I graduated university cocky; my CV sexy, my interview witty and my job offer deserving of my name above the dotted line. Fast forward a few years and I'm torn apart and put back together, reprogrammed into an obedient puppet with an unfortunate case of people pleasing, banished into mundane corporate exile.
That's OK, I guess acting like I'm smart enough to run the company wasn't taken very well by senior management, and who wants to pick that battle right?
So I try to get my act together and switch strategies. Maybe my lack of experience (age actually) and my savvy accent (water is pronounced 'wader' in my neck of the woods) have a shelf life which expires as soon as the next mini me opens shop.
Beaten down and nursing a lukewarm mug of chai karak, I realize how exhausting it is to be smart. Not the bookish kind, nor the street type either, but the manipulating, influential kind that knows everybody (and their mothers) and is constantly two steps ahead of everybody else "smart."
I have since been on autopilot.
Doesn't life look more dandy when you just-stop-trying?
And stop trying I have. My boss thinks I'm one bored cookie and appears to be concerned with my lack of productivity/interest/noise/office entertainment. Mind you I'm not feigning sickness (nobody cares even if you are throwing up on your keyboard as long as you are delivering on time) but I have mastered the blue sky thinking with an air of disinterest, and this has pressed all kinds of buttons. To pull me out of this state of unbliss, The Boss opened the floodgates of the inner circle. I'm back doing things I thought I was running in my earlier corporate life, except this time I'm taken a bit more seriously.
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