Always On Ground

Every time that I cross the threshold of my place of employment, a switch goes on in my head and I'm altered until I walk out again at the end.


This is not a universal circumstance for everyone...it's more about working in an environment where tension is not only present, but helpful to your performance.  But the catch is that you have to project an image of altogether cool and control to everyone around you, otherwise the urgency that you are harnessing turns into panic.


Without getting too specific, I move things from one place to another all in the service of high end customers.  I keep them moving high up in the air at high speeds and keep them from breaking down.  In this service, there are an awful lot of requests that follow from multiple sources, and things go political at the drop of a hat.



It's a dynamic environment and the furthest thing from boring, but it's also a challenge sometimes to not let it get to me.  Maybe it's because it involves a lot of human contact, and yet I always have to remember to keep it neutral and impersonal.  Maybe it's a live interpretation of the first verse of "If" by Rudyard Kipling:


"If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise"


I haven't always been the greatest at keeping it close to my chest, but I must say that doing this job (and ones like it) for close to a decade has enabled me to learn skills found in Kipling's poem.  The real headfuck is applying the "cool" principle while projecting just enough of the opposite to show your dedication.  A real tightrope act.


Let's be real.  I'm not a cop or a firefighter; I'm not working at a suicide hotline or a cancer ward.  I'm providing stuff to people with stuff, and these people are accustomed to their stuff working when they want it to work.  Because it's driven by high end clients, there's a lot of posturing and politics going on and it results in making sure that all of your stuff (big and small) is taken care of.


I really don't know where I'm going with this.  When I'm home I'm really a different sort of person; I think that's where being a big kid comes into play.  No one should be so serious all the time, because that's not growing up...that's giving up.


OK, enough of this.  I'm gonna go play.