Pooling with the heart

Ambition

I work at a very large, institution of higher education and for the last 10 years I’ve reported to someone, who reports to someone, who reports to someone, who reports to the president. I guess you could call it 4DS or 4 degrees of separation. But this year, I am in a new position and I now report to someone, who reports to someone, who reports to the president or 3DS. Just one degree of separation closer but I feel as though I am in a completely different world. As it turns out I discover – I am. I am now in a world completely populated with “Type A’s”. That’s “A” for Ambitious.

They are everywhere. They are: In before 8. Not home til’ 6. In back to back meetings every hour of the day, every day of the week – sometimes double or triple booked. Often skipping lunch. Never taking breaks. In on their days off. Unlikely to take all of their vacation in any given year. The number of high priority, urgent, large scale projects on their plate at any given time is absolutely mind boggling. And what’s more mind boggling is that in the midst of that they will often volunteer to take on more work.

Just last week one of our Directors laid out her latest six-month plan at the weekly Directors meeting. There she sat – wide eyed, fresh faced, teethy grin spreading from ear to ear. All listened attentively as she painstakingly laid out the complex array of grandiose priorities, projects and plans. And then at the end – the smile widened just a bit as she declared “This is a very ambitious plan”. And at that moment a simultaneous wave of smiles, nods and approving murmurs spread throughout the room. Yes, yes, said the Vice President – A very ambitious plan. We must give her our full support. Yes indeed was the unanimous reply.

You see, down a level at 4DS – they’re not like that. Oh sure, there’s a few lunatics who burn the midnight oil and take on big harry audacious goals, but they’re the minority, and often they don’t stay down there very long because they get promoted. At 4DS, most people just don’t operate that way. They don’t look for more work than they have the capacity to do. They say “no” to one another when things get too busy. They go for coffee. They eat their lunch. They take their vacation – All of it. It’s not that they don’t work hard or never put in more than the minimum – They do- often. But they have limits, they know their limits and they keep their limits.

One of my fondest childhood memories was the arrival of the annual Christmas letter from our over-achieving cousins. We would rush to the kitchen table and my oldest brother would offer to read it aloud. Quickly he would scan and pick out the most boastful, self-aggrandizing sentences he could find. “Oh, Oh, listen to this one he would say”…“Edward has progressed to level 10 of the Western Music Academy and will be playing 1st clarinet in the Ontario Youth Orchestra this year. Andrea is progressing well with her ballet and has won a scholarship to the Julliard school of dance. It is a very competitive school with only 1% of applicants who get in so we are very very proud of her” …. “Oh my God, Give me a break- my brother would interject. My family would erupt with laughter. Then my other brother would chime in and suggest “we should send them a letter from our family.. “We could tell them, Scott was recently suspended from school for 2 days for beating up on the disabled kid at school. Hopefully the kid will recover.” I would laugh so hard that tears would fall down my face. These are my people.

So I’m in the midst of an odd kind of “supersize me” experiment right now. But instead of overdosing on fast food I am overdosing on work, commitments and deadlines. The symptoms though are remarkably similar. Insomnia, clouded thinking, exhaustion, irritability and perhaps the strangest of all – the more I take on, the more I crave. It will be short term though. It has to be. I’m not wired for this. Never was. Never will be. But for now I will continue to study this strange ambitious breed and explore their limitless world. -AG