from now, and wonder who I was, what I was like, and how I ever came up with the things that I worked on.

They won't know that after amassing a library of work that was praised by colleagues I respect and people I'll never meet that I was just a social security number that was taken off of a ledger by some anonymous accountant because my supervisor wouldn't take the time to think twice about what he was doing.

When I hear bad news about them, it pleases me. But it doesn't matter at the end of the day.

I'm where I am. They're where they are. Who's right? Who feels justified? Who knows.

Pride is a stupid thing, but sometimes it can be a very important thing.

I am proud of who I am and what I do. I am proud of the work I do. I am proud of my wife, and I am humbled that she gives me the time of day, much less loves me. I am proud I have made it as far as I have in this life. I am proud that the news from the day of my firing was that most of the people I'd worked with the last seven years were shocked and scared, because if "I was let go...anyone could be let go."

I hope they're not. I wouldn't wish the uncertainty I live in daily on anyone.

I am proud, however, that I am handling it like I am. I am fighting and I am trying and I will try to balance the scales of craft vs. work.

I will keep swimming until I sink like a stone.