David McElroy

An Alien Sent to Observe the Human Race

Some of us don’t seem ‘wired up’ to stay sane working for others

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Every time I work for someone else, I spend a lot of time fantasizing about quitting.

I love work. I enjoy being productive. I get excited about accomplishing goals. But I chafe when I work for others. It doesn’t matter who the boss is. It doesn’t matter how well he treats me. If I must take orders from someone else, I’m unhappy — no matter how nicely the orders are given.

Early in my life, I always blamed the boss. For years, I thought that each boss I had was dumber than the last one. I’ve told you before about how my arrogance about my boss almost got me fired from my first full-time job. (I really should have been fired, but luck got me promoted instead.)

The pattern continued. Every boss I had seemed terminally stupid. I knew more than they did and I had no respect for them. Even though I obeyed their orders — for the most part, at least grudgingly — I chafed and I knew I could have done their jobs better than they did.

It took me a long time to have an epiphany.

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I accept others’ amateur media, but I expect myself to be a pro

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I listen to a lot of podcasts and watch a lot of online video, almost none of which is produced by broadcast professionals.

The production values of what I watch and listen to varies greatly. Some are pretty decent, but most are pretty awful compared to something from a traditional broadcast network. The sound quality on most of these shows is terrible. The video quality is laughable. They tend to be poorly edited.

So why do I listen to so many podcasts on which the people are amateurs who sound like average folks sitting in a coffee shop chatting? And why do I watch videos with random backgrounds — laundry or whatever happened to be sitting around when someone started the camera?

Why do I eagerly listen to such shows — such as the one I was listening to on the way home tonight — while I expect myself to produce network-quality audio and video before I can allow myself to move ahead?

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In a vulnerable moment, woman confesses she’s scared to change

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I didn’t get a good look at her face, but I saw enough to be pretty sure it was Elizabeth. She was sitting alone in a black Lexus in the parking lot of the fast food restaurant where I had just eaten. I hadn’t seen her for a couple of months, so I walked toward her car and called her name as I approached the partially open window.

As soon as she turned her face toward me, I regretted approaching her. She looked as though she had been crying. Her makeup was a mess. She looked lost and very alone.

“Are you OK?” I asked. I couldn’t think of something more appropriate, so I asked the obvious.

She looked away and I was afraid she just didn’t want to talk. We don’t know each other that well, after all. I had never seen her in a moment of vulnerability of this sort. I had only known her as a charming, intelligent young woman who always had herself perfectly together.

After a long moment, she turned back to look at me. Her face was almost emotionally blank.

“No, I’m not OK,” she finally said. “Everything’s wrong.”

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