on working for a magical elf
Feb. 23rd, 2018 05:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
moominmollyFor many years, I had a wonderful high-intensity job, doing things I was awesome at: making magic out of minimal resources, growing and developing people along paths they were meant to go down, becoming a trusted advisor and confidante to customers and helping them solve thorny problems. Making systems that removed roadblocks rather than adding them. Solving problems once the RIGHT way so that they never needed to be solved again. All that good shit.
Then, as many-but-not-all-of-you know, that situation changed. I'm not going to get into that here, but for reasons that made sense on the surface but not underneath, I moved into a different role that had less autonomy, less authority, and fewer puzzle pieces to move around. I moved underneath someone who had less faith in me and less ability to see the forest for the trees, and who consequently had less insight into the fact that I was leaving the trees alone for the most part because I was busy moving mountains.
(Also, she told me I was a bad dresser who lacked gravitas and would never get far. I think it's OK to be mad and bitter.)
So, some other crazy things happened, and I decided to leave this job, which still had so many things and people and puzzle-pieces I loved, to jump off a cliff. A year and a month ago, I stopped getting their paychecks. For better or worse, I'm the family member that makes the money to pay the mortgage and buy the groceries, so it takes a lot for me to walk away from a well-paying job into the complete unknown, but I was pushed past a breaking point right when the door was opened in front of me so it kind of couldn't have gone any other way. I'm only so strong.
(Also, my entire team walked out the door with me. I think it's OK to be proud of the lives I helped develop and a little sheepish about the loyalty I think they might have had to the vision we'd all once shared.)
I wound up having coffee with someone who I'll describe, for storytelling purposes, as a gruff magical elf, who said, "you seem nice. Want to come work for me? I ride a bicycle and there's coffee. Also I'm from Maine." I've heard worse offers in my life.
This elf, who we will not name because it gets awkward quickly, had a job that he loved: making magic out of minimal resources, growing and developing people along paths they were meant to go down, and being a trusted advisor and confidante to customers to help them solve thorny problems. The only problem was, he had a bit too MUCH job, so, he said, it seemed like a good idea to give some of it to me.
I said yes, because who says no to an elf? Not me.
So I spent a while quietly trying to make order out of chaos wherever he pointed me, and mostly doing okay at it. But to be honest, most of my time has been spent putting distance between me and the bad things that made me feel worthless, not positively pursuing any particular vision. And even when I'm asleep on my feet, and trying not to cry, and kinda just trying to stay out of the hospital, I'm a pretty decent warm body in a chair, so nobody fired me. Or even told me I dress funny.
But I did say this guy was a magical elf, and one of the tricks he is particularly good at is lovingly calling me on my self-negating bullshit. I have a lot of self-negating bullshit, so that's not a small task, but I think he's not really a small-task kind of elf.
And that brings us to the whole point of this post, which is to tell you what the elf told me today in the five minutes between a long meeting and our respective bike rides home, which doesn't seem like much time but which was enough to make a seemingly offhanded set of observations that made me tear up a bit.
He said:
You know, you're good at your job. Anything I ask you if you can do, you say "yes I can!", without hesitation. And this whole thing you have going, where you say, yes, I can do anything you ask, right now, backwards and in high heels? It's a good thing, I like it.
But here's what I see. I see that sometimes there are some problems that make you light up inside to talk about. And these problems, the ones you fall in love with solving? Basically none of them are in your job description.
I think you need a new job description.
And I think your willingness to say "yes I can" and your competence, they're getting in your way. Because what you're not answering is: do you WANT to do the thing? Is this a problem you're going to fall in love with solving? Because those are the problems I want to give you. I think you'll be happier.
And he said:
The whole reason I brought you on was so that you could take a third of my job away from me, and I have NEVER cared which third.
But YOU should care which third.
When you started, I gave you a part of my job that seemed interesting. But I think there are some things over in a different part of my job which I'm OK at, but which you would be AMAZING at. And you should probably stop saying yes to everything and just find the things you'd love and do those instead.
And if you can't figure out what you want directly, and if you need to pretend that it is as a favor to me that you find those things rather than finding them in service to your own desires, fine, I'm here for that fiction, but, like, do it already.
It's a healing thing to hear, is what I'm saying. Coming out of a situation that was full of mistrust and bullshit and landing accidentally in a situation where the biggest feedback I've gotten was "sure, you do your job great, but what if it was all different so you liked it more because you deserve to like things" is... disorienting.
But thank you, elf, for saving my ass.
Then, as many-but-not-all-of-you know, that situation changed. I'm not going to get into that here, but for reasons that made sense on the surface but not underneath, I moved into a different role that had less autonomy, less authority, and fewer puzzle pieces to move around. I moved underneath someone who had less faith in me and less ability to see the forest for the trees, and who consequently had less insight into the fact that I was leaving the trees alone for the most part because I was busy moving mountains.
