The Business Of Being Yourself

I wish I had had a career in acting.  Starting when I was age 9 up to when I was in high school, I was heavily involved in the local community theater.  Even though I worked both onstage and backstage, I really loved acting.  I would play any part, just to be on stage.  For example, I was the dead body in "Arsenic and Old Lace" that was carried from the window box to the basement.

By the time I got to high school, I was ready to be the star of the troupe.  But the competition to be part of that was fierce, and as a freshman, I remember the Drama Coach having no interest in my past resume.  I did receive parts in plays, but they were insignificant.  No offense to William Christopher, but playing Father Mulcahy in M*A*S*H was a total drag, and an endpoint to what should have been the beginning of an illustrious career.  I thought I should have at least been playing Trapper John.  I mean, what were they not seeing?  I had the skills.  So what was the problem?

The problem was I was an actor and I couldn't act like one.  I said I was a actor but it was easy for others to see, I really did not have the chops.

After high school,  I never tried to be a professional actor and thus I floated from one job to another.  I had a brief job in a plumbing warehouse.  I blew that job because I thought warehouse work was beneath me, and that I needed to be working in the office and up through the ranks to management.  My attitude got me kicked out.  Ironically I came to realize how much I liked warehouse work, and years later gladly accepted another job in wholesale.  Through hard work, perseverance and lack of a bad egotistical attitude, I did move up the ranks there.  More importantly, I had my first HR experiences there and this is where I cut my teeth.  The great thing about it was HR was the role I was born to play.  At first I had no idea what I was doing, and there was probably some acting going on in those days.  But I realized something that I did not realize in high school, if you want to play the part, you have to rehearse.

All of this talk of acting, HR and high school, has me thinking about the movie, Romy & Michelle's High School Reunion. It's a silly movie that has a great message: be yourself, and if no one else likes it, too bad for them.

My favorite scene is when they pretend to be successful "business women".  But they have no idea what it really means.  It takes a simple question from a waitress to start them on their journey toward this realization.  (It's sort of Zen like, if you think about it).  The next stage after this scene is them trying to cover up the notion even further.  The truth comes out, they're revealed as frauds, and they eventually realize what it means to truly be successful business women.

In some bizarre alternative universe, this was my life.  When I worked at the plumbing warehouse, I really believe I could have said, or thought the dumb things that Mira Sorvina says in the scene below.

This brings to mind all of the people who passed judgment on me as I started this HR career path: the recruiters, the hiring managers, and other stuck-up HR folks who brushed me aside because I did not fit the mold.  I find it interesting now that I encountered so many people that believed they were in a position to set criteria for another individual's professional development.  It's interesting because they were wrong.  And I was right.

All in all, the role that one wishes to play, is only the business of the actor who wants to play it.  Especially if the role is just being yourself.