I’ve had a couple of interesting conversations in the last week about networking, including a conversation about why I believe its important to network down as well as up and aside. These conversations reminded me of a time that Independent Singapore (As a matter of disclosure, this is a website that has on occasion picked up my blog pieces), interviewed me as an interesting case study as someone who had “fallen through” the cracks and had to work as a waiter. As part of the piece, they wanted videos on my stints waiting tables and I was advised that the videos should be as “pathetic” as possible.
The piece never aired and I wasn’t actually very good
at looking pathetic working as a waiter in my late thirties and early forties.
If anything, I looked, for the discomfort of most middle-class professionals,
probably a little too comfortable doing the job. Yes, the job was effectively a
dead end. However, I didn’t think of it as such. If anything, the job turned out
to be a necessary part in giving me the stability that I needed to start
building some savings and I am grateful that I still have the chance to wait
tables.
The other thing that this job did involve an incident
where I ended up working a lunch shift and when I took an order, the German
customer actually remarked to his work colleagues that he had never felt “so commanded”
before. I remember this incident because the question of what defines social
status and success has come into the conversations that I’ve been having in the
last week.
I’ve been thinking of this incident because the
question “Who you are,” and “What you are,” often get confused as the same
thing. Since this is the common understanding, I’ll go with it. The “Who”
question should be a question of character. For example, if you were to ask me
who I am, I’d say that I am an all-round gentleperson who believes that you
should speak nicely to everyone. The “what question” should refer to what do
you do and what do you have. I am, for the purpose of this, the business
development director in a professional firm that specializes in liquidations.
Unfortunately, the who and the what often become
synonymous and we start to assume that what a person does for a living or where
they live or what car they drive, define them and their character, talents and
abilities. I think of someone who tried to rub it in that I was an inferior
being because I was competing with people who drove “Ferraris” for her
attention.
In a way, it’s what you call, a sad truth of how the
way the world works. Hence, we all exaggerate on our CVs because the person judging
you will inevitably be impressed with “what you are,” and hire you based on
that believing that its “who you are.” I am guilty of it; hence I talk about
the “glamorous” parts of who I worked for, which function I was seen in and who
I rubbed shoulders with.
Unfortunately, confusing who you are and what you are
doesn’t just get you a job, it has a way of deluding you into believing that
you are the job you work in, your zip code and the car you drive. One only
needs to think of a young lady who talked about her “uncaring; elite face.” What
was she? The daughter of a very senior civil servant who made plenty of money.
Who was she? A sad brat setting herself up for a kicking.
One of the most difficult moments for a lot of people,
particularly the high-powered ones, is retirement. Suddenly, the job with the
big title and the swanky office goes. The people who flocked around them start
to slink away because they’re no longer useful. There’s an argument to say that
men, particularly high-powered ones tend to have miserable retirements because
they lose their purpose in life. Shutting up and letting your successor get on
with it is not natural for someone who has grown used to being in charge of things
(hence the Singapore solution of creating retirement cabinet jobs for senior
ministers and dare I say “minister mentors” for Prime Ministers who can’t let
go.)
Its best to avoid confusing the two and you find that
the people who are genuinely up there, don’t. It usually the sad ones in
professional circles who get confused between the two and often do their best
to hide impotence by being nasty to those they believe are beneath them because
they think that what they’re getting is social respect.
Some of the most successful people that I have the privilege
of knowing (people who create listed companies or have access to wealth funds)
are the people most willing to take the subway. I think of the way Polaris, now
Intellect Design Arena remembers me – the man who got the Chairman to ride in
the MRT. These are the guys who have separated who they are from what they are
and been successful in both aspects of their persona. Warren Buffet who has
made more money than most still lives in the same house he did three decades
ago. Surely there’s a lesson there.
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