Greetings shredders! For those of you that read my blog
regularly, you may have noticed that lasts week's instalment was
somewhat metaphysical (in the smart stupid way). This week I've
decided to get back to basics a little bit and stick to something
that I know and that I'm that sure more people can relate to.
I'm sure there are many of you who have been in a situation where
you've given your opinion on something and have been told to stick to
what you know and not try to cogitate on things beyond your area of
expertise. Well as snowboarders, I think we are all super geniuses
in our own right. Last week's Daily Barns serves as an example of
what can come out of a snowboarder's coconut, no matter how ludicrous
(in fact the more ludicrous the better). Lukas Huffman is a
snowboarder and generally thought to be a very smart fellow; he's
working on a book/DVD called IR77 which explores the raw side of
riding so it's clearly not uncommon for snowboarders to have good
ideas. What does this all mean? Snowboarders know stuff. The story
I'm about to relate to you provides evidence that when you have a
question, ask a snowboarder, we know everything.
A friend of mine is currently unhappy with her job. We used to
work for the same company a few years ago and since then I've changed
jobs several times. She thought she'd ask my advice on leaving a
company without burning any bridges. Being the nice guy that I am, I
thought I'd help her out in any way I could reminding her that I
don't have much in terms of “industry experience” so my advice
would be strictly extrapolated from logical foundations. She was
cool with that so, fighting my initial instinct to use this as an
opportunity to find out what it takes to get fired, I proceeded to
tell her what I thought would be the best way to plan an “exit
strategy” without ruffling too many feathers. Over the next hour,
we mapped out a plan based on a “difference of ethics” which, if
set up properly, would make it appear as though her departure would
be mutually beneficial for both parties (I should probably go into
politics). I don't want to get into the details of the plan here
since it was pretty long, but let me just say that the word “endgame”
came up on at least one occasion.
With a plan of action in hand, my friend was in good spirits. I
told her however, that she should ask for other opinions; usually if
you take the sum of everyone's point of view, the truth lies
somewhere in the middle. She decided to ask Mr. P, the former VP of
finance and CFO of the company we had previously worked for. This
guy is a big wheel locally in business; a few years ago he was on the
list of top 40 executives under 40 so naturally he'd be a wealth of
experience and knowledge. His advice dimmed her spirits however,
because he effectively told her that she needed to stay put for a
while and that there was no way to part ways on good terms. When she
told me this, I said “OK let's put this in perspective for a
minute”
Mr. P = Top 40 under 40 in business.
Me = Snowboarder
“The decision is a no brainer” I said. In the end,
she agreed with me and decided to take my advice over Mr. P's.
So the morals of this story are the following:
-
When looking for truth, take the sum of all
opinions first; you'll find the answer somewhere in the middle.
-
Ethical reservations are always a good tool to
justify leaving a job and doing so on good terms. Alternatively you
can accuse the boss of giving the receptionist herpes (unless you
are the receptionist in which case it should be the
handle bar mustashio'd custodian).
-
If you have an important life decision to make,
ask a snowboarder we know everything. Maybe Snowboard.com should be
the new Wikipedia... let the knowledge be shared.
I'll leave you all now to ponder about these morals. But in the
spirit of sharing the knowledge (a good friend of mine once told me
that sharing is caring), there should be an advice column run by
snowboarders; I think I'll call it “Ask Dr. Shred.” Send
questions for Dr. Shred via personal message, I'll see to it that he
gets them and will do my best to get him motivated to impart his
eminent wisdom. Please be sure to put “Ask Dr. Shred” in the
subject so I'll know which messages are for him, and which are for
me, and don't feel bad if your queries go unanswered, after all Dr.
Shred IS
a snowboarder and may be too
busy slashing some pow to slash the metaphysical. So until I
receive universal enlightenment...
Keep Shreddin'
the GNAR!
J.
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