On your own petard

I have to make not one, but two presentations next week, where I think I have something Important to say, to people that need to hear it. I am pretty sure that they aren't going to agree with what I have to say, mind you, but I now have sufficient street cred that they kinda have to give me a chance on the podium.

On The Other Hand, however, I have always strongly argued that the only people with a stong right to speak on whatever issues, are the people right down there in the trenches, dealing with whatever the issues realistically are. Y'know, street cred.

As in mine, as a sort of executive, are kinda getting a little thin.

Anyway, that can bite you on the ass: reality is that I cannot attend and speak up at meetings, until I get some serious trench work done, and getting that point across successfully was a serious relief because I might be able to break the engagements with a little less guilt and regret. Becaue at the end of the day, if you aren't doing the basic guns and butter thing, there is little point in higher strategy.

Well I put about 6 hours in today (Saturday), and will do the same tomorrow, and that is the time I spend in front of the computer working the spreadsheets and boilerplate, not the time I actually spend thinking about things, which is much greater. Which is interfering with my sleep, seriously. I am starting to dream in proposal-speak. I don't think most of my colleagues understand, how much mental time I spend thinking about stuff: I have a reputation for being fast, but really, it is all based on many many hours of forethought.

To put it bluntly, I am putting together the documentation required to ask the Government of Canada to give my organization several millions of dollars of tax-payers' money. While some of hoops are irritating and stupid (ok, a lot of them), a certain chunk of it is very good, making you re-think what you are doing and how and why.

It is getting more and more likely, that the folks that I hoped to speak to, won't hear from me. Because I am in the bloody trenches, fighting to make sense of what people in my sector do on arbitrary deadlines: if it doesn't make sense here and now, in the small places I can make it work a little, well, what on earth am I doing talking to a larger audience?

And what really burns me is my own arrogance. I do know how to fix this and that, but it is a very wrong and long stretch, when I start thinking of myself as a sectorial mechanic. I am no such thing, and every time I think I am, I can find a client of one kind or another that will bring me down to earth.

To say nothing of how I am from time to time short-changing the people that are close to me that I love.

Shanti.