Corporate life, you have to love it. Working in a consultancy environment, with clients that are dictated by the whims of Wall street is, well, interesting. Nearing the end of the year you spend your time waiting for Godot. Budgets erode away quicker than Artic ice in a microwave, projects get postponed, to that magic point where they emerge into the next year, maybe. Political games are played harder, sensitivities emerge more sensitive, accentuated by hourly rates, geographic location, gender, diversity, language, level, connections, hope and early Christmas carols. Decisions are phrased, rephrased, polished, re-polished, vanish into the waiting room of stuff about to happen, before they join next year’s budgets, maybe… where they will be postponed, eventually. Plans are penciled out in meeting rooms to do better, faster, quicker, with more ROI, and will be discussed in conference calls, next week, before Christmas, before Easter, but soon, really.
Q4 is the time where corporate world waits for Godot. Vladimir meets Estragon, Didi meets Dodo. The modus is waiting, rephrasing, and ironing it out in splendid PowerPoints. Meeting rooms are hard to get in December. Windows get steamy on the inside, wet on the outside.
It reminds me of J.P., best personal coach I ever met. Ex Airborne trooper, hard as nails with a hernia. Cold as frozen carbon. Liquid Freon in the veins. Eyes that burn through armor. I still can hear the gasps when we first saw his foot, or better what was left of it. J.P. amputated three toes while climbing a silly mountain in Alaska. They were frozen, going gangrene. The toes that is, not the mountain. J.P.’s wisdom is simple. You roll the dice, cut through the bone, and let it bleed. You kill it before it kills you. Don’t wait for a new year. Sometimes, you have to hammer nice.
I really miss J.P. Especially in Q4’s waiting room called Godot…
Charming spot 😉
