I’ve been working towards this day since I was a kid.
In grade seven they started asking all of us, “what will you do for your life’s work?”
Honestly, I didn’t have to foggiest idea.
My Mom and Dad were poised to be proud parents, their little boy is going out into the world and will surely take it by storm, showing all of his amazing talents, and of course will be sought after and paid extraordinary sums of money because he is amazing.
After all, we followed all the rules, went the way that society said we should, so he by all rights should do better than we have, isn’t that the proper way then?
And I certainly did. I completed an approved degree at an approved school in the required amount of time with above average grades and test scores.
Not very much above average, but I did fine.
After sending resumes out and going to endless career mixers and corporate recruiting events I secured an interview with a company that had a name that was a combination of their product and their industry. Something like “PagTech” or was it “ComScience”? It was something like that, with a slick logo featuring a “swoosh” graphic, in a dependable process blue color with sans serif modern typography in all lower case letters.
Innovative. Solid. With a feeling of permanence.
I endured the endless interviews with the less than enthusiastic middle managers eventually making it to a final meeting with the vaunted and feared senior department head.
He was a somber fifty something man with his sparse salt and pepper hair arranged in an extraordinarily complex comb over. A squared away gent with a serious demeanor, and I’m certain an impeccable resume forged at more than one private school where those with unimpeachable breeding attend to begin their storied professional journeys.
I saw in the first few moments after sitting down in front of his impossibly large desk that my following the “way” of this grand institution was paramount in these endless and hallowed beige hallways.
Looking around I saw college degrees and certificates of achievement framed in tasteful brass metal, hung perfectly spaced, on the approved beige walls. There was a potted plant, minimal decorations, and a single small photo of family on the window sill behind him.
All of this spoke with great clarity to me.
This is our way and our world young man. It’s our corporate style that has worked for over 100 years, and we are not about to change that.
While your new vision and youthful enthusiasm of course have value to us, we prefer our process to whatever you have to offer. We will break you, and make you believe that your ideas were nice but sadly too simple and uninformed. We thank you for your fresh face and hopeful naivete, but we will ignore it in favor of history and predictability.
To us, everyone working in concert, all facing the same direction, committed to the plan and the process, is what will secure the outcome that our board of directors and clients rightfully expect, and what is paramount for this business.
Not you. Not new. Not fresh or God forbid involving any risk or controversy. This is how we roll, together and all in glorious lock step.
He stood and extended his hand over the impossibly wide expanse of his desk, and said “Congratulations young man, we all agree that you measure up, and are a wonderful fit here, will you join us?”
And I heard myself say without any hesitation, “I’m terribly sorry sir, and I do thank you, but if I said ‘yes’ I’m quite certain that I would die inside.”
Then I stood and made for the door, smiled back at him, and began to live.
