May 4, 2007

“John, can you imagine how bad it is going to be around here by September?”

“No.  In fact, I can’t even imagine how bad it is going to be by Wednesday.”

We were at an off-site meeting in Orlando.  January is typically a good month to enjoy Florida but on this occasion, a new president had just been named for our division of a large Fortune 100 company.  Less than five minutes into his presentation it became obvious that our new boss didn’t have the foggiest idea about our business.  Additionally, he wasn’t the least bit concerned about the opinion of anyone on his staff (of which my current partners and I were part).

After listening to our new boss’s opening remarks, I leaned over to John Skiba and whispered, “John, can you imagine how bad it is going to be around here by September?”

John, with his ever quick wit, retorted, “No.  In fact, I can’t even imagine how bad it is going to be by Wednesday.”

Much of our lives is work.  Like it or not, many of our associates and colleagues know us more for what we do rather than who we are.  In many respects, we develop an identity directly related to our jobs.  Thankfully, we have family and friends to ground us in a deeper, more meaningful identity; nonetheless, work has a huge and important impact on our lives. 

Time is too fleeting to be miserable in the things we do.  Fortunately, John and I were able to move to other work and weren’t around to see how bad things actually were by September.  For us, it was bad enough by Wednesday.