The Next Chapter

Last Friday, I spent my last day as the Corporate Human Resources Manager for a large, Fortune 500 manufacturing company.  I won't name the organization here, because I paid attention during my required "social media" training where they politely asked that we refrain from discussing the company publicly.  Not that I have anything bad to say.  I don't.  (Well, I do.  I'll cover it in the next paragraph.)  It was (is) a terrific company and one that was very generous with me.  I worked there for over nine years and was promoted a few times.   They allowed me to go part-time when Kate was born which has been such a blessing these last six years. I got to do pretty much whatever I wanted because they seemed to have confidence in me.

My only complaint really is that about three years ago we were told that we should no longer call our employees "employees".  It was noted that "Associate" or "Team Member" was the less demoralizing term for the people who work for our company.  Um... yeah.  I really don't think that anyone felt better about themselves or their job because I referred to them as an associate.  In fact, had they know how I would abbreviate it when writing ("Ass."), they probably wouldn't have appreciated it at all.  I get so annoyed with these little things we do to further point out how thin-skinned we have become as a society.  (A symptom of the problem described in my previous post.)  But, anyway, for three of my nine years at this company I was an "associate".  Either way, I'm going to miss my friends there.  And if I'm honest with myself, I'll probably miss some of the work too.

I left my job in order to stay at home full time with the girls.

Let me stop right here and cover something that's bothered me for several of these posts.  There is a movement out there that has several women out there referring to their breasts as "the girls".  Every time I say "the girls" or "my girls", I picture this.  Please note that I am talking about staying home to be with my daughters.  Not my breasts, although they will be there, too.  They pretty much go wherever I go.

Moving on...

I left my job in order to be a full-time mother to my girls.  Is that my calling?  It's one of them certainly.  I'm not convinced it's the only thing I'm supposed to do.  One day perhaps I'll figure out the rest of it.  Part of what made me want to be home was my schedule.  I had been working three days a week which was really a great set-up.  But, I had a 45 minute commute.  That meant that on the days that I worked, I would leave at 7:00 a.m. (okay, 7:30) and wouldn't get home until almost or just after 6:00 in the evening. Mike travels quite a bit, so when he's gone, I have to get both girls up and dressed, all of us fed, the dog out, the kids dropped off and then somehow get to work at around 8:30.  Then I'd also have to leave work early in order to get them on time from after school care.  It wouldn't have been that big of a deal except that missing thirty minutes at the beginning and end of my work day took a chunk out of my work time when you consider I was only in the office 24 hours a week to begin with.  Plus, if the kids were sick - which they often are - I'd have to be home.  I often felt like I was letting the girls down and also letting down the folks I supported at work.  Mommy guilt.  And work guilt.  Not a great combination.

Plus, my job really wasn't a part-time job.  It was a full-time job that I just did part-time.  I was constantly getting phone calls and emails on my "days off".  I did get pretty good at being able to "shut it off" on those days - determining which calls and emails I needed to pay attention to and letting the rest wait until my next day in the office -  but certainly none of us could expect HR issues to only happen on Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays.  That's just not realistic.  Also, it didn't really fit my personality; that type of work.  I had to deliver a lot of bad news.  I had to discipline people and give them unwelcomed feedback.  When I walked into the room, people would joke that they couldn't have any more fun because HR was in the room.  Really?  Me?  Prevent you from having fun?!  If anything, I am usually the one stirring up the inappropriate conversation.  What on earth am I doing having to squelch it?  Not me at all.

Two things happened that let me know it was time to leave.  Mike and I had actually discussed it several times before but this time it seemed right.  First, the girl we had lined up to keep the girls this summer got a full-time offer from another family.  I had given her a window - through the end of March - to find something full-time before she committed to me.  She called me on Friday, March 30th to let me know.  I mentioned it to  Mike that following Monday.  He was leaving for an out of town work trip and I asked him to take a look at our budget, etc. while he was on the plane.  Once he got to his destination, he was presented with a nice raise and a contract extension.  Done deal.  Friday, April 6th, I told my boss and the ball was rolling.

I knew I'd be sad about leaving, but I never dreamed I'd cry like a baby ALL DAY like I did.  My eyelids weighed about 17 pounds each and looked like albino footballs by the end of the day.  It was kind of like a funeral before you die.  People say such nice things and let you know what you've meant to them.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm sure some of them were just being nice and let's face it: it's not like they're going to tell you what an idiot they always thought you were when you are so weepy about leaving.  But, it still meant a lot.  I truly loved so many of those people.  Even the ones I didn't know that well but would exchange simple pleasantries with.  They were part of my work day.  They made it a welcoming place to be for all of those years.  I am honored to have been an  employee AND an associate there for that long.  It's a truly special place.

