An ex boss once told me, “It doesn’t matter how hard you work, if you’re just spinning your wheels in one place.” And he was right, of course. But I thought that the reason someone who works hard would be spinning their wheels is only if they don’t understand what to do, or how to go about it. And if they are someone who has always sought to learn, and always asked questions, and those things are true, than what it really says is that nobody has ever cared enough to be willing to help.
Now, for a boss, that’s really counter-productive. Why would you see an employee who you know works hard, and wants to do the right things, and just watch them spin their wheels. My whole career I wondered that. Not that I didn’t get anything done, but I know I could have done way more, and consistently looked for direction I never got.
Outside of work, I’ve had even less success. Not because I didn’t work hard, but because I understood the parameters even less, and got even less guidance. But perhaps far more criticism and judgement. Even asking straightforward questions, I never got straightforward answers. People either figured I should know on my own, or didn’t care enough to “figure” anything.
I largely taught myself programming, every new technical circumstance I encountered, I largely worked my way through. Likely much less effectively than could have been, but to a large part I got the job done. On my own hardship. But programming has rules, even if often complex ones, and even if often you have to tweak those rules or find your way around them. But at least the basic rules made some sense and were things I could learn.
People make no sense to me. Even at almost 68, I’m as confused as ever – and after the past few years maybe even more so. People so often say one thing, but then contradict their words with their actions. And the human personality is far more complex than the most complex programming language. And there seem no real “rules” within it. Maybe guidelines, but only ones that are always in flux.
I suppose I am too much like Mr. Spock from Star Trek. To me, too much of what people do just does not compute, and my every attempt to make sense of it just has me spinning my wheels. Unlike Spock, though, I cannot rely on my Vulcan side, I am a human, and emotional, and want to succeed at being one.
Or at least, I wanted to. Lately I’ve seen so much “human” that just scares me. Too much hate, too much lack of compassion, too much willingness to see others suffer for personal gain. I must have seen the whole “human programming language” all wrong. Because that’s not what I ever thought it meant to be human.
But it still hurts me. Spinning my wheels has been hard work and frustrating and depleting. And I only ever did it because I wanted somehow to help all of humanity stop spinning theirs so much. Because just because I always saw I was, and wished not to be doesn’t mean I didn’t see that others are spinning their wheels too – only so many of them seem okay with that.
featherpresents 