Making a short story long...
In my second life, the one with me away at school, the one whose story is yet to come, we had a saying: "You can't do this at a state school."
As is usually the case, there is a story behind the saying. The college I started at was small--tiny--and private. I was a Communications Arts-Media Sciences major--which meant that I was a radio and TV geek. Because the college was so small, the department had maybe 30 kids in it at any given time, which meant that freshmen were utilized in capacities that could only be dreamed of in larger, better-funded programs. At a University, freshmen ran cables, they did not run cameras. We ran cameras.
Sometimes, though, as were were packing the truck after a football game--or, more likely, standing on a podium behind a camera in the rain in 45-degree weather at a football game, one of us would turn to the others and say, "You can't do this at a state school." We meant it sarcastically sometimes--if I were at a state school, we wouldn't have this crappy equipment, we'd have a better truck, we'd have more people for this shoot, our equipment woudn't be out of date. But, there was an underlying sincerity to the phrase, because we realized that we really *couldn't* do this at a state school--if there were more of us, we wouldn't be getting the individual experience that we were getting--and that made our circumstance bearable, knowing that we were getting a better education, even if it was harder.
If we were at a state school, we wouldn't have to work so hard. If we were at a state school, we wouldn't get to work so hard.
So fast forward to now, to my sixth life, by my count. I work for an impossibly small company. I like it this way--being small means that we have flexibility, that we get to do things that just can't be done in a more corporate environment. Yesterday, for example, we had a woman come in and give manicures and pedicures. In the conference room.
The other side to the coin is that, when there's work to be done, everyone is expected to pitch in. There's no "not my job" mentality. There aren't enough of us for that. The work is what's important, and the work is everybody's job.
Which is why, two hours after my pedicure, I found myself on a loading dock unloading a trailer--two, actually--of chairs at a client site. It was me, Beth--in her first week on the job-- and the client, along with the understaffed installers. I was there to QA the chairs as they came off the truck; Beth was there to watch and learn. But when we arrived, we learned that they were short-staffed and we were pressed into service pulling the chairs off, counting them against the manifest and staging them in the elevator bay. It was...well, it was hard, but it was quite a bit of fun, actually. I found myself thinking quite a bit, however, about the absurdity of the situation. Only at *my* company, I thought, can you get a pedicure in the morning and unload a truck in the afternoon.
You can't do this at a state school. :)
As is usually the case, there is a story behind the saying. The college I started at was small--tiny--and private. I was a Communications Arts-Media Sciences major--which meant that I was a radio and TV geek. Because the college was so small, the department had maybe 30 kids in it at any given time, which meant that freshmen were utilized in capacities that could only be dreamed of in larger, better-funded programs. At a University, freshmen ran cables, they did not run cameras. We ran cameras.
Sometimes, though, as were were packing the truck after a football game--or, more likely, standing on a podium behind a camera in the rain in 45-degree weather at a football game, one of us would turn to the others and say, "You can't do this at a state school." We meant it sarcastically sometimes--if I were at a state school, we wouldn't have this crappy equipment, we'd have a better truck, we'd have more people for this shoot, our equipment woudn't be out of date. But, there was an underlying sincerity to the phrase, because we realized that we really *couldn't* do this at a state school--if there were more of us, we wouldn't be getting the individual experience that we were getting--and that made our circumstance bearable, knowing that we were getting a better education, even if it was harder.
If we were at a state school, we wouldn't have to work so hard. If we were at a state school, we wouldn't get to work so hard.
So fast forward to now, to my sixth life, by my count. I work for an impossibly small company. I like it this way--being small means that we have flexibility, that we get to do things that just can't be done in a more corporate environment. Yesterday, for example, we had a woman come in and give manicures and pedicures. In the conference room.
The other side to the coin is that, when there's work to be done, everyone is expected to pitch in. There's no "not my job" mentality. There aren't enough of us for that. The work is what's important, and the work is everybody's job.
Which is why, two hours after my pedicure, I found myself on a loading dock unloading a trailer--two, actually--of chairs at a client site. It was me, Beth--in her first week on the job-- and the client, along with the understaffed installers. I was there to QA the chairs as they came off the truck; Beth was there to watch and learn. But when we arrived, we learned that they were short-staffed and we were pressed into service pulling the chairs off, counting them against the manifest and staging them in the elevator bay. It was...well, it was hard, but it was quite a bit of fun, actually. I found myself thinking quite a bit, however, about the absurdity of the situation. Only at *my* company, I thought, can you get a pedicure in the morning and unload a truck in the afternoon.
You can't do this at a state school. :)