Patrick McManus wrote:
>Ken you can't resign your job as there is no form to fill in -so you will
>have to stay forever-sending us wonderful emails-thanks P cold P
>No exit
>
>
In which case Hell really IS other people. I have forever avoided
subscribing, perhaps mistakenly, to the Pie in the Sky When You Die
theory in which the bad job is treated as a fleeting moment in a
fleeting life. "Lif ist laene" or however that melody goes. It gets
transformed in Act V of King Lear to Gloucester's "A man may rot even
here." Few people, I suspect, have the vision of the Medieval laborer
in France. He and his colleagues carry 60-pound stone blocks on their
backs from morning 'til night. There is no health insurance. They know
they will not live long enough to see the end of the work. Each one,
asked what he's doing, says "I'm moving this stone block from over here
to over there." But that one man, as exhausted as the others, beams and
replies proudly "I'm helping build the Cathedral of Chartres." The Big
Picture.
After 30 years in various business ventures, I have never seen the
Cathedral at Chartres. I HAVE seen the grandiosity of other people
ranked above me who urged us to think and behave like owners. Sometimes
that almost worked. But sooner or later it was exposed for the sham
that most business really is, and the mule, instead of being fed a
carrot, was beaten with the stick. These are common factors in almost
any business. What broke my back was (1) the ability of my boss to
transform from Mr. Nice Guy into a black mamba if he felt he was being
crossed, and (2) I'd been exposed to three reigns of terror in a row.
They sweep through here annually, a kind of pestilence you cannot
prevent but can only pray to outlive. I did for two years, I even did
this year, but now the rumors dragged on forever. It gets really old.
As I near 62 I chose to minimize the chances for a group of high
roller/high rulers to make money off my ass via throwing it out of
here. Take your cost avoidance and go ---- yourself with it.
I don't have too many illusions about the next stop. It is a family-run
business, which at my age makes no difference since I have no dreams of
ownership anyway. I would like to be reasonably well-paid for 20+ years
of expertise and competence, treated with some respect, and not
subjected each year to the sum of all fears.
Family businesses tend to be paternalistic and demanding of people's
time. Which means I probably will not be spending a great deal of time
online from the next stop the way I have from here. That is why I'm
using tax refund money to buy a computer for home--the old one's more
than five years old and it's a museum piece.
ken
--
Kenneth Wolman
Proposal Development Department
Room SW334
Sarnoff Corporation
609-734-2538
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.
-Douglas Adams
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