Recently, one of my colleagues unexpectedly announced his resignation. This was actually his second resignation in a couple of years…he had left and then returned…but this time was moving on for good. This happens with some frequency in today’s world, and not just in my field. These days, anyone with a marketable skillset shifts jobs with some frequency.
I think of my father, who worked for the same company throughout my childhood, finally retiring while I was in college after decades of “service” to the company. The idea of this is foreign in today’s vocabulary. Workers just don’t do this anymore. As soon as something becomes too irritating with the setting of one’s employment, one moves on.
In a way, I think that this is a sign of a positive change in the power dynamic within the workforce. Those with in-demand skills ultimately hold more power in the employer-employee relationship, because they can (often quite literally) have a new and competitive job tomorrow if they suddenly decide that this one isn’t working out. The burden of performance lies with the company to take care of its workers and keep them happy, and this is a good thing. I wish that it were more widespread.
All the same, I’m convinced that the lack of permanency in our culture is damaging, because it makes our human interactions more fleeting. When we lived in Raleigh, I did a contract gig in which I worked with a completely remote team. I really liked all of the people with whom I worked, but I never met most of them. We were spread out all over the world, and, despite some great conversations and a lot of commonalities between our different cultures (parents just understand each other), you never form the sort of connection that you do when you interact with someone face-to-face. I feel as though I came so close to forming a real relationship with some of those colleagues, but never really achieved a connection.
Synergy is one of those things that just happens with a team, something that’s either there or not. Despite what organizational coaches try to teach, you can’t force a creative spark and camaraderie. When this connection happens, it’s great. I’ve experienced it profoundly in ministry groups and professional settings, and it’s motivational to keep going back and doing the work. The issue is that, in the business world, these groups are almost always, in my experience, broken up because of some organizational shift that is perceived to have a greater potential for profit.
Or, as happened a couple of weeks ago, because people just simply move on. The resulting impermanence breaks the connection.
I think that this is why marriage is intended to be permanent, and also why parent-child relationships are so strong…because the permanence is just hard-wired in. There is no choice in that relationship. My child is my child, and I am her parent, forever.
I’m left with the thought that I need to make more of an effort to remain connected with people in my life. I exchanged contact information with my colleague, but we haven’t spoken since he left. I don’t want my friendships to become victims of this impermanence. Even with some of my oldest friends, the act of remaining intentionally in touch with each other is more difficult because we have moved to different geographic locations. Essentially, we’ve introduced yet another type of impermanence in doing so. Is it possible to keep these friendships intact? I have to think so. Before emails people wrote letters, and many friendships endured for years over great distances.
Yet, we’ve moved on. I still recall a theatre group with which I volunteered years ago. We were a ministry group. They were my close friends. I still wonder at times today what advice they would give me for situations with which I am confronted. I can almost hear their words to me…they echo in my head. Yet, I haven’t spoken to them in so long.
The relationships withered because I moved away, because there was a greener grass on the other side, because it was what had to be done. There was motivation, there was dissatisfaction, some valid and some otherwise. This created impermanence, which drew my friends and I apart.
When my colleague moved on, I sighed, adopted a “chin up” attitude, and kept going through my day. One can’t let oneself become sad about these sorts of things. People move on…it’s what we do. Just as I have moved on from so many friends, from so many places, in search of the next thing.
I’ve gained a lot. Yet, I’ve lost so much.