Now on to my new reality.

Monday was my first Monday-of-unemployment.  How did I spend my first day of freedom?  Let's see.  It was pouring for most of the day.  I had my yearly gyno visit (not exactly the glamorous life) and I was actually late for it for no good reason except that my children wouldn't cooperate.  When I got there all frazzled and fuzzy (from the humidity), the nurse told me that I must be "having a Monday".  What is a Monday to a person who is unemployed?  Just a day, I guess.  I don't really know yet.  I ran some errands and got on the treadmill.  Fixed a good, healthy dinner.  Read some of my book.  I even wore make-up.  I took a shower (obviously; given the gyno visit) which is actually a good sign.  I was worried I might only take the occasional shower since I didn't have a job to go to.  I've told my work friends that if they start seeing pictures of me on Facebook in my pajamas and no make-up to please intervene.

So far, things are going well.  I've set my alarm for 7:15 during my first two days of freedom because I just feel like I should get up and get moving.  I've showered both days - accomplishment.  I've fixed five meals which is good BUT I broke down and bought pizza for dinner tonight.  Oh well, baby steps...

I worry because I am a generally lazy person.  My job kept me structured and now that it's gone, I'm a little worried about how I will fill my time.  I said earlier that I don't know if my calling is to be a full-time mother.  I love being a mother of course, and I adore my sweet children.  But I am not a *great* mother.  I have great intentions.  But I'm not creative,  I'm lazy, as I've said, and I have very little patience.  I see my friends who stay home full time and they are much better, sweeter mothers than I am.  They are stay-at-home-moms whose kids are benefiting from their being home.  Time will tell if mine will.  I know I need adult interaction.  I need my brain to be able to focus on something that's just mine; not my kids, if that makes any sense.  But, for the time being, I will be at home full time doing the most important job I will ever have.

I'm not real sure where life is going for me, but I suppose I'll enjoy the ride until, well, I don't enjoy it.  And then I'll find something else to do.  Something that is more conducive to being a present, involved parent.  And something that is a better match for my personality.  We'll see how this goes...

Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

My New Hero

I'm sure by now you've all seen clips or read articles about the commencement address given by Wellesley High School English Professor, David McCullough, Jr.  

No surprisingly, it has sparked some controversy, although most of what I've read has people saying it's about damn time someone said these things.  I agree with everything he is saying.  All of the trophies we hand out to the winners AND losers teach nothing.  Young people are ill-equipped to get realistic, critical feedback about themselves because they've never been told that they need to do better.  I know this because I've tried to do it at work and it's gone over like a lead balloon.  The "you can do anything" approach to our society breeds mediocre performance, because there is going to be a reward for losing or coming in second anyway.  Heck, even American Idol allows more than just the winner to get recording contracts.  So what's the big deal with winning?

Saturday Night Live recently poked fun at this phenomenon when they aired the following sketch:

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/you-can-do-anything/1379100

So, for this man to finally clue these kids in that they are not special, was a breath of fresh air.  And incidentally, I'm not suggesting that young people are the only ones who have this affliction.  It's societal.  But I do think that this is the first generation who largely have been told that they are special and unique even when they have not done much to earn that.  A few witty tweets don't make you interesting.  Neither does blogging (touche).  At any rate, that this man had the guts and the insight to say these things make him my new hero.  I swear, if Barbara Walters passes over him for her "Most Fascinating People" list in favor of a Kardashian or a Gaga, I will forever lose all hope in our country.

Here is the full speech that I pulled from various sources on the internet.

Dr. Wong, Dr. Keough, Mrs. Novogroski, Ms. Curran, members of the board of education, family and friends of the graduates, ladies and gentlemen of the Wellesley High School class of 2012, for the privilege of speaking to you this afternoon, I am honored and grateful.  Thank you.

