Gyre
I don't spend much time on self-reflective introspection out of a combination of embarrassment and fear. It hasn't stopped me unloading onto one or two toking-buddies on a regular basis, but I try not to be one of those who becomes so intimate with their own navels that they're end up being dull or even toxic. The fear is also about having to focus on the things in plain sight that I choose not to see or wrongly ascribe to factors out of my control.
When I was a (sole black) first year drama student at university I was ever-so-gently cornered by all three of the lecturers and asked what I thought about playing Othello. I was surprised enough to think it was a joke and quipped that I couldn't play Othello (I was 18 and seven or eight weeks into a degree course) and that they were only asking me to save on make up (or something like that). The lecturers became red-faced and withdrew.
I have often thought about what might have happened had I accepted the implied offer and about how frightened the academics were about dealing with their only black student. Othello, along with King Lear became my favourite Shakespeare plays and later on I would JUMPED at the chance to play it. I read the part in performance when the lad playing Othello at the school where I taught broke his leg playing football on the day of the second night of a three-night run. Trying to convincingly strangle someone while holding and reading from a book is a task! So, was it just fear that made me chicken out?
A personal pattern I've noticed is a reluctance to take the big chair, or at least to keep it. People who know me at a perhaps professional level might be surprised to read that because I have led this and that, developed the other, founded stuff and all that, but when any plan came together you would see me stepping aside, identifying the new leader -almost "anointing" them. I founded a theatre company at university and gave power away to people with whom I then struggled but it didn't stop me repeating it later on. I have been influenced by people who misconceive my motivations as purely self-serving and egotistical, I realise that in most cases those people thought like that because that's what they would be doing! Nevertheless; I allow fear of being thought to be the grasping egomaniac to inhibit my development and even my advancement. I am really much less interested in people looking up to or generally blowing smoke up my ass than I get a dirty thrill from being part of introducing someone to opportunities to develop their lives, their interactions with others, their experiences of the natural environment of making communities. I prefer to be along for the ride rather than always in the driving seat.
As another crossroads looms on my horizon... Phew; I'm getting tired of this shit! The contents of an email (or possibly snail mail) informing me of the verdict of a funding recently-submitted funding bid will signal my latest direction change. If its a "yes" my plans to leave my job will happen, but since I made the decision to go I found even more reason to do it: after sucking it up about the pathetic salary for over a year I was sent an organisational chart showing the pay grade of each job. I am one of nine "Managers", six of them are paid at Level 11, two at level nine and I am at level seven: equal to the worker who does the MD's diary, Event Managers and Assistant Project Managers. I am paid less than the school-leaver who came, took pictures of a vacant business unit on his 'phone' and submitted a "report" three weeks later consisting of photographs with descriptive sentences and a lot less than several people whom I viciously characterise as mediocre and out of their depths except in the operational machinations of the organisation. I have moaned so much about what I discovered including directly to my boss there can be no doubt that I am pissed. The several people I've told I am leaving makes it impossible to stay, it is typical of me not be able to be stoic about things and force the issue.
If I get out... WHEN I get out, I need to make my community interest company work. I am beginning to doubt I am employable anymore: I come with a track-record of great achievement and spectacular railing against inept irrelevant or ignorant authority. I have flounced out of four or five jobs lol but I'll stand in any court and argue my case for each one! In fact; time has shown me to have been entirely right at The London Lesbian and Gay Centre, Actors Centre, Black Theatre Forum and Intercultural Arts and others lol. My current boss read my Linked In profile and characterised my description of my time working for the organisation who hadn't bothered to find out if they were allowed by charity law to employ someone to do what they hired me to do -as a "Rant!". I was taken aback. I thought I'd better edit it if it was making that sort of impression. When I read the piece it was SO edited and SO restrained that I decided anything less would be a waste of bytes. The boss's reaction is an indication of how I am viewed on paper before they then get an actual look at me!
I had an interview for a job doing what I do when I'm not under contract: writing funding bids, but this job offered a basic salary £10K more than I'm currently earning PLUS annual and New Business bonuses and a sackful of other perks. They were a couple of bright you guys, pleased with their £15m joint fund-raising total, I know that my boast of £19m - £21m is a reason I was one of the five candidates they saw. I knew it wasn't to be when I met them; the more 'jargony' they became the more it amused me. The interview went well I thought, but I wasn't surprised by the "you were great, we found a better fit" message came.
So; unless someone with the right resources comes across my cv and assesses my creative, training and management talents I think I'm better off on my own and in charge for my last hurrah! A community interest company isn't a solo entity. A couple of mates have been the reason the company has been allowed to exist and I will be forever grateful to them, but I really need them to be active in the company, which is not what I asked of them when they joined, but that was nearly seven years ago. It is probably unreasonable to expect these guys to get more involved when they're already doing their own things so I will need to find someone/people who get what I want to do and are prepared to step up to the plate for it. It was always a great idea, but I never had the resources to make it what it needed to be.
Still in debt. Still amazed by how such a comparatively small amount can be like a ship's anchor chained to my neck. Still shamed at the friends who've bailed me.
Realising (again) that I have MORE THAN PROBABLY missed the LTR route which is a bummer, no pun intended lol. Realising again how much that sucks... no pun intended.
If only...
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