Jumping the Shark

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.