Monday in my head

Every Monday I have an existential crisis. It starts at exactly 10:00 A.M.

Let me set the scene. Monday morning we have a Management/Sales Meeting immediately when I get in. (Yes, I go into work at 10:00 in the morning.) The meeting includes Enthusiastic Sales Guy and The Boss Man (a.k.a The Big Idea Guy.)

I love Enthusiastic Sales Guy. He is unfailingly positive and tenacious out in the field. Rejection just bounces off of him like those crazy, rubber balls that we used to get out of gumball machines when we were kids. He moves on to the next prospect with unabated optimism. Enthusiastic Sales Guy has been selling for a long time. Let's just say that he started well before computers were so ubiquitous. He is not very technically savvy. I am always helping him figure out little problems with his email and his laptop. I get annoyed sometimes, but I give him a lot of credit for trying to use technology as much as possible, even when it is not one of his strengths.

The Boss Man is the classic entrepreneur. He is not afraid to take risks and he is always pushing us forward. I call him The Big Idea Guy because he’s constantly coming up with new things to try and new angles to pursue. One of the main reasons the company has grown so much is that he never stops thinking ahead to what is next and pushes endlessly for us to do more.

Big Idea Guy has absolutely no understanding of how much work goes into executing his Big Ideas. We just created a beautiful new marketing piece – twenty pages of gorgeous pictures using our product along with all the calculations and pricing needed for our distributors to easily sell them. A week after we first talked about doing it, he was wondering why it wasn’t done yet. I said, “Are you crazy?! Do you have any idea how much work this is?”

We work well together. I have no problem smacking him back into reality and he’ll take a step back and let us do what needs to get done.

So first thing on a Monday morning, Enthusiastic Sales Guy and The Big Idea Guy are sitting around the table. I have only a few sips of my large coffee in my belly and the caffeine has not had too much of a chance to start flowing to my brain. Enthusiastic Sales Guy starts his report about what he has recently heard from our customers on his visits. Can we do this? How about we start that? Can we send some of those to all four hundred customers?

Big Idea Guy has a list of his own. We need to do this and that. Can we change those? Oh, and here’s a whole brand new thing that we need to do immediately.

And that’s when it hits me.

Why am I here?

How did I get here?

Does any of this really matter?

So much busyness. So much energy expended. So much of my own energy and internal resources used up... spent... depleted...

And for what? So we can try to sell more stuff that nobody really needs? Stuff that doesn't add a bit of authentic meaning or true fulfillment to a single person's life?

Oy.

I sip my coffee, take notes and plot my escape.

Mädchen im Romanischen Café (Berlin) 1911 by Lesser Ury