team colors

Pride.

Why so revered? It's a known deadly sin. Without it we seem without purpose, and drive. We want to take pride in our homes, pride in our work, and pride in our relationships. Yet it truly is an ugly animal, mauled over time by connotation and misuse.

A vision for it has been on my mind lately, as I have tirelessly expended myself attempting to create an atmosphere where pride can live and grow at my tarnished workplace. I have held all of the power, and none of it likewise. When it slips things go to shambles. This was the case when I arrived on the scene two and some months ago. Morale was in the toilet. Energy was held at a whisper. And anger ruled in a slow rumbling, underneath the surface of this place that leans a little to the west into a literal slowly digesting sinkhole.

I have held onto my pride with all my might. I value these things. Home. Work. Connections. I fight till last breath for them. Sometimes it's my own undoing. I don't always seek a tangible pay-off. I find worth in the action itself. I've always enjoyed kicking up dust, so to speak. I am terrible at being stagnant. I react like an animal in a cage, clawing and biting for any alternative.

I have been trapped here for some time, navigating instead through varied travails I've encountered. I didn't expect to be working for this company so long. It was the first shark that bit. Then I fell and fell into what came next. Inadvertent responsibility is tricky. I have invisibly done more than I have with note. I don't enjoy drawing attention to my contributions. But when you're a number, and little more than a dossier, to an amorphous corporate unit such as this, it becomes necessary evil, and a skill I don't have well tailored.

What I see as braggerts and bullshitters, the machine sees as success stories. I have fundamental disagreement with this methodology. It brings to mind a close friend of mine, who is (amongst other things) an actor. He doesn't believe the hype of his own cheerleaders. And he doesn't like to promote himself and network. My experience in the creative industries has shown the colors of these actions to be a self-congratulatory jerk-off cream toned mess. I can fully understand wanting to avoid it at the cost of... dare I say, pride.

(234)