Remember the suicidal leaves in Monty Python’s ‘Meaning of life’? Well this past week we had a real life skirmish with a similar, hardly funny, real-life equivalent. Our exemplary, yet fragile, team was a hair’s breadth from disintegration; leaving each of us to retreat to our own solitude to contemplate the consequences. What makes us happy? With work at least, the usual suspects get trotted in, each getting a spotlight minute. Money; oh yeah, that’s an easy one. Recognition, thoughtfulness and some regard for the future round up some horribly non-empirical formula for ‘job satisfaction’. Preservation of the team resonated in our skulls; maybe Spock croaked it out best, “The needs of the many….”
Is this it? Is one’s career defined solely by the collective accomplishments of the team? After all I never really ‘got’ the whole “Army of One” concept. But, as luck would have it, the week wasn’t going to end without a dash of Libran-inspired balance. Friday evening, I got to wish bon voyage to our company’s first retiree. Larry graciously, confidently bid us farewell while gently entreating us to someday trace the trail he was about to hike. Here was a man, clearly at the summit of Maslow’s pyramid, this was his day; the culmination of career measured not in decades but in the gathering of friends all at once sad, happy and tearful for his future. So no, no, we don’t get to eventually write our life’s chapters cloaked in the shadow of the Borg collective. Perhaps resistance is somewhat futile, but it does not mean individualism and personal accomplishment are sacrificed either. Congratulations Larry and Betsy; feel no pressure for the role models you fulfill for the rest of us!p.s. hanging out with my two snortfully, boomy, hilarious work-sisters, Amy and Angel, was super-swell.... as well :)
