Boss of the Known
My smile had faded to pursed lips. “You have one month to complete this project. Can you do this?” said a voice somewhere far away. My internal calculator was computing the amount of effort needed. Five teams. Three people per team. Over 100 pieces of content. My heart was bursting with questions as my voice said yes followed with a nod. The pixels on my computer screen formed something resembling a notion of approval. Trying to multiply these large numbers together returned “Too large to compute” error message long after the Zoom Call ended. In my reflection of the current black screen, I could see two eyes penetrating encased in a face of fear.
My gaze is directed at the same screen, as the clock counts down. Instead of black, words and words began to fill the blank document and then... fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. The smashing of keys commences. This is the stage of the writing process where I play a game typing “fuck” as many times as possible. Expletives galore! For this timed writing assignment, my subject is finding a meaning for life vs. being alive. I can’t help but wonder if this present feeling is somewhere on the spectrum of being alive. If so, maybe being half-alive is more my style. The seconds tick by as I sink further and further into my chair, helpless.
At our second meeting together, his hands were ruffling through his hair. “Zach, I need output.” Prior to this rendezvous, I created an effective plan to gather information, get feedback, and then use this information to propel the project forward. And it was tossed with the same care as an extra napkin in a fast food bag. Create and do were my action verbs. Each piece of the project wasn’t backed by facts, but by the need to cover up with “output.” You can hide a one-hour meeting with lots of information. I was adding white power to this capsule I called a project to satisfy my boss’s desire for more.
My cursing game is still on-going. My hands sift through my sprawled hair as I bring my head down to a forceful yet silent plea. The cursor is blinking unfazed. It’s mocking me. My inner body is a frantic feature of fireworks, but my outer body is dampened and dull. This feeling here is a mixture of pressure yet immobility. I need output, but no matter how much effort I muster, my fingers cease to move. With my slouched shoulders and frantic thoughts, I float in the void without a ledge to push off.
“I need this in a different form,” he says in our third meeting. I eye my boss carefully, more as a specimen than an authoritative figure. He starts to backtrack on his original request without identifying any of my faux-additions to the project. The veil lifts. He may not show any sign in his face, but this boss who started less than a month ago, was struggling with the uncertainty of what he was supposed to be doing. His past experiences were not able to help him overcome the deficiencies of what he did not know. And I, the worker, fabricated pieces to comply.
As I look at the computer screen with the three people online, I am not able to hold my tongue for long. I vent my frustrations to my writing partners. In response, a phrase is gifted to me. “Write what you know.” It seems simple and as I entertain this notion the emotions I deal with grind to a halt. Instead of meditating on how I finish this writing assignment, ideas start to spin off possibilities without the need of effort. This is the transition from the unknown to the known. Starting at a place of knowing to move toward the unknown instead of the opposite.
You can call it ego, but inside my head was my own new boss. He has always been there; however, urging me to take on grandiose projects, but flailing when things inevitably go awry. More words, more output it screams and then gives up without making any sort of dent of progress. This is the plight of tackling things in the realm of the unknown. When you start with things you know nothing about, it may seem like upper management (your readers) will light up and hail you Most Original and Most Insightful Thought Leader. But to get there requires bridges that need to be built from what we do know to what we don’t. Or you can bullshit, just never yourself :)
So settle down and write and create from your own experiences. It’s what you have and there is a beauty to them. You know more than you think. So believe in who you are and what you’ve done.
