Dad, did you get the job?

No.

It didn’t work-out again.

I only had to wait three days to learn that the appointment was not mine. I am sure I could have been made to hang-on longer. But no; Monday until, today (Weds).

And,

The other guy got the job.

Did better in the interview;

Maintained his calm under fire.

Unlike me.

And that is perhaps why three years ago, after a similar process – with different guy, same set of circumstances. That was an occasion for a Spring Cleaning.

On the afternoon of Rosh Hashanah, you head to a nearby stream or body of water (ideally mit fish) and cast away your sins, transfigured into crumbs of bread. Tashlich.

Organisational Tashlich. Throwing away?

No,

I’m not feeling particularly paranoid.

I had worked-out the result by Tuesday.

 

In fact, you could have said I worked it out beforehand;

But, let’s not.

 

Trust me –

Experience does not count.

Neither does performance.

Nor your work

Or the output

Or the innovations

Or ideas

Or the awards

Or publications

Or blogs (even this one).

 

Fixated on tugging, nagging, pulling; schleping in the opposite direction.

 

Listen to what the people have to say vs we know best.

Go to the Gemba; let them come to us.

Pressure, pressure, targets & count the numbers. The numbers count.

People are just

Numbers.

And

Numbers,

there are always more of.

Always more willing subjects ready

to line-up

and deliver.

 

It’s not how you get there, it is the output.

Cast-aside the burned-out, drained, knackered ones, always more scallops in the sea.

 

We elevate the pressure;

Crank it up.

You are either not working hard enough

Or you need me to breathe down your neck

Because

Without my oversight

You will slack.

Laze.

 

No use, good for nothing, homeless folks, smoking their cigarettes and watching Sky TV.

Chutzpah!

My way or not even the highway.

My way or

Down on your knees.

Well, son. Again, it didn’t go my way.

It didn’t go the way of the people – and, what, with the world in such torment why should it?

When we have Putin and May and Trump.

 

The ideologies do not match what the people are saying and yet,

The Affordable Care Act can fall

and

we can cruise out of Europe

on lies.

and

Grenfell falls

all because

certain folk don’t like the aesthetic.

 

In the interview, I was asked – what about those who oppose you, who stand in your way, who reject your ideas.

My answer, twofold –

First, involve, explain the issues, acknowledge what you have in common and, collaboratively find solutions to the wicked.

Try, convince, use persistence, acknowledge that the laggards are sometimes more fearful of change than of being left behind;

But, what if, they are still standing in the way; blocking your path?

I think this was a metaphor for the interaction, for the exchange – correct answer I suspect, would have been, crush them, take no prisoners, grind them to dust.

My answer, well, perhaps not;

My answer, the soft martial arts.

Use the same acrobatic I employ with my patients – flow like water, bend, take the energy and go with it.

That, perhaps too hippy an analogy, didn’t work.

And, what I must now do, is find the way to use all this crap, all this antagonism, opposition, misdirection, to help me move forwards. To help me find some way to answer my son that doesn’t sound like defeat or failure.

No, son, I didn’t get the job, but this is an opportunity.

It may have taken me three years to wake-up and realise the water is boiling, but it is not too late for me to jump out the pan.

And all I am left with is sorrow.