I just sneezed really hard and both of my front teeth flew right out of my mouth!
Seriously, I have two temporary crowns on my front teeth and they've been getting more and more loose all month, until, just now, I sneezed with Herculean might and they both fucking flew out of my mouth!!!
WHO DOES THIS HAPPEN TO!?!?! WHO?!?!?!
***
Just walked home from work in nice weather and now I'm kickin' it to The Anti-Nowhere League, so, obviously, I'm in a good mood.
Today was an odd one at work. Yesterday, I found out that the manager of our design department had resigned and, upon her resignation, she suggested that I replace her. Mere minutes later, I ran into my boss, one of the partners who owns the company and he pretty much said that he wanted me to take the job. Of course, I would be taking on the supervision and training of seven graphic designers IN ADDITION TO the work I already do on a full-time basis.
Fast forward to this morning. All three partners get together and have a meeting, shortly after the meeting, sometime in the afternoon, two of them (not my direct boss) approach me. Essentially, what they said is that it's not fair that my boss gets 100% of my effort and they get none. Further, they were moving the marketing manager from marketing to design, and replacing her with... you guessed it!
Now, some background. My boss, we'll call him Owner 1, bought the company in 2001 and turned it into what it is today. He hired me last year and has been a mentor to me for the last 8 months. Owners 2 and 3 are former associates (actually former business mentors) of Owner 1 who bought into the business in January. Owner 1 is responsible for production, Owners 2 and 3 are responsible for sales and marketing.
Since March, I have been working exclusively for Owner 1 on operating systems and training programs as well as implementing lean manufacturing and visual control systems. Before that, I had done some identity work, including designing our new logo.
Well, to make it simple, Owners 2 and 3 hit me with a very disturbing pile of complements, indicating that I was the top of the line in the company as far as design and marketing goes. I guess they had a bit of a go with Owner 1 and they managed to reach a compromise (are you ready for this, it's fucking hysterical):
Owner 1 gets me for 20 hours each week to develop operating systems, increase efficiency, plan training and setup our new facility.
Owners 2 and 3 get me for 20 hours weach week to do identity design and marketing, including redesigning our fleet of vehicles and overhauling our website.
It took all of the willpower I had this afternoon to not burst out laughing when they said this. I felt like cheesteak they were splitting. It was so cut and dry. Half for one, half for the other.
Now, of course, this is absolutely crazy for me, because even though I'm doing the same total amount of hours of work each week (40), I now have to split my focus and replan my inter-office political moves to move my agenda along smoothly. I had already learned how Owner 1 operates and I was able to maneuver around him and collaborate with him; now I have to figure out how to snake around the constraints presented by Owners 2 and 3.
***
I give a lot of credit to Owner 1, my boss/mentor. I sent him a crazy/frustrated email about how bad this would fuck-up our plans and he just calmed me down in two minutes.
I am still such a punk, no matter how much I've matured in the last year. I still wanted to go head to head with the owners and argue my way, whether or not it meant losing my job and Owner 1 just kinda laughed and told me to lie low and bang out the work and we'll shuffle things around and make our moves anyway.
It's funny, because it made me think of a passage I read earlier this morning in Yagyu Munenori's Family Traditions in the Art of War wherein Master Munenori describes how one should be conditioned when fighting a duel. Basically, that the body should be passive while the mind is aggressive, so you can feint and draw and disable your opponent with clever ploys or that the body should be aggressive and the mind passive, so you can calmly and precisely disable your opponent. But, I'm a punk and so much of the time, body and mind are both aggressive and all I end up doing is rushing into the situation I'm not prepared to handle and I am quickly cut down by my opponents.
Some problems can be solved with screaming, but, for the most part, to evolve past adolescence, one needs to move like a warrior. Punk rock is in the heart and spirit and attitude, it shouldn't be in the actions.
Seriously, I have two temporary crowns on my front teeth and they've been getting more and more loose all month, until, just now, I sneezed with Herculean might and they both fucking flew out of my mouth!!!
WHO DOES THIS HAPPEN TO!?!?! WHO?!?!?!
***
Just walked home from work in nice weather and now I'm kickin' it to The Anti-Nowhere League, so, obviously, I'm in a good mood.
Today was an odd one at work. Yesterday, I found out that the manager of our design department had resigned and, upon her resignation, she suggested that I replace her. Mere minutes later, I ran into my boss, one of the partners who owns the company and he pretty much said that he wanted me to take the job. Of course, I would be taking on the supervision and training of seven graphic designers IN ADDITION TO the work I already do on a full-time basis.
Fast forward to this morning. All three partners get together and have a meeting, shortly after the meeting, sometime in the afternoon, two of them (not my direct boss) approach me. Essentially, what they said is that it's not fair that my boss gets 100% of my effort and they get none. Further, they were moving the marketing manager from marketing to design, and replacing her with... you guessed it!
Now, some background. My boss, we'll call him Owner 1, bought the company in 2001 and turned it into what it is today. He hired me last year and has been a mentor to me for the last 8 months. Owners 2 and 3 are former associates (actually former business mentors) of Owner 1 who bought into the business in January. Owner 1 is responsible for production, Owners 2 and 3 are responsible for sales and marketing.
Since March, I have been working exclusively for Owner 1 on operating systems and training programs as well as implementing lean manufacturing and visual control systems. Before that, I had done some identity work, including designing our new logo.
Well, to make it simple, Owners 2 and 3 hit me with a very disturbing pile of complements, indicating that I was the top of the line in the company as far as design and marketing goes. I guess they had a bit of a go with Owner 1 and they managed to reach a compromise (are you ready for this, it's fucking hysterical):
Owner 1 gets me for 20 hours each week to develop operating systems, increase efficiency, plan training and setup our new facility.
Owners 2 and 3 get me for 20 hours weach week to do identity design and marketing, including redesigning our fleet of vehicles and overhauling our website.
It took all of the willpower I had this afternoon to not burst out laughing when they said this. I felt like cheesteak they were splitting. It was so cut and dry. Half for one, half for the other.
Now, of course, this is absolutely crazy for me, because even though I'm doing the same total amount of hours of work each week (40), I now have to split my focus and replan my inter-office political moves to move my agenda along smoothly. I had already learned how Owner 1 operates and I was able to maneuver around him and collaborate with him; now I have to figure out how to snake around the constraints presented by Owners 2 and 3.
***
I give a lot of credit to Owner 1, my boss/mentor. I sent him a crazy/frustrated email about how bad this would fuck-up our plans and he just calmed me down in two minutes.
I am still such a punk, no matter how much I've matured in the last year. I still wanted to go head to head with the owners and argue my way, whether or not it meant losing my job and Owner 1 just kinda laughed and told me to lie low and bang out the work and we'll shuffle things around and make our moves anyway.
It's funny, because it made me think of a passage I read earlier this morning in Yagyu Munenori's Family Traditions in the Art of War wherein Master Munenori describes how one should be conditioned when fighting a duel. Basically, that the body should be passive while the mind is aggressive, so you can feint and draw and disable your opponent with clever ploys or that the body should be aggressive and the mind passive, so you can calmly and precisely disable your opponent. But, I'm a punk and so much of the time, body and mind are both aggressive and all I end up doing is rushing into the situation I'm not prepared to handle and I am quickly cut down by my opponents.
Some problems can be solved with screaming, but, for the most part, to evolve past adolescence, one needs to move like a warrior. Punk rock is in the heart and spirit and attitude, it shouldn't be in the actions.
VIEW 15 of 15 COMMENTS
severus:
aoife:
i'm glad I'm not the only one who feels that way.