My Career, Such As It Is

Your Hidden Talent

You have the power to persuade and influence others. You're the type of person who can turn a whole room around. The potential for great leadership is there, as long as you don't abuse it. Always remember, you have a lot more power over people than you might think!

What's Your Hidden Talent?

Yesterday, I took this test when I was visiting the extraordinary blog, Buddhapalian. It did get me thinking about how to write the note you will see below and how to reflect on where I have been and where I am headed. My career, such as it is, officially ends on 12/31/07.

I know. You thought blogging was my career, right? It sure feels that way sometimes. I do love this so and these months have brought me much happiness and fulfillment as I blogged. It has caused me to work on my writing skills, hone my reasoning ability and to just think more deeply. Oh- and how I have learned! And I do so love learning.

Not the least of it is all of you. Yes - you. How lucky am I to know such an amazing and diverse group of individuals? Funny, smart, acerbic, tender, clever and so much more. I always say I lead a very charmed life and this is proof positive of it.

Lately I have been very busy and not on the blogs so much. It is frustrating to not be able to see all of your blogs more regularly. One of the reasons - jet setting of to Hollywood was but one - is that I am tying up the loose ends of an almost 20 year career at my employer.

I started there as a salesperson in 1986. I leave there as a Senior Vice President. When I look at that title now, I think about a pair of shoes I have worn for years that hurt my feet. Then one day I took them off and thought - Wow! So this is living!

But I can't say I hated it. I did not. What I loved mostly is that it was all about people and some very amazing people at that. (Including my clients, like our friend Dcap.) There were many gifts to be had along the way and I am grateful for all of that.

Herb Kelleher, founder of Southwest Airlines used to turn the equation around and say the prioritites for making folks happy should be this:
* Employees first
* Customers second
* Shareholders third

Which is pretty much the opposite of any Wall St or Harvard MBA outlook. And I could not agree more. If you don't take good care of your folks you won't have customers and that will, I can pretty much promise you, your shareholders.

That sadly has changed in the corporate greed-based culture of our time - for most companies anyway. Shareholders and senior executives, step right up! Employees and customers, too bad for you. Yes, this is a generalization, but more true than not in many, many businesses. It is sad.

So I leave my place at the table there. I always say my career was more by default by then design. It was not in my plans at all to end up with a big title and fancy office, but I did get that.

Anyway, I sent a note to my co-workers and I have, for reasons that are not entirely clear to me, decided to post it here. I was very lucky. Not for what I did for the folks there, but for what they gave me. It is great to leave it on a high note.

So far I have gotten so many nice notes back from so many folks too. It is deeply touching and gratifying.

Now, I must reinvent myself. I have options. Writing is the most compelling thing to do, but the pay is not so good right now! And I do need cash money until I sell that house.

I am a certified personal and business coach, but I have dragged my feet on doing that, I am not sure why. Maybe a business to do coaching and business consulting? I am good with people projects for business, not things, so that would have to be the focus.

And while I am great at helping others find their goals and dreams, both practically and otherwise, I kind of suck at it for myself.

Are there investors out there among you? Someone who wants to fund me? It is always worth asking.

Anyway- goodbye my employer. Goodbye fancy title and reasonably good size office. Goodbye expense account.

Hello new life! My note:

As I begin this note, a certain irony reveals itself... I am in seat 16A on a Continental Airlines 757. Hmm, just how many hours of my Company X career have been spent in a seat like this, computer open, typing away? Let’s not answer that question, but just move on for now.

Actually this note has taken me far too long to write. Every time I start it, I get about this far and…. Oh, does anyone have a tissue? I feel more than a little bit weepy right now. Very, very weepy! So here I am at the 11th hour, trying to get this done. Sound familiar?

Where was I now? It seems utterly inconceivable that on March 3, 1986 I walked into the door of 1290 Avenue of the Americas, took the elevator to the 37th floor as I dealt with a real bout of nerves. I entered what was to be my new office, on my first day of work. It was more than a little overwhelming to me at that time.

At that time there was no voicemail, no computer and as a result, no email. And in what now seems like a dream state- no blackberry. We were veritable Luddites. Actually we were Luddites, but that is another story for another day.

It is humorous to think that on that same day, as I left said office and feeling more grumpy than nervous at this point, I thought “if I make it here one year that will be lucky.” We can see how that worked out!

Actually, I made it 9 years and then I departed. Somehow though, like the moth to a flame, two short years later I returned. And here I am today. For the moment anyway!

Working here has occupied the bulk of my career. Yes, there was the post-college rep firm stint, followed by not one but two madcap adventures at local television stations that uniquely prepared me for so much of what I did here. And then… here. Oh yes, there was that Crate&Barrel era, but I tend to think of that as my sabbatical year! Remember- moth? Flame?

