Versatile Voids 3/01/09

At the end of the day it really comes down to the quality of what you're doing.

Michael Vartan
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Are you ready? Good.
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There was an item in the news about a teenager who lost her job because she complained on her face book about how boring and tedious it was and her boss read it.
That's too bad. But there's a life lesson or two involved in that unfortunate event. One of them, of course, is "keep you big mouth shut" but that's not the important one.

I don't know of any enterprise in life that doesn't have tedious details connected with it that have to be done in order to get to the interesting parts, even in order that some one else can get to the interesting parts.

Unless you have been among the very rare lucky (or unlucky) ones you have had to face a pile of uninteresting details to handle, tedious, time consuming and well beneath your intellectual capacity. No one likes to admit it, because it sounds like a justification of some sort, but the care and excellence with which those tasks are done eventually affects the way the whole enterprise turns out. Another part of that lesson is to learn that excellence itself is the real task and the more one can practice and achieve it the more likely is one to be given the more important tasks.

Yeah, yeah! We know all that! But the fact is you never get away from those little things. What you do is to learn to keep the big objectives in mind.

I have spent my life as an entertainer, but in the beginning I stuffed envelopes, alphabetized address labels, mopped floors, washed dishes, rotated stock, kept files, added columns of figures, usually for businesses that had nothing to do with my career. But I learned to do things correctly and efficiently. I learned what quality of work was.

I played the bass drum in a town band. It takes very little versatility to do that. You just have to keep a steady beat. But the band depends on hearing that beat.

When I got into theatre I found myself doing things like mopping floors, washing dishes and keeping files. And if you think there is no tedium involved in being an actor, try memorizing a major role in a 200 page script. The other actors and the production itself depend on you getting your words right.

It's a matter of respect. Respect for the work, respect for others and self respect. The stage is cleaned, vacuumed or swept, before every performance. Why? It's a matter of respect. The actors get there words right. Why? Same reason. The painter cleans his brushes, The musician keeps his instrument in tune.

To learn to do all things well, and not in a haphazard way, can be learned at the envelope stuffing table and there should be no complaints about it. And that's a lesson in quality that many of our late business leaders evidently never got the chance to learn.

I know people who "can't be bothered" with the details, and then one day their shoes don't fit or their careers don't fit. On the other hand I know an actor who will spend hours with the costume designer .making sure every detail of his clothes is just right so that when he walks on the stage he looks and feels exactly the way his character does.

Excuse me now. I have to wash my dishes.

DB
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Carry on.