What would you do, if you could do anything?
I love this photo. I took it at Lake Eola in Downtown Orlando. This woman looked like she was just waiting for someone to roll along with a camera and capture her moment in the park.
I feel like her, these days. Just watching the world pass by, yet completely oblivious to what’s going on beyond my little radius. It’s lovely.
Speaking of my radius or, more appropriately, my radar, I have a half-hour to kill before I sit in on what promises to be another time-wasting webinar. I’m sure that it will be nothing but a sales pitch, but for the 10 minutes worth of real education, it will be worthwhile.
I’m kind of scratching my head over the fact that I spent the morning negotiating my fourth freelance contract. Four! All told, I will have a 60-hour workweek for the next two months. In other words, that’s normal for me, so I’m going with it. 🙂
I like that I can switch gears when I get sick of something. Right now I am immersed in research on a varying number of topics, so it’s good for my brain to go at my own pace with minimal interruption. I’m also doing completely different things — management at one place, editorial at another, marketing at the third, and it looks like social media at the fourth — so it’s like a “real” job but without committing to one (or one set of) asshole(s) for the duration of my workweek.
Not to imply I’m working with assholes. We all know I have mad respect for anyone willing to pay me! But overall, they realize I have strengths outside of the scope of duty, and respect them accordingly. I may not be the fastest researcher, say, but I come back with a sack of goodies that nobody expected when I do arrive. That sort of thing.
I was having a moment today when I was thinking about one of my new boss’ jobs, and how well I could do it, had I known about the opening first. 😉
And then I realized, you know what? They need someone like me, but I don’t have to be in charge.
I hate reporting to people. I will just throw that out there.
BUT ….
I make a great second-in-command. I do. I know someone who may not think so, but then we’d have to debate the merits of them in a top spot, and we don’t want to go there. 🙂
Anyhoodle, while I loathe authority with every fiber of my being, I rock the support role. I am one of those people who is always thinking, always learning, always going “out there” into the field and absorbing facts and figures and details that pass others by.
Most places put zero premium on that. Oh, they say they like it. They claim they care about the competition. They want to say that they have a direct line to potential collaborators. But they don’t. They want to hide inside their little silos where they rule over their kingdoms and their directives go unchallenged.
So the guy whose job I wanted for a moment, well, he isn’t like that. Now, time will tell whether my ideas/connections actually have MY name attached to them. But I respect that he’s like, hey, let’s explore every avenue you want to take us down.
And in that, he takes over the role I’ve always been in — the champion. The one who wants to see what the staff can do. The one who lobbies for the autonomy or at least the experimentation time. The one who deals with the red tape while I go skipping merrily along.
I know I’m a damn good leader. Shit, I found myself giving management advice to one of my old managers yesterday. She has a problem employee and I gave her the questions for the inevitable “Come to Jesus” meeting she’s planning. How cool is that?
But I like doing so from my little lily pad by the ocean. I’m not HAVING the “Come to Jesus” discussion. I’ve done that. Not always successfully, but I have the scars to prove that it’s on my mental resume.
Anyway, who’s to say where and for whom I will be working in 60 days. But it’s kind of exciting that, if or when I decide I want a job like the one my new boss has, I can do that. I have the experience.
But if I don’t want it, and I don’t want to renew my contract (assuming I perform up to par, of course), I DON’T HAVE TO.
God, it feels good to be a gangsta of the financial mafia. 🙂