Here means a lot and far more than a company name, a physical place or an institution of sorts. Here means a lifetime of remarkable events to me. Here really means all of you.

Truly, I was very fortunate to do many jobs here – I started in N**, and then went to some wacky offshoot department called Tweedle Dee that was (sorry Pat, Terrie, others…) at the time, a true island of misfit toys. (Don't let my sarcasm fool you- it was the very best island of misfit toys ever. For me. For this company.) That was when it was thought that desktop software for our clients was at best an unpleasant phase. An unpleasant phase that would quickly end.

Progress doesn’t work that way though, doesn’t it? As a result, the years from 1987-1995 saw exponential growth in software and development. There was indeed a time when one might have called me a techie. Stop laughing – technology was a different story then.

We did everything back then- selling software, servicing software, working with developers, taking client calls, training clients and employees. It was controlled chaos and we accomplished so very much with so very little.

We had big dreams. You know that truly excellent client helpine in that we have? Well, back then we had no budget, two tin cans and a string and a lot of guts. We pressed on. How many mocked Terrie and me?! It couldn’t be done! You couldn’t tell us that. Well you could and many of you did - but we did not listen. And while ours was not what you see today, we did put in the foundation.

And I will simply say two words here that will either strike fear or a belly laugh into the hearts of those who recall this – TV YOUKNOWWHAT. Enough said. It is an inside and not particularly funny joke to a certain few of us who lived through that.

All that took its toll however, and I began to hunger for something else, so I departed. And then it was déjà vu all over again when I was rehired a scant 2 years later.

Upon returning, I came back to a new incarnation of my old world, stayed there ever so briefly before transitioning to N** and the LA office. Honolulu, Las Vegas and Albuquerque desperately needed attention and then some in the case of the latter two, and I was the one to provide it. Hey- someone has to go there, right?

Then it was back to NY to manage what was then National Client Support. At that time, I had a hunch that it would make really good sense to have one support organization for Local and National. It had worked before; it would work again, only better. Oh how they laughed. Well not everyone, thankfully. So that came next and we added in our sister Company B for good measure.

If I were to single out one thing from my time here it would not be software, research, statistics, measurement or anything like that. Oh yes- that did matter, it mattered as it still does - a lot! However, if I were to single out the one paramount thing about Company X it would be this- people.

You see, I’ve managed to make it this far before I got weepy again. But here we are. Tissue please.

There are far too many of you to say good-bye to and to thank personally in this note. Please forgive me for not being able to write to more folks one by one. Time is a harsh taskmaster and has not allowed for such. Plus I am guaranteed to start crying like a baby if I do that. Yes you mean that much to me.

This place has shaped me and changed me in ways both personally and professionally that I could not even begin to enumerate here today. And by this place I mean the people in this place. There are not words to say all that I would want to express.

I will say this, I think one would have had to go very, very far to have found a more committed and enthusiastic and engaging and passionate and professional group of people in a workplace. Even with its less than happy moments, this has been an extraordinary place to be.

Over the years I have been generously blessed to work for, to work with and somehow to lead the most spectacular human beings ever assembled in one place. So if you are getting this note you are among that number. Especially if you worked on a team that I managed in some way. If I was successful at all, it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants and the giants are all of you. My debt of gratitude cannot really be counted, so please imagine that I am pretty much constantly saying "thank you" to you. That should work.

There is no way that I could begin to name the people who have touched me the most, but you know who you are. My gratitude is unending to you. Uh-oh- another tissue please!

And if I was at times cantankerous, borderline rude, truly rude, demanding, unyielding or just plain aggravating in some other way… I am sorry. It is my experience in life that one’s best quality and one’s worst quality is often the very same one. Getting some stuff done required a certain determination at times and I do have a propensity for being annoying. Perhaps I did not need to be as annoying as I was! In any event, I hope that you can remember me kindly and not... well, you know.

Mostly I hope you will remember me for my passion, my brief bouts of wit and/or my ability to turn a two sentence conversation into an hour long one. Like I have just done here!

What is next? Good question! In inimitable Company X style of another era, may I simply say, “Hmm, I am not sure. Can I get back to you on that?” And no, it is not at all likely that it will be at Crate&Barrel. There are none in Albany!

You see, this year has brought me marriage, an entirely unpronounceable last name, a stepdaughter and a new home and city. (Anyone want to buy a house in Nyack???) What next year will bring, who knows? There are many possibilities for me to explore and I look forward to the journey.

You know I could probably write a book of hilarious business travel stories! Or perhaps a book on how really amazing people work together to reach impossible goals and on a regular basis at that. Both options have promise, don’t they? Particularly the second one, I believe!

Should you care to keep up with this compelling tale and find out what happens next, this is where you can find me.

Until then - all the very best to all.