Twenty years ago today Andy dropped me off at my very first job with the State of New York. It was at the Department of State, and my position was officially called ‘Data Entry Machine Operator’ which was salaried at a Grade 5. I distinctly recall my nerves as I walked into the elevator for the first time. Alone in that confined space as it brought me to my work floor, I thought of Madonna’s entrance for the ‘Drowned World Tour’ which I had seen just a couple of months prior. She stood there rising into view as the smoke cleared – alone and taking on the world completely by herself – and I thought if she could do that then surely I could manage to make it through the day. My next thoughts turned to Andy, and the little bag of snacks he had made for my lunch. If he could be there waiting to pick me up at the end of the day, then I would be all right. As I stepped off the elevator and into the world of state work, I had no way of foretelling that two decades later I would be just a few buildings down on Broadway, high on the tenth floor looking over the Hudson River, and beginning my 20th year with the State of New York.
My state journey has been somewhat of a winding one, considering that most people I know have only ever worked at one or two agencies. I’ve been fortunate enough to have spent time at five separate agencies, and in each one I learned various lessons that helped me along in my career. A detailed diary of those adventures can be found in the links below, so there’s no need to delve deeper into it here. Instead, I’m pausing to reflect on having lasted for twenty years, and to appreciate the various friends I’ve made along the way. They know who they are, and the parts they played are celebrated in the Confessions links below.
When I was at the office the other day, I wondered what my 26-year-old self would have made of my 46-year-old self – with the lines and the gray hair and the extra bit of padding around the stomach. The people I admired and looked up to then were the ones I still remember to this day for their kindness and fairness, and I realized that those were the goals I was still trying to achieve. The other thing I realized as I was talking to Sherri and mentioning our time in the state was that exactly ten years from today I would be eligible to retire. That suddenly didn’t seem like such a far way off. The first two acts are done – there’s just one more to go… and I’m not in any hurry.
Confessions of a State Worker Part 1: “Each man had only one genuine vocation – to find the way to himself… His task was to discover his own destiny – not an arbitrary one – and to live it out wholly and resolutely within himself. Everything else was only a would-be existence, an attempt at evasion, a flight back to the ideals of the masses, conformity and fear of one’s own inwardness.” – Herman Hesse
Confessions of a State Worker Part 2: “I don’t like work – no man does – but I like what is in the work: the chance to find yourself. Your own reality – for yourself not for others – what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means.” – Joseph Conrad
Confessions of a State Worker Part 3: “This is the real secret of life – to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.”~ Alan Watts
Confessions of a State Worker Part 4: “No work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
Confessions of a State Worker Part 5: “There is no time for cut-and-dried monotony. There is time for work. And time for love. That leaves no other time.” – Coco Chanel
Confessions of a State Worker Part 6: “Becoming is better than being.” – Carol Dweck
Confessions of a State Worker Part 7: ““Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.” ~ Mark Twain
