Pages. Pages and pages. I am producing pages like a college student. Pages and pages and none of it anything I can be proud of. Not really anyway. Just a bunch of professional mumbo jumbo that isn't representative of my personality or ability. Ever feel like that? Gee, I did a great job and that is really good work. And yet, so what?
Well, it has made sitting and writing a blog post something I am loathe to do, as opposed to something I love to do. The work/life balance is not but hubris at this point. Let us hope it is a pendulum that will swing back through nirvana on its way to boredom rather than a permanent tipping point, as proposed by Malcolm Gladwell. I don't make enough money to be permanently tipped.
I am an all purpose player at this point in time with my company. Limited resources and a deep restructuring make it so. After all, I am the last man standing. I sort of feel like the guy who has been feeding the crocodile and finds himself out of food. Nice kitty.
For instance, I am not a marketer. I have not studied marketing. I am not a particularly creative person with respect to spotting trends, advertising, out of the box thinking, and such. What I am good at is presenting our business to potential clients, networking with groups and individuals to create business opportunities, making proposals and assisting with creating the business model for the project. These are all viable strength and as yet have not been completely replaced by computers. In fact, I have found a way to augment my skills using technology. Not a bad thing, I'd say.
Now I am all of a sudden the marketing person, too. News to me. I have a two company three state marketing plan to develop, submit and present. In less than a week. It will be fine, I'm just a little freaked out right now. I'll simply use my cunning intellect to get me through this while navigating the politics and morays of our complicated corporate culture.
I'm screwed.
I like reading the Dexter novels by Jeff Lindsay. For those of you not aware of the books, there is an eponymous show that is popular enough that I think even my mom has seen it. For those of you who don't know what eponymous means, it means selfsame. If you don't know that, I weep for you. Buy a dictionary. Doesn't need to be a fancy one. Just a paperback Websters will do.
Anyway, Dexter is a benevolent serial killer of sorts. He gets himself into all sorts of trouble. Many chapters end on cliff hangers like the old serials my dad told me about as a kid, featuring the Lone Ranger in an impossible situation and some sort of tag line beckoning you back next week to see if he would get out of this mess.
Dexter always uses his brains, his skill, and well the implausible level of good luck the universe throws his way. Good karma... serial killer; strange bedfellows indeed. The genius here, is that the people Dexter is up against are an order of magnitude worse than he is, so you, the reader have no choice but to back the antihero. At the end of the day, you feel good about it. Sure, people died. Bad people.
I feel that way sometimes committing professional murder when it suits me. I will have to commit professional murder next week, by magnifying the implausibility of using me as a utility player and giving this project to me on short notice. Because it's going to suck, and blame needs to be spread, lest I die for sins of another. The people I have set out to kill in the past, (we're still speaking in metaphor here friends, don't call the cops), deserved it. And I would only kill "up", meaning I wouldn't hang a colleague or a subordinate out to dry. Ever. But a boss? May as well have a target on his shirt.
But now, I don't work for a boss. I work for the boss. This is looking more and more like a murder-suicide.
Now, I am in a position where I am out of my expertise. I am on my back foot, trying to put a pass on the numbers of my double covered receiver in a collapsing pocket with the sun in my eyes. There isn't any time on the clock and the front office is itchy to make the playoffs.
Just like in the Lone Ranger and the Dexter books, it doesn't look good for the home team. Stay tuned for our next installment to see if our hero has what it takes to make it through.
On a positive note, I'm playing poker tomorrow. So that's cool.
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