It helps to write your thoughts down.
In several days you can return to them with a clearer eye and sort
out the more accurate ones, the more satisfying ones. The blogs I
write here are generally first drafts with all the attendant mistakes
in grammar and the lousy, awkward sentence structuring. This time,
I'm working to tighten things up and in doing so, tighten up the
analysis of my past occupation. It'll show me just where I've been,
where I am and where I'll probably go. Interesting method, no?
Perhaps the work needed to tighten, compress and fashion a page of
words...to say what I mean, will also give me
some perspective on my own life.
I chose a culinary career in response
to my social service one. I needed to answer the disgust I felt after
having to battle “Big Frogs of Tiny Ponds.” My first job in
social services acquainted me with people who fight to the death over
crumbs. Oscar Wilde had a little quip about small fiefdoms college
professors build during their careers (this can be applied at any
other job as well). Wilde joked: “Why do academics compete so
hard? Because there is so little to win.”
At first, I enjoyed the social work
world but due to being exposed to inexperienced and favor driven
management, and a real, intense lesson in nepotism, I found myself on
the outside looking in. But I remedied that situation with a few
lawyers. (An earlier blog piece details my successful attempts at
reinstatement, but that was not w/o it's price, as I stated there)
The whole experience left me with a bad taste in my mouth about
social work and I said...”Screw this field!”
That was over fifteen years ago. I then
went to Johnson & Wales for a quick two year A.A. degree and had
hopped around a few high end restaurants till I landed, without quite
aiming at it, to institutional food service. For some reason I liked
it enough that I lasted a couple of years at my first job. The
friends I had made there were varied and fun to work with. But soon
enough they were drifting away to other jobs and finally I was on my
own, until I received a call to work at a facility in Warwick RI.
That was thirteen years ago.
It's very odd that
a group of people in the nursing home field should remain together
for thirteen years or longer. Ours did. What happened, I believe, is
that we grew roots into one another and forsaking the job meant
forsaking one another. So, we didn't till we were forced too. You
spend eight hours or longer a day working closely with people and
they become brothers and sisters. I guess it can be compared to the
Armed Forces in a much milder sense. Those guys in battle form tight
bonds to one another and are loyal to each another and nothing else,
not even the war too. I have not taken into account the acceptance
of ruts, familiarity or the safety and comfort one finds with a job
one's been with for a long time. That too plays a part in longevity.
But for me, the “work family” I became a part of was a large
factor for my staying so long.
It's cliche to say that a life is made
up of thousands of little decisions, but it's true. Every day, I
chose this or that, always with the thought that the decision would
improve my life or move me closer to that elusive “happiness”
that can never be truly caught, tagged and bagged. My day to day
decisions melded me closer to the people I was working with. I
wanted that choice. I acted precisely on that
to make it a reality.
So, what else did I decide in favor
of these past years. Simply? A paycheck. Career
advancement and growth? For me, that problem was somewhat solved when
my entire family died one by one. The need to fight for ever
increasing status was nullified by not having to worry about
mortgages. In one sense, a house fell on me, alleviating that need
for debt. I've known some people to resent that ugly luck I had but
it came at cost of watching and caring for those in my family who
were taken out by a slow, always progressing disease. My luck was
that I was the last one standing. Those events also showed me that
blowing one's life on a career, forever fighting to climb the ladder,
seemed a wasted effort to me.
Add to that the fact I was not
interested in advancement as I don't base my self worth on someone
who needed others to point and say, “That guy sure went far!” If
you has asked me about advancement when I was twenty-five, I'd
answer differently. Now at my age today, I could not care less. At
forty-eight I know what I am compared to that
identity fogginess so many young men find themselves in.
Finally, I have found that my need or
want for a sense of accomplishment rarely came from any career. It
always came from my relationships with others. A Buddhist monk, who
I can't remember now, said the “relationship” in the Western
world, is the meditation. Which I find funny really. I am a failed misanthrope who likes people (well, certain ones).
Also it was a decision from a
cost-benefit analysis. I couldn't see my knocking myself out for
something I'd eventually regret having. For me, the benefit had
better be FAR greater than the sometimes wild battles you have to
fight to attain them. It has been borne out to me that my desire for
a particular goal can at times be squashed if I have to fight silly
obstacle after obstacle for it. “Keep your eyes on the prize”
some say. Well, sure, if you valued that prize as very worthy and if
it keeps it's worth. To me, a goal had better
hold out such advantages that I would never give up trying to attain
them. I have attained a few of those goals. The key word here is
few.
This is me, others
will have a totally different goal and life.
The final sense for me was that I
decided to satisfy a need for social contact and the income. I
enjoyed the people I worked with, and not necessarily always the
work. There are only so many hours in a day and as an adult you
cannot make more time for a bevy of friends like you could if you
were in school. So, like many others, you make your newer friends
from work.
I can point to several times in my life
when you create or join a circle of people who become your friends
and as the group grows, you do as well. These fellowships have a
lifespan of their own as well. They are born, mature and then die
off. You really would not want it any other way. I don't advocate
cutting your ties entirely. You will keep in touch with those who
you can keep in touch with, perhaps for decades, as I have done with
some.
Hollywood has a great phrase that is
apt I think. It is called “Jumping the shark.” Jumping the shark
is an idiom that is used to describe the moment in
the evolution of a television show when it begins a decline in
quality that is beyond recovery. The phrase is also used to refer to
a particular scene, episode or aspect of a show in which the writers
use some type of "gimmick" in a desperate attempt to keep
the show alive and reatain the viewer's interest.
This phrase has an
older history than Hollywood I should confess. Remember the old waterskiing events where
the girls in bikinis would end the show by “jumping a shark” ? That's where it comes from. After that jump, what possibly more can these girls do
to wow an audience. The show is over, thank you for coming.
Affiliations of
friends, like tv shows or water skiing pretty girls, evolve and have
a final great moment. After that, trying to recreate it or cling to
it, is a doing youself a disservice to your own growth.
I'll have to find or
create another association and play that evolving game again.
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