I had a video call last week with some frolleagues.
Frolleagues (n): those colleagues who have become friends. Similar to framily (those friends who have become family).
We were laughing about what we looked like, how we sounded, who we were when we first started off in our careers. Because of our friendly relationships, we really showed the most embarrassing stuff. There was 80s hair and 90s clothes; it was tragic. But it was also beautiful.
It got me thinking about how far I’ve come. And, it got me thinking about how far you’ve come.
It’s true: You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby!
When I was in high school, I wasn’t one of those cute mall girls who knew how to knot their t-shirts to the side just so, or scrunch their socks with the right zhush, or get the perfect curled and sprayed bang. So, I didn’t get the after-school job at The Gap, pretending to fold t-shirts while I worked and flirting with boys on my breaks.
No, that life wasn’t for me. Instead, I got a job at a hospital. I was a radiology techician’s assistant, and my glory would be earned wheeling pnuemonic old men from their rooms to their daily chest x-rays. I was about five feet tall and weighed about 100 pounds at the time. The gurney I pushed through the halls was easily eight million times more, or at least, that’s how the awkward elephant of doom felt to me as I tried to bang a left, whip a right, all while not yanking the IV out of a passing patient’s arm.
It was… awkward.
And, then, I’d get to the room. I’d wheel my gurney up next to the elderly patient’s bed, usually rousing them from some medically-induced nap, and they would spring awake, thrilled to have company. All the while, them telling me that they wanted to fix me up with their handsome grandson, I’d push the gurney next to their bed, arrange my body across my gurney while grabbing both their bottom and top sheet, and then — in a bolt of hip-driven leverage, press my body as forcefully as I could into my gurney, while yanking them off their bed to mine.
The patient always got there. The top sheet didn’t always. And, worse, sometimes the bedpan came along for the ride, but the hospital gown didn’t.
Yeah, it was a “shitty” job.
How do I know that you’ve come a long way?
There is a lot to be desired right now in our working lives. But, I can’t say that I’m not in a better place now than I was then. I’ve come a long way.
And you have too.
What was your first job?
Where did you think it would lead you?
Would that person recognize who you are today?
And, who does this mean you can become tomorrow?
None of us is limited by anything other than our own imaginations, egos, ambitions, dreams. Yeah, well, maybe we are limited by COVID-19 right now… but that is temporary. It will end, and there will be a tomorrow. What are you doing today to make sure that you are the person you want to be tomorrow? What are you doing today to make sure that you are a better version of yourself tomorrow? What are you doing today to make tomorrow less, well, shitty?
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