Choose now before you know who's looking

I sit here in my office this evening wondering how we all wind up where we are.  Some happy, some not so much, others dark-eyed and deeply sad, others miserable beyond rescue.

It has been an an eventful month. One long-time employee has been put on leave, another is being reviewed, unbeknownst to them, and two more are in the hopper.  At least 2 of the four should have been given the opportunity to be employed elsewhere long ago.  No one wanted to be the executioner.  We are too pained, it seems, to be honest with people.  We cloak it in terms that indicate caring.  If we dug deeper, I'm certain the person we care about is self. We cannot be honest with another person about their short-comings lest it bring our own to the surface.  That is what is painful for us.

Staff have complained that the way management has chosen to redistribute their workload is punishing the low performers.  It was actually designed to reward the high performers.  Sadly, in doing so, there will be an opposite end to the spectrum.  Nature has simply designed the universe this way. We are not all equal.  We will never be.

They are angry, and have grieved.  They are furious that the work they could have done is not recognized.  They are only being judged on what they actually did.  They might have worked harder, they seem to indicate, had they known there was going to be a judgement at some point.  "Can't we go back" they ask.  "This is too cold, too calculating."  "We need another chance."  "We need a different formula"  It is hard on all of us.  But, the dye has been cast.

I have reflected  tonight on the familiarity of this tune.  I have heard it elsewhere.  "Life," my old Pop would say, "is a series of choices.  Choose now, before you know who's looking."  I have struggled to be obedient to that most of the time- off and on I miss a beat- but I'm trying.  I wonder if I will reach that shore, the one less distant every day, and say to the Divine Mangaer of all things, "We need a different formula.  If I'd realised you actually meant it, I'd have tried harder...I didn't have enough time...

Pop was right.  Choose now, before you know who's looking