The Day Job Revisited: Endurance and Epiphany

I’m still in my ‘Day Job’ and must be for at least another year.  It continues to test the far reaches of my endurance with the plethora of oh-so-very-important life or death situations.  It never stops trying to lure me back into the belly of
the beast where I know the light of what I call my Flow, my true path, inevitably extinguishes, where I forget it ever even existed, and until I am once again consumed in its wretched bowels. 

I bought a compass that I’ve mounted in my office to provide me a constant reminder of where I want to go, and that I must relentlessly monitor that course to see when I’m veering off the path.  My hope and intent is that even if I do swerve and get in deep, that talisman will pull me out of the mire and guide me back to my real life, my Flow.  I am holding on.  But that’s not to say I haven’t been seriously slimed and compromised, necessitating those continual course corrections.  But that’s good, right?  The best we can do in such a situation?  Hold tight to our lifelines and not get consumed in the belly acid of the beast.

There are imperative duties to be accomplished in an important day job – don’t get me wrong.  Why, just this week I was provided invaluable insight and direction regarding utilization of a New Form that will surely save innumerable lives and fix the entirety of a billion dollar broken bureaucracy.  This form was after all devised by the impervious, all-knowing, all-powerful Oz, uh, I mean headquarters office.  So I was indeed honored to be the auspicious recipient of this amazing wisdom.  The product is to be revered
for its sheer brilliance, venerated for how untainted it is by the dreary shackles of actual history or experience.  To devise such an astounding product that has only been recycled surely no less than a thousand times, is a remarkable, unprecedented feat.  They are here to help and I am indeed the fortunate one to be able to reap the benefits. 

The construction of the form itself was quite impressively achieved in a mere 12.5 minutes.  Even more amazing, this was all somehow miraculously devised from an actual apparent child prodigy, all on his very own, by his own big self!  He intuitively understood the necessity of disregarding any unnecessary process that might impede the launch of his brilliant new product.

Things like, oh I don’t know – research, consultation, basic knowledge of what the hell he’s even talking about and what the product is designed for, or any related processes and policies already in existence.  Wisely dismissing these bothersome steps catapulted this endeavor straight to the implementation roll-out in the field.  That, after all, is what really matters – that the field follow this new direction like all the others before it, without question.  See?  It doesn’t even matter ‘what’ the policy is with that focus!  Just amazing. 

They were even able to streamline the implementation stage as well.  It only entailed a 4.5 hour introductory meeting, in addition to the day-long webinar presentation and training offsite.  The education was invaluable, the process 

inspired.  We learned how to completely duplicate a preexisting process and product and successfully re-package it.  We were taught, by example, how to purge cumbersome and unnecessary restraints and achieve that pure state of blissful ignorance of pesky precedent.  We were wisely disciplined to not even acknowledge, much less mention, the existence of original policy addressing the very same issues this new revered protocol was replacing.

And with the resources devoted to this project; the time and funds allocated for the extensive training, travel costs, the man-hours lost by hundreds of staff pulled away from their work to participate in the training – well, it surely only ended up costing the company mere hundreds of thousands of dollars, and only put production back measly months.  A bargain, bargain I tell you for what was achieved.

The participants in the training, my fellow co-workers, were equally inspiring.  They fervently embraced the New Form, this genius product, and even more impressively, all managed to 
become subjects in cutting-edge research into the phenomenon of collective abrupt onset mass amnesia.  They will surely be written up in the annals of science for all prosperity.  It was a wondrous sight to behold.  But we mustn’t stray from our accolades of the boy prodigy presenter who amazingly also possessed the generosity, physical capacity and willingness to fit each and every one of those eager staff in his audience right up his ready and graciously hospitable bum.

How could I possibly ever leave such an organization that embraces such meaning and purpose and creates that which really matters in this world?  What could I possibly do to top the achievement of this New Form that will inevitably change the course of our very destinies?  Maybe, just maybe, the day job isn’t all that bad after all.  

 I can see it now so clearly.  I’ve been approaching this all wrong.  It’s me.  I’m the one who needs adjustment.  I believe a full frontal lobotomy would take care of any conflict absolutely.  Then I too can finally fit in; can have an actual tear come to my eye in gratitude for the wisdom I am bestowed on a daily basis.

Are lobotomies reversible?  Say, in about a year?  Not a bad survival strategy really …