So here we are… commencement… life's great forward-looking ceremony.  (And don't say, "What about weddings?"  Weddings are one-sided and insufficiently effective.  Weddings are bride-centric pageantry.  Other than conceding to a list of unreasonable demands, the groom just stands there.  No stately, hey-everybody-look-at-me procession.  No being given away.  No identity-changing pronouncement.  And can you imagine a television show dedicated to watching guys try on tuxedos?  Their fathers sitting there misty-eyed with joy and disbelief, their brothers lurking in the corner muttering with envy.  Left to men, weddings would be, after limits-testing procrastination, spontaneous, almost inadvertent… during halftime… on the way to the refrigerator.  And then there's the frequency of failure: statistics tell us half of you will get divorced.  A winning percentage like that'll get you last place in the American League East.  The Baltimore Orioles do better than weddings.)
But this ceremony… commencement… a commencement works every time.  From this day forward… truly… in sickness and in health, through financial fiascos, through midlife crises and passably attractive sales reps at trade shows in Cincinnati, through diminishing tolerance for annoyingness, through every difference, irreconcilable and otherwise, you will stay forever graduated from high school, you and your diploma as one, 'til death do you part.

No, commencement is life's great ceremonial beginning, with its own attendant and highly appropriate symbolism.  Fitting, for example, for this auspicious rite of passage, is where we find ourselves this afternoon, the venue.  Normally, I avoid clichés like the plague, wouldn't touch them with a ten-foot pole, but here we are on a literal level playing field.  That matters.  That says something.  And your ceremonial costume… shapeless, uniform, one-size-fits-all.  Whether male or female, tall or short, scholar or slacker, spray-tanned prom queen or intergalactic X-Box assassin, each of you is dressed, you'll notice, exactly the same.  And your diploma… but for your name, exactly the same.

All of this is as it should be, because none of you is special.

You are not special. 


 You are not exceptional.

Contrary to what your u9 soccer trophy suggests, your glowing seventh grade report card, despite every assurance of a certain corpulent purple dinosaur, that nice Mister Rogers and your batty Aunt Sylvia, no matter how often your maternal caped crusader has swooped in to save you… you're nothing special. 
Yes, you've been pampered, cosseted, doted upon, helmeted, bubble-wrapped.  Yes, capable adults with other things to do have held you, kissed you, fed you, wiped your mouth, wiped your bottom, trained you, taught you, tutored you, coached you, listened to you, counseled you, encouraged you, consoled you and encouraged you again.  You've been nudged, cajoled, wheedled and implored.  You've been feted and fawned over and called sweetie pie.  Yes, you have.  And, certainly, we've been to your games, your plays, your recitals, your science fairs.  Absolutely, smiles ignite when you walk into a room, and hundreds gasp with delight at your every tweet.  Why, maybe you've even had your picture in the Townsman!  And now you've conquered high school… and, indisputably, here we all have gathered for you, the pride and joy of this fine community, the first to emerge from that magnificent new building…

But do not get the idea you're anything special.  Because you're not.

The empirical evidence is everywhere, numbers even an English teacher can't ignore.  Newton, Natick, Nee… I am allowed to say Needham, yes? …that has to be two thousand high school graduates right there, give or take, and that's just the neighborhood Ns.  Across the country no fewer than 3.2 million seniors are graduating about now from more than 37,000 high schools.  That's 37,000 valedictorians… 37,000 class presidents… 92,000 harmonizing altos… 340,000 swaggering jocks… 2,185,967 pairs of Uggs.  But why limit ourselves to high school?  After all, you're leaving it.  So think about this: even if you're one in a million, on a planet of 6.8 billion that means there are nearly 7,000 people just like you.  Imagine standing somewhere over there on Washington Street on Marathon Monday and watching sixty-eight hundred yous go running by.  And consider for a moment the bigger picture: your planet, I'll remind you, is not the center of its solar system, your solar system is not the center of its galaxy, your galaxy is not the center of the universe.  In fact, astrophysicists assure us the universe has no center; therefore, you cannot be it.  Neither can Donald Trump… which someone should tell him… although that hair is quite a phenomenon.

