A Grey
Boy
Grey. As longhaired students, looking
across the generation gap, we all thought the working world would be grey. And
so, while we still could, we would tie-dye our T-shirts and we’d paint our microbus
chartreuse. Books about the dreaded capitalist world, from the short-haired
1950’s, included The Big Company Look,
The Organization Man and of course
Sloan Wilson’s The Man in the Grey
Flannel Suit. Often I would escape into such books, but when I emerged,
there I was: A literate nerd feeling grey, surrounded by longhaired self
described rebels, all in lockstep with each other, all believing they were the
first generation ever to realize they were destined for a grey adulthood.
I first heard the phrase, “Teenage
wasteland” around when the British memoir made into a film To Sir with Love spun off a TV series, Room 222. In one of the TV episodes a shorthaired track star protests,
“That’s not funny!” He says this when a gleeful longhaired student gives an
irreverent class presentation about one of America’s founding fathers. Later,
out on the field, the longhaired students can’t take pole-vaulting seriously: they
giggle and laugh. Outnumbered, the earnest student fumes. Meanwhile, back in
the staff room, concerned teachers note how the track star would have fit in quite
well and been quite happy, back in the 1950’s… my favorite decade.
One day, living in a grey wasteland,
as I was grimly counting down the weeks until summer, something “magical”
appeared in class. Truly. Before the teacher arrived, a student produced some
juice cups from home where he could make some paper magically disappear! He had
a big smile, and we all smiled too. It was crazy: We may have been too old for
such corny magic tricks, of such an outrageous homemade variety, but no, that
didn’t matter. Students desperate to be “cool” could have criticized him, but
no, —he pulled it off. In our trapped lives he offered us a “bright” and we sure appreciated it. I
took note, but I didn’t truly grasp the lesson. Not then.
A Grey Man
Brights have power: That summer I
read in some book how the greatest serial hoaxer of the age managed to keep
fooling reporters because he offered them a chance to write what reporters call
brights: stories that cheer people up. Also, he was careful to announce his
stories during the “silly season”: the late summer when congress is not in
session, nothing’s happening, and reporters must resort to stories about
sightings of the Loch Ness monster. My favorite hoax was two jokers in the
1950’s announcing a new charity to “cloth the animals” so the poor beasts would
be decent. But their joke backfired: To their embarrassment, bushels and
bushels of cash came through the post office—there were so many Americans eager
to give the animals some clothing! Hey, don’t you laugh at people of my
favorite decade: Just a few years ago a TV commercial used pixels to camouflage
a talking cow’s udder—obviously even today there are people still offended by
bare naked animals. (Not like me and you)
I left school and I got a job, a
job bereft of tunes. Oh well, at least on carefree weekends I could still
listen to songs: I remember one about a beach bum “Taking Care of Business” and
someone jeering at a suit-wearing “Bus riiider.” Although back in school I had
noticed my first bright, the lesson hadn’t sunk in… for years I just kept my
head down to the grey grindstone.
In
a world… of long commutes and boring suits;
Plan your work and work your plan, give your
surplus to the man;
Break
your backs and pay your tax, on Sundays eat your applejacks…” Thank God for
unions and Sundays. And say, whatever happened to that nutritionally challenged
applejacks cereal?
A Life With Brights
Then one day I lifted up my head
and wondered: Just how conformist are
my fellows—aging shorthaired non-rebels—in their modern polyester suits? Could
they handle me doing a bright? There was only one way to find out…
It helped that I was friendly, not
arrogant. I’m ever mindful of Nobel Prize winner Bertrand Russell, born in
straight-laced Victorian days, saying that if you are going to be nonconformist
then you need to make it clear, even to the stupidest, that you are not
criticizing them. Russell managed to be seen, in his words, as “a licensed
lunatic.”
…I discovered that even Mr. Big
laughs when the water cooler contains a rubber fish. I found out: If I were a
respected colleague doing good work then if my heart were in the right place my
co-workers would treasure any of my brights. (Even as they groaned)
I think for doing brights it helps
to remember a certain role in “group dynamics.” In college, as our instructor
covered group roles, he asked us, “Who is the ‘group central comedian?’” and everyone
pointed at me! …Oh. I hadn’t thought anybody noticed; I was pleased to be
recognized as filling the role: This meant I nobly used humor as a means to
help the group accomplish its task. Quite unlike the “group central clown”: He
basely uses humor to help the group be distracted and run away from the task. (Like
in high school, out on the field) Not me. Better appeal to the group’s best
motives, because even as they laugh the group knows full well whether you are
helping or hindering.
These days life is good. Yes, even
though I am a part of “the establishment” and the “older generation,” a runner
of the rat race, a spinner of the hamster wheel… On weekends I often have a dinosaur
hanging from my pocket. (On a keychain) At the mall perfect strangers ask where
I got my ball cap. (My Neighbor Tottoro)
At my weekly “Free Fall” writing group folks smile and ask me to open my vest to
show my latest wearable art. (T-shirt) At toastmasters people speak up if I am
slow to put out on my table this weeks “object d’art.” (Often something classy from
a comic book store)
I won’t offer examples of any
workplace brights—your brights have
to fit you. I believe if you relax
and “set your intention” to be helpful, then, over time, appropriate brights
will occur to you. I think if we give them a chance then our co-workers are far
less uptight than we had feared.
So go ahead, I’m pulling for you;
we’re all in this together… In a grey world, we need all the brights we can
get.
Sean Crawford
A friend of Nessie,
Planning to soon visit my old buddy
the Ogopogo,
Summer 2013
Footnotes:
~Alas, I couldn’t manage time off
to see the Ogopogo this year. Oh well, at least it’s nice to be so indispensable
at work.
~Here’s a link to Playfair, a
competent company I respect… for their caring committed work concerning
campuses and corporations, not corny but carefree, convincing co-workers to
come together in convivial cooperation.
~Come to think of it, the coldest
proof that US congressmen are only legislators, not leaders, is they won’t
contact Playfair to come and confront them in their “house divided” craziness.
~Speaking of Washington, from the
Ronald Reagan years comes this gem: A corporate trainer was addressing a room
of CEO’s and Vice-Presidents. “How many of you voted for Reagan?” All the hands
went up. “I see. ‘Hail to the chief.’ Now, how many of you would trust him to
run your smallest division or factory?” Not a hand went up.
~In Canada the members of
parliament voted themselves obscene salaries because, get this, they “didn’t
want to lose anyone to the business world.” … There’s sure a lot of humor in
this world, you don’t have to look very far.
~Let’s not be too “shorthaired
serious.” A white man attended a conference on substance abuse, where most of
the attendees were members of the First Nations. (Indians) They were discussing
and hearing some horrible stuff. The white man was confounded when the last
speaker on Saturday, a respected native elder, proceeded to get them all
laughing with a series of funny stories. So later he asked the elder if he
could explain his behavior. Easy: (While perhaps the attendees already had more
information than they could usefully digest and act on…) the elder had observed
that by the end of the day “people’s packs were getting heavy.” (And they still
had to get through Sunday)
Application: At work, when a guest
lecturer is intently droning on, then I will proceed to get us laughing if, and
only if, I am the last commenter just before we go into a break.
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