Do you really want to know?

“And try to picture the man
To always have an open hand
And see him as a giving tree
See him as matter
Matter fact he's not a beast
No not the devil either
Always a good deed doer
And it's laughter that we're making after all”

- Jason Mraz

I recently ran into someone I worked with a few years ago on a flight to San Francisco. I guess I never really thought about how much that happens to me. I run into someone I know on every trip I take and it doesn’t matter where I’m going. It’s almost like the entire United States airport network is a giant campus. If that’s true, then the funky underground tunnel at O’Hare is the main mall walkway in the “middle” of this giant campus. In the heyday of my travel load, I would walk down that tripy strip and wave at people I knew going in the other direction. I haven’t thought about this in a while, but my friends and I used to have airport happy hours. We would meet in Phoenix, Chicago, or Dallas for example and have a few drinks, laptop bags hanging off our bar stools. Most people know people in their neighborhood; my neighborhood was the entire airport infrastructure!

I can’t help but just be in shock every once in a while when I think about how my life turned out. When I look back at the moments and memories of my childhood (the 100 times I woke up with no electricity, or the first time I saw a bullet hit one of my friends in the chest, or watching one of my friends I knew since kindergarten walking down Broadway offering oral sex to strangers just to get some cash for his crack addiction, or the six funerals I went to while in high school), there’s no way in a million years did I imagine I would be living the life I am. I went out to dinner with one of my very cool and funky friends last night and we ate, drank, and smoked cigarettes on this great patio, 100 feet from the Bay in San Francisco and it’s in moments like that where I catch myself thinking, wow, I’m the luckiest guy on earth.

//Side Note: I always talk about how I don’t look out the window of the airplane. Well I’m looking out the right side of the airplane right now and we are flying on the California coastline and it is just a beautiful day. I can see the beach, the ocean, the mountains, the cliffs, and Highway One. Magic!//

Anyway, when I ran into this person on the airplane, I told her, “wait for me when we land so we can catch up.” She did and as we walked towards the exit I asked the question we all ask, “how’s work going?” Her response was “busy, real busy.” I was disappointed.

I don’t know when it happened but I know why. At some point in the last 20 years, we became really paranoid about holding on to our jobs. In the 1990’s organizations began laying off millions of workers in all industries. Organizations that had never done layoffs were doing them. Even State and City governments got on the bus and were letting people go. Folks who were in their jobs for 20, 30, 40 years were let go with no place to go and replaced by new grads or oversea outsourcing programs. Ultimately it changed the employee/employer contract. Generation X made sure of that. We became “contract” employees. The new “contract” implied: we will work long and hard, but we will not be loyal. Organizations proved that loyalty didn’t mean anything to them. I actually am OK with this model and think it works for the most part. Unless you’re Jerold from Subway, it’s the one most of us are currently working under.

The side affect of this model however is that we feel like we must always appear to be busy, like there’s no way we could lose our jobs, we have way to much going on. We have to appear like we’re stressed and overworked. So when someone asks, we say, “oh, I’m so busy! Busy busy busy!” That’s the response I got from my former colleague as we walked through the airport and the response I get most of the time.

I believe these interactions are another form of missed opportunities. Instead of saying we are busy, what if we said, “work is great, actually, there is this one issue I would love your take on.” We are all experts in something and we all know what our friends and colleagues are good at. Why don’t we take advantage of that? What’s the point of having a network at all? I asked a friend last week how things were going. She told me that she is stressed out because she is starting an event-planning venture. She is a fantastic decorator and a perfectly anal planner. However, she admitted that she has no idea how the “business” side of these things works. She has her first client and has no idea what to charge for the services she is about to deliver. She asked me what I would do. Well, after we talked and I asked questions to understand specifically what she was looking for, I shot off a few emails and connected her with one of the best planners in the valley. They are going to have lunch and my event planner friend will provide help and insight to the business. My friend could have just said, “yea, I’m busy, real busy.” She would have missed the opportunity.

So next time someone asks you how work is, ask yourself, “what am I working on that this person could provide a different perspective on for me?” Instead of asking, “so how is work going?” Why don’t you ask your best friend, “What’s going on in your life that I could help you with?” Most of the time, you don’t have to even have an answer. Most of the time, someone just needs to be asked the right question. Just keep asking questions.

Of course all this means that you actually have to care. Most of the time, we ask just to be polite. Most of the time, it is all part of the drone autopilot interactions we have in our lives. Boring! So, be careful when you ask me how work is. I'm actually going to tell you!