I recently got let go from yet another job. It was the same confusing rhetoric that I get every time that I get fired.
"Um, Caleb, you're doing a great job here..."
"Awesome. Thanks."
At this point, I assume the conversation is over and try to get back to whatever it was that I was doing.
"We've never had anyone that has been able [make sales, lift furniture, sort junk, whatever it is that job is] as well as you."
"Sweet."
Again, trying to get back to work. All of these compliments are great but there are things to do. And if I don't do them, no one's going to.
"But, the thing is..."
Uh, oh. This sounds very familiar....
"Everyone here is complaining that you're an asshole."
"What?"
Generally, it takes me by surprise. I guess it really shouldn't anymore. I have pretty high expectations about the work that I turn out. I believe that if we can keep our minds on the task at hand and do our work with care, than we can turn out absolute quality every time. It doesn't happen all the time and their can be minor slip-ups but it is essential that we all try.
For the most part, I have never felt that from any my co-workers in what you would consider a "straight job". Most people that work those types, the button down, tie-wielding, would-you-like-fries-with-that? are the type of people that don't like to think for themselves. They want someone to tell them what to do, they do it passably enough that no one yells at them and then they go home. They're happy as long as they don't have to engage or apply themselves. I hear often from these people, "Hey, slow down. Why are you working so hard."
It kind of upsets me. Why the fuck are you doing a task if you don't care how it turns out? Why are you wasting the time of our employers and customers? And I don't see that attitude from the people that I work with creatively. I'm sure farther into the field there are lots of these fucks that have found themselves a cozy little niche and are milking the clock like suckling pigs. But the ones that I meet with care very much about what they turn out. They care how their products reflect on them because their name is going to be attached to it.
So, I got let go again last week. I was doing a wonderful job, my boss says, but all my co-workers hate me. They say that I'm being an asshole but really I was just asking them to step up their game by doing the best that I was capable of. So I figured instead of crying and scrambling to find yet another straight job that will inevitably crumble out under me in another year so, I'm free-lancing. It's just time.
I've been training for almost a decade, refining my drawing, writing and acting. I understand the creative process. I know how to find inspiration and how to work it out so that the idea becomes fully realized. Now all I need to do is get paid. Sure it will be a lot of hard work, stressful, dealing with the unknown but its better than the feeling that I am in place where I'm constantly failing because I'm surrounded by people that have given up and no longer give a shit. Those feelings are contagious. I had to get out before they finally consumed me.
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