Before I become that guy who “can’t even remember what a 9-5 work week was like”
Before I “gag at the sight of a PowerPoint” as if I wasn’t the author of too many a painful presentation.
Before this beard gets out of control (it might be too late)
Before I shed my last layer of baby-blue Brooks Brothers button-downs.
Before I “never work another day in my life...” yuck.
Before I start sharing unsolicited anecdotes of the life-changing impact that freeing myself of “the system” has had on my well-being…
This needs to be said:
My eight years in “Corporate Life” were fucking awesome.
And the person who needs to hear that most is probably a future-version of me. I write this as a trail marker for that guy who may need a reminder of where he came from, before he sells-out to a popular cliche opinion in Entertainment that a corporate gig is a soulless, thankless plight.
You loved it and it suited you.
It was the coincidental timing of two events last week that has led to this moment of pause and self-evaluation. A moment that made me realize how far I am from the place I was eight years ago, and how much further I will certainly go from here.
June 18th marked the 8th anniversary of my first day working full-time post-grad at HBO. On the same day I was told twice that I looked like the Unabomber.
We will come back to the work anniversary, but first let's begin with the STRANGER who felt an unshakeable obligation to tell me about my doppelgänger.
Thursday evening I am out to dinner at a restaurant with a small group of people. After chatting us up and taking our order the owner of this fine establishment turns to me.
“Do you know who you look like?”
As is customary in any doppelgänger instance I reluctantly reply… “No I don't, but I bet you’re going to tell me, and I can’t wait to hear it.”
“That actor from that series Manhunt!”
“Haven’t seen it, but think I know the one. Isn’t the guy from Avatar in that, Sam something? I haven’t gotten that one before, but he’s a good looking, chiseled-jaw, rugged dude. I’ll take it! Thanks for sharing, oh and we could use a refill on waters.”
“Yeah Sam Worthington is the detective. No I meant the other one. The Unabomber.”
Well there goes your tip.
This guy was so adamant about this that five minutes later he came back with an image pulled up on his phone of the actor Paul Bettany as Ted Kaczynski.
The worst part… he wasn’t wrong. Uncanny.
So after a good long look in the mirror, and a haircut, I thought it was time for my exit interview.
Here are my thoughts…
In the midst of change we have a tendency to lean into comparison. It’s a vs. b or pros and cons. It becomes business or art, one or another, two opposing forces and a focus on their competing principles.
And sometimes that makes sense to draw lines in the sand, but sometimes it doesn’t. The mere fact that things are different doesn’t require that we magnify those aspects of the change.
Soon the pursuit of something new becomes equally about what you are leaving behind. All of a sudden we start dogging that thing in the rearview with cheap shots instead of acknowledging the role that it played to get you there.
So don’t do that. Instead remember the good stuff.
Even now as I try to wrangle up the right way to capture my experience I struggle to find the right moments, or anecdotes. Was it the travel? The events? The people? The education? Meeting Dwayne Johnson?
It is almost as if the more I try to say the further I stray from the thing I need to remember… but I mean The Rock, like he’s an icon, and moreover on your last day walking out of the LA office!? As he stormed into the elevator bay from the other direction I fantasized that he was going to blow a hole in the roof and as a rope-ladder dropped from a helicopter above he’d say “This way! The Future needs you!” Instead he asked if I would mind taking a photo, which I misread completely... “Ohhh of you guys...yep, you got it. One. Two. Three. Ballers”
Get back on track Jeff… Ok, so I will keep it to this:
Your career provided the platform from which you were able to build an identity of independence. Career ambition propelled you across the country, then across the world and eventually into a better version of you. You couldn’t have had it any better. Plus you met DJ.
So don’t you forget it…. you grimy, birkenstock-wearing, coffee-shop-table-hogging piece of- you know, you think you're so cool just tap, tap, tappin’ away on that keyboard. Well I got news for you. If you aren’t a paying customer you gots to go and no, that single shot espresso you ordered 4 hours ago doesn’t count.
Deuces,
a writeous dude