BROWN BOY

There is a kind of caste system where I work. It is defined yet nebulous, a kind of scapegoat musical chairs played out in a never ending cycle where everybody takes turns.
First, there is Golden Boy, you can do no wrong. In fact, when you fart, it smells of roses.
Then there is Yellow Boy, you are moderately annoying and inept. When the Designated Brown Boy isn't around, you catch the fallout. When you are yellow you strive to be invisible and hope Brown Boy comes back soon.
When you are Brown Boy, you are the piece of shit that got caught in the shoe of the owner, and you live for the day that someone, ANYONE, takes your place.
It appears that, after a long run as golden/yellow boy, I am the Brown Boy.
I can only hope that a tech who rarely makes a mistake but when he does it's always a doozy, happens upon a doozy... SOON.
Admittedly, I have been slacking on the organization of my area for a while. Clutter, while an accepted and somewhat treasured part of my personal life has invaded farther into my work than I would like. The presence of said clutter has propelled me to the station of Brown Boy. And everyone knows it.
I FUCKING HATE THIS!
C'mon tech! Gimme a Doozy and quick! I have learned my lesson...I'm a quick study, I know what I need to do and I'm doing it, in spades.
There are rare occasions where Brown Boy descends into Black Boy and your gone...driven out of the world of gainful employment by the folly of your employer, it is his habit to, on rare occasion, to desire a sacrifice. I would like to believe I am a valuable enough employee to avoid the dreaded Black Plague, but as I've mentioned before, the ways of the body politic are shadowy and dangerous, just when you think it's working out- WHAM!- you get another swirly to remind you of your current station.
I am reminded of a time many years ago, when I was out in the field and the owner had admonished me to wash my truck several times over a period of extreme busyness and I failed to do so. One morning I spied an FNG (fucking new guy) headed toward my truck to wash it. The owner had paid him 5.00 to wash my truck since I hadn't complied. I took his 5.00, gave him 5 of my own and confronted the owner, giving him his 5.00 back and said "point taken".
This is the same approach, bringing someone else in to clean up my mess and humiliate me at the same time. To make a point. I agree, a point needs to be made. But why the humiliation factor? I don't get it. I've managed lot's of people and never had to stoop to this kind of nasty bullshit to get them to turn it around. I'm just not that way. It reeks of gaminess and junior high school and unresolved issues.
I don't want to play, but I have to. And my job and the people I work with (including said owner) mean enough to me that I will correct my minor transgression and shine like that crazy diamond pink floyd sang about until the owner is satisfied and drops his gun, or someone else provides a transgression larger than mine for him to focus on.
This brings me to another point... Friends working together. It's a mean trick to pull off. When you have a group of people who can pull it off it's magic. I have been in such situations before and the result was a healthy happy work place, where friends could call each other on the job stuff and it wasn't taken as a personal slight. This particular kind of magic is transient and unpredictable where I work now...where most of the people I work with (including the owner) are friends.
I have learned a lesson here, actually remembered a lesson I learned long ago about the limitations of people...or rather recognizing those limitations and measuring your behavior accordingly.
I blew the dust off of my measuring spoons this weekend.(probably a good thing in the big picture...I had been slipping into happy puppy mode, go ahead and kick me, as long as you scratch me behind the ear later...I'll get over it)Not anymore brothers and sisters, I'm back in professional mode now.
And it saddens me to have to use them again when a pinch here and there used to do me just fine.
I know of a former Brown Boy who is singin' my praises right now, and to him I say:
you're welcome....Jack Ass.
:)