(Also, she told me I was a bad dresser who lacked gravitas and would never get far. I think it's OK to be mad and bitter.)
So, some other crazy things happened, and I decided to leave this job, which still had so many things and people and puzzle-pieces I loved, to jump off a cliff. A year and a month ago, I stopped getting their paychecks. For better or worse, I'm the family member that makes the money to pay the mortgage and buy the groceries, so it takes a lot for me to walk away from a well-paying job into the complete unknown, but I was pushed past a breaking point right when the door was opened in front of me so it kind of couldn't have gone any other way. I'm only so strong.
(Also, my entire team walked out the door with me. I think it's OK to be proud of the lives I helped develop and a little sheepish about the loyalty I think they might have had to the vision we'd all once shared.)
I wound up having coffee with someone who I'll describe, for storytelling purposes, as a gruff magical elf, who said, "you seem nice. Want to come work for me? I ride a bicycle and there's coffee. Also I'm from Maine." I've heard worse offers in my life.
This elf, who we will not name because it gets awkward quickly, had a job that he loved: making magic out of minimal resources, growing and developing people along paths they were meant to go down, and being a trusted advisor and confidante to customers to help them solve thorny problems. The only problem was, he had a bit too MUCH job, so, he said, it seemed like a good idea to give some of it to me.
I said yes, because who says no to an elf? Not me.
So I spent a while quietly trying to make order out of chaos wherever he pointed me, and mostly doing okay at it. But to be honest, most of my time has been spent putting distance between me and the bad things that made me feel worthless, not positively pursuing any particular vision. And even when I'm asleep on my feet, and trying not to cry, and kinda just trying to stay out of the hospital, I'm a pretty decent warm body in a chair, so nobody fired me. Or even told me I dress funny.
But I did say this guy was a magical elf, and one of the tricks he is particularly good at is lovingly calling me on my self-negating bullshit. I have a lot of self-negating bullshit, so that's not a small task, but I think he's not really a small-task kind of elf.
And that brings us to the whole point of this post, which is to tell you what the elf told me today in the five minutes between a long meeting and our respective bike rides home, which doesn't seem like much time but which was enough to make a seemingly offhanded set of observations that made me tear up a bit.
He said:
You know, you're good at your job. Anything I ask you if you can do, you say "yes I can!", without hesitation. And this whole thing you have going, where you say, yes, I can do anything you ask, right now, backwards and in high heels? It's a good thing, I like it.
But here's what I see. I see that sometimes there are some problems that make you light up inside to talk about. And these problems, the ones you fall in love with solving? Basically none of them are in your job description.
I think you need a new job description.
And I think your willingness to say "yes I can" and your competence, they're getting in your way. Because what you're not answering is: do you WANT to do the thing? Is this a problem you're going to fall in love with solving? Because those are the problems I want to give you. I think you'll be happier.
And he said:
The whole reason I brought you on was so that you could take a third of my job away from me, and I have NEVER cared which third.
But YOU should care which third.
When you started, I gave you a part of my job that seemed interesting. But I think there are some things over in a different part of my job which I'm OK at, but which you would be AMAZING at. And you should probably stop saying yes to everything and just find the things you'd love and do those instead.
And if you can't figure out what you want directly, and if you need to pretend that it is as a favor to me that you find those things rather than finding them in service to your own desires, fine, I'm here for that fiction, but, like, do it already.
It's a healing thing to hear, is what I'm saying. Coming out of a situation that was full of mistrust and bullshit and landing accidentally in a situation where the biggest feedback I've gotten was "sure, you do your job great, but what if it was all different so you liked it more because you deserve to like things" is... disorienting.
But thank you, elf, for saving my ass.
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no subject
Date: 2018-02-23 11:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-24 02:01 am (UTC)For a job that you conjured up a bit magically yourself, this is just downright great. This elf knows a wonder when he sees one, too.
no subject
Date: 2018-02-24 03:06 am (UTC)I'm so glad he was able to say that to you and I really hope it results in even more awesome coming your way.
(Also, wtf dreamwidth, apparently you were on my filters but not in my default reading filter so I haven't seen anything you wrote inn the new DW renaissance! Doh. Fixed now!)
no subject
Date: 2018-02-24 04:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-24 10:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-24 12:51 pm (UTC)(Also, a hearty “eat a bag of dicks!” to anyone, your ex-boss no less, who thinks they have the right to comment on clothing choices that make you feel like yourself.)
no subject
Date: 2018-02-24 02:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-24 03:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-24 03:02 pm (UTC)And I'm with Cee: Boss.Previous clearly has no clue. Gravitas is a sometimes food - joy in one's work is so much more effective at motivating and encouraging those around you to soar.
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Date: 2018-02-24 03:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-24 04:23 pm (UTC)Now I wear jeans and nobody seems to care. My grand boss also wears jeans. It’s a different world.
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Date: 2018-02-24 09:45 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2018-04-17 10:42 pm (UTC)