Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Bridge, meet Match

Generally speaking, burning bridges is a bad thing.

Here's a prime example of why: I worked with a man (we'll call him "M'kay") for a long time. We fought like cats and dogs--M'kay treated my staff pretty horribly--but for some reason, I always fought fair (I had a few opps to play dirty, and for some reason, didn't engage. Pretty unlike me.).

Then, about 2 years ago, I had an interview for a dream job. Like almost all dream jobs, this one was for about 1/2 of the salary I was making at the time, so it wasn't feasible. But the person that interviewed me introduced me to someone else, with whom I totally hit it off, and they are now a client.

Then through them, I was recently doing some work and came across M'kay. Who is now a huge VP at a HUGE company. That's looking for a firm. And wants me to do a proposal.

See? Burning bridges: bad.

But then there are times that, no matter how hard you work, what you try to accomplish, you're met with negativity and complete lack of reason. And the more effort you put into it--and, even more strangely, the more effective you are--the worse it gets. It's almost always due to lack of leadership, sometimes in concert with insecurity or lack of vision. Sometimes they're just spiteful and evil.

And then, well, hand me the gasoline. Because I gots to go, and on my way out, use words like micromanaging, infighting, poison and bile.

So goodbye, my sweet. May my blood, sweat and tears somehow pay off in the end. Because at the end of the day, that's all that really matters.

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