of cabbages and kings

Earlier this week I had a disturbing exchange with a senior officer who is not my direct supervisor but nevertheless holds significant sway over my tasks, evaluations, and future job opportunities in the unit. He was in a particularly jovial mood, and stopped to ask me why I looked so tired. "Aren't you getting enough sleep?" he asked. This was a loaded question, since he has been monitoring leader resiliency in our organization. My current job placement is a departure from the usual competitive track, and was designed to allow me to regroup and complete my master's degree while maximizing time with family prior to any future deployment.

I explained that I usually sleep 7 hours per night, but that I rarely feel rested, and that I feel more like a thirty-something than a twenty-something. "Well, you look about 30 to me," he laughed, "so at least you look younger than you feel!" Several pairs of ears who had been tuning in to our conversation now became raised eyebrows. "That's so wrong, Sir!" I laughed, but could feel the resentment welling up. I have often wondered aloud whether leaders like him can see past the shiny veneer they create in their organizations, to look into the faces of the people who make it all possible. Surely our dissatisfaction, exhaustion, and existential crises all register there and must count for something? Do such leaders ever wonder about their own contribution to that angst? Here was evidence, it seemed, that at least this one did, but having weighed things in the balance, he came out believing that I, not he, was most likely to blame: "are you getting enough sleep?"

I should have offered, in support of my next statement, that at least I had stopped crying on a weekly basis at work, and this was significant, given my history of chronic stress and borderline depression in this unit. I started to remind him, with a smile, that we haven't achieved the best track record for taking care of our people (deferring their education, calling them in to work at odd hours for trivial things, making 14 hour workdays the norm for leaders). "I can't fix what happened in the past!" he responded, still jovial. He was consummately comfortable greasing the propaganda machine, and well aware of the eyes and ears around us.

"But what if stress is like a hot weather injury?" I asked, accessing one of his favorite safety sermons. "What if it's cumulative? It probably takes time to reverse its effects!"

It should be noted that this sustained volley of debate with junior officers is not typical of every officer at his rank. That, at least, is hopeful. Knowing from experience that the majority of eyes and ears in the room were on my side, I offered that maybe it would get better when I moved to a new duty station. This triggered a litany of examples demonstrating how the "grass ain't always greener." Some of the examples included peers of mine who left the unit for greener pastures and found themselves, as it were, out of the frying pan, into the fire.

The propaganda machine, it seemed, was reaching its zenith for the day, and the conversation shifted abruptly to other things. I felt like the oyster who tried to sound the alarm, as one by one the others left their oyster bed to be devoured in Lewis Carroll's poem, "The Walrus and the Carpenter." I had not been hustled, but had anyone else heard me?

Mostly, though, I had the nagging feeling that I had been sized up as a potential hustlee, who could get other oysters to march with me. Did I appear that foolish? Could I enter the propaganda machine, and join in all the talk of "shoes, and ships, and sealing wax" as if they were all interchangeable things, of equal value? In the currency of organizational culture, this is what happens all too often. We equate people with positions, skills, and identifiers while trying to talk about them as multidimensional human beings with souls and families and ambitions and limits. It is no wonder that "smart career move" becomes synonymous with "rough home life" by lunchtime, and "you don't want it bad enough" and "poor time management" become the best excuses for superiors to blame subordinates for their own management failures. The result is that we don't listen to the people who do the legwork of our organizations, instead presenting them with rigged scenarios and fear-mongering to keep them from leaving for a better work environment or job satisfaction.

I payed attention in my philosophy survey course, and I like to think I can smell a false dilemma a mile away. What is saddens me is how many older, "wiser" people have felt it necessary to administer them to me or my peers and subordinates. It always sounds benign enough: "Well you know, [that other job you want] can be really stressful, too. I know someone who left it to come here because they couldn't take the stress and time away from home." This is unfortunate, because it overlooks what is arguably the most important thing about one's work: a sense of calling, of aptitude and of personal satisfaction. This vocational imperative is often worth more to people than all the money, job security and praise in the world. This means that the person who is working in his or her vocation is likely to be more motivated, adept, and resilient. It is entirely possible then, that one set of work conditions is ill-suited to one person, but advantageous and desirable for another. In this sense, when my commander and I talk about career progression and opportunity on the one hand, and my personal vocation on the other, we are each comparing cabbages and kings, and can never agree.

Despite the current job market slump, which is a small factor in my decision to give the Army another two years, it bothers me how many times people try to convince each other to stay in, for fear of not finding a job on the outside. At twenty-something, if someone considers you talented and competent, they don't tell you, essentially, not to look for better circumstances than the ones you've got--unless they have ulterior motives. It's generally understood that it's just too early in life to settle for less than your best.

I can't blame anyone who scouts for talent and strives to retain quality and experience within their organization. It's self-interest and loyalty that drive this process, and both are healthy impulses, but healthy self-interest should also drive individuals to bargain for more favorable working conditions within their organization. The take-it-or-leave-it approach to hiring only works for people with an external locus of control--people who have left themselves no other option. Organizational culture should be flexible enough to find the best conditions for its members, since this has long been associated with productivity. When organizational culture does not work for individuals, people can leave and market their skills elsewhere.

So, the false dilemma that forces a twenty-something with marketable skills and well-honed aspirations to choose between the monster she knows or the monster she doesn't know is a sham, and a poor recruitment or retention strategy. I am just glad to have the cognitive tools to call this one what it is.