A very well-liked and relatively long-tenured member of the Suns/Mercury sales team celebrated his last day at work today. We sent him off with the traditional meeting in a large conference room, sharing stories about the employee and offering a Suns basketball that everyone has signed. In my 14 month tenure, I've seen my fair share of these send-offs, but none so tearful as this. He is taking a job with the Yankees, a dream job in the sports world, and he moves to New York TOMORROW! His friends from work cried because they might not see him again, but what surprised me more was that he cried.
I don't know him super well, but he seemed to bemoan his position there for these last couple months. He joined whole-heartedly in the lunchtime bitch sessions about work, offering hilariously cynical commentary that bordered on bitter. He probably shared more serious concerns about his job in the company of a few close friends. I'm sure he was excited to be getting out of a job that no longer fulfilled him, but on this day, you would never know. He could barely get through a speech in which he thanked his managers for shaping his work ethic, his fellow employees for the laughs and support, and executive management for their generous involvement with even the lowliest of sales staff.
The situation today in that conference room made me think of an idea from the Shawshank Redemption. One man paroled after 50 years behind bars pulls a knife on another prisoner. It's decidedly out of character for him, and Red reasons that he does it in a last-ditch attempt to stay in jail. Red explains, "These walls are funny. First you hate 'em, then you get used to 'em. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on 'em. That's institutionalized." While I don't equate work to prison, I do see similarities in that as much as we complain about it, we spend most of our lives there, most of our relationships are with co-workers, and it gives us purpose, a reason to wake up in the morning. This job is unique, too, because most people who come to work on the sales floor aren't from Arizona (the guy who left today was from Kentucky), so your whole life in Phoenix revolves around work and work people. We come to depend on it for everything from compensation to career development to friendships for a decent social life. That's institutionalized.
I'm sure he cried for more reasons than one. It's overwhelming to leave behind what you've known for two and a half years. He starts a new, bold chapter in his life tomorrow. He finally got out, and I wish him all the best.
I don't know him super well, but he seemed to bemoan his position there for these last couple months. He joined whole-heartedly in the lunchtime bitch sessions about work, offering hilariously cynical commentary that bordered on bitter. He probably shared more serious concerns about his job in the company of a few close friends. I'm sure he was excited to be getting out of a job that no longer fulfilled him, but on this day, you would never know. He could barely get through a speech in which he thanked his managers for shaping his work ethic, his fellow employees for the laughs and support, and executive management for their generous involvement with even the lowliest of sales staff.
The situation today in that conference room made me think of an idea from the Shawshank Redemption. One man paroled after 50 years behind bars pulls a knife on another prisoner. It's decidedly out of character for him, and Red reasons that he does it in a last-ditch attempt to stay in jail. Red explains, "These walls are funny. First you hate 'em, then you get used to 'em. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on 'em. That's institutionalized." While I don't equate work to prison, I do see similarities in that as much as we complain about it, we spend most of our lives there, most of our relationships are with co-workers, and it gives us purpose, a reason to wake up in the morning. This job is unique, too, because most people who come to work on the sales floor aren't from Arizona (the guy who left today was from Kentucky), so your whole life in Phoenix revolves around work and work people. We come to depend on it for everything from compensation to career development to friendships for a decent social life. That's institutionalized.
I'm sure he cried for more reasons than one. It's overwhelming to leave behind what you've known for two and a half years. He starts a new, bold chapter in his life tomorrow. He finally got out, and I wish him all the best.
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