"But, Dave," you cry, "Walt Whitman tells me I'm my own version of perfection!  Epictetus tells me I have the spark of Zeus!"  And I don't disagree.  So that makes 6.8 billion examples of perfection, 6.8 billion sparks of Zeus.  You see, if everyone is special, then no one is.  If everyone gets a trophy, trophies become meaningless.  In our unspoken but not so subtle Darwinian competition with one another-which springs, I think, from our fear of our own insignificance, a subset of our dread of mortality - we have of late, we Americans, to our detriment, come to love accolades more than genuine achievement.  We have come to see them as the point - and we're happy to compromise standards, or ignore reality, if we suspect that's the quickest way, or only way, to have something to put on the mantelpiece, something to pose with, crow about, something with which to leverage ourselves into a better spot on the social totem pole.  No longer is it how you play the game, no longer is it even whether you win or lose, or learn or grow, or enjoy yourself doing it…  Now it's "So what does this get me?"  As a consequence, we cheapen worthy endeavors, and building a Guatemalan medical clinic becomes more about the application to Bowdoin than the well-being of Guatemalans.  It's an epidemic - and in its way, not even dear old Wellesley High is immune… one of the best of the 37,000 nationwide, Wellesley High School… where good is no longer good enough, where a B is the new C, and the midlevel curriculum is called Advanced College Placement.  And I hope you caught me when I said "one of the best."  I said "one of the best" so we can feel better about ourselves, so we can bask in a little easy distinction, however vague and unverifiable, and count ourselves among the elite, whoever they might be, and enjoy a perceived leg up on the perceived competition.  But the phrase defies logic.  By definition there can be only one best.  You're it or you're not.
If you've learned anything in your years here I hope it's that education should be for, rather than material advantage, the exhilaration of learning.  You've learned, too, I hope, as Sophocles assured us, that wisdom is the chief element of happiness.  (Second is ice cream…  just an fyi)  I also hope you've learned enough to recognize how little you know… how little you know now… at the moment… for today is just the beginning.  It's where you go from here that matters.

As you commence, then, and before you scatter to the winds, I urge you to do whatever you do for no reason other than you love it and believe in its importance.  Don't bother with work you don't believe in any more than you would a spouse you're not crazy about, lest you too find yourself on the wrong side of a Baltimore Orioles comparison.  Resist the easy comforts of complacency, the specious glitter of materialism, the narcotic paralysis of self-satisfaction.  Be worthy of your advantages.  And read… read all the time… read as a matter of principle, as a matter of self-respect.  Read as a nourishing staple of life.  Develop and protect a moral sensibility and demonstrate the character to apply it.  Dream big.  Work hard.  Think for yourself.  Love everything you love, everyone you love, with all your might.  And do so, please, with a sense of urgency, for every tick of the clock subtracts from fewer and fewer; and as surely as there are commencements there are cessations, and you'll be in no condition to enjoy the ceremony attendant to that eventuality no matter how delightful the afternoon.

The fulfilling life, the distinctive life, the relevant life, is an achievement, not something that will fall into your lap because you're a nice person or mommy ordered it from the caterer.  You'll note the founding fathers took pains to secure your inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness-quite an active verb, "pursuit"-which leaves, I should think, little time for lying around watching parrots rollerskate on Youtube.  The first President Roosevelt, the old rough rider, advocated the strenuous life.  Mr. Thoreau wanted to drive life into a corner, to live deep and suck out all the marrow.  The poet Mary Oliver tells us to row, row into the swirl and roil.  Locally, someone… I forget who… from time to time encourages young scholars to carpe the heck out of the diem.  The point is the same: get busy, have at it.  Don't wait for inspiration or passion to find you.  Get up, get out, explore, find it yourself, and grab hold with both hands.  (Now, before you dash off and get your YOLO tattoo, let me point out the illogic of that trendy little expression-because you can and should live not merely once, but every day of your life.  Rather than You Only Live Once, it should be You Live Only Once… but because YLOO doesn't have the same ring, we shrug and decide it doesn't matter.)

None of this day-seizing, though, this YLOOing, should be interpreted as license for self-indulgence.  Like accolades ought to be, the fulfilled life is a consequence, a gratifying byproduct.  It's what happens when you're thinking about more important things.  Climb the mountain not to plant your flag, but to embrace the challenge, enjoy the air and behold the view.  Climb it so you can see the world, not so the world can see you.  Go to Paris to be in Paris, not to cross it off your list and congratulate yourself for being worldly.  Exercise free will and creative, independent thought not for the satisfactions they will bring you, but for the good they will do others, the rest of the 6.8 billion-and those who will follow them.  And then you too will discover the great and curious truth of the human experience is that selflessness is the best thing you can do for yourself.  The sweetest joys of life, then, come only with the recognition that you're not special.
Because everyone is.

Congratulations.  Good luck.  Make for yourselves, please, for your sake and for ours, extraordinary lives.


Very well said, Mr. McCullough.