Lessons from my short lived athletic career
... And the very unusual reason why I'm ordering a fresh stack of business cards this week.
In my fourth year of university, I landed a job with my school’s Athletic Events staff. In the course of my work, I processed tickets to football games, sold pizza slices from the sports centre canteen, and, in between, generally had a lot of downtime to study. However, on two unfortunate occasions, I was roped in to do actual athletic work. I was required to watch the lines of a hockey net and a volleyball court to see if pucks and balls were in or out.
Ha! I bet you can already guess how this went.
I did not excel at this kind of work. I found hockey so hopelessly dull (sorry, fellow Canadians) that I daydreamed and didn’t notice ANY pucks. Volleyball, by contrast, was exciting. And by exciting, I mean terrifying. So terrifying that I was blinded by fear and clamped my eyes shut whenever the ball was vaguely within range.
In short, I’m not someone who should be employed in the sports sector.
That hasn’t stopped the sports sector from wanting me, apparently. In the past few years, friends and family have offered me jobs—some jokingly, others maybe not so much. It seems that if I had really wanted to manage a leisure club, be a maintenance room supervisor, or sell large-scale recreation products, I might have been able to land a gig.
I’ve always laughed off their jests. “As much as I’d love to sell jet skis, I’m afraid you can’t afford me!” “You wouldn’t want me to run your bar. I’d drink all the product!”
Of course, what I really wanted to say was: “I have a job.”
To a certain extent, I understand where these folks are coming from. I’m reliable. I’m cheerful. I know you should wear a clean shirt and keep your fingers out of the till. I’d be a decent employee, right? And freelancers take on all kinds of whacky projects. So why not? Why not spend a season helping out at showroom, a club house, a trade show? I’ll tell you why. I already have a job! I have a job that lets me daydream AND scrunch up my eyes with fear, sometimes at the very same time! So why do these people treat me like I’m unemployed? And, more importantly, why do I let them?
Perhaps these questions don’t really matter. Perhaps THE question is why I haven’t told any of these people to hire me to write their help-wanted ads. They’re apparently so desperate for help that they’re willing to imagine that I’m an out-of-work basketball supply company supervisor. Athletes cling to any advantage they can, grasp the slimmest of opportunities to advance their game. If folks are inexplicably determined to see me as a viable candidate for work in the sports, recreation, and leisure fields, maybe it’s time I awaken my inner athlete? My PRO athlete, that is. It’s amateur hour to ask myself why friends-of-friends don’t treat me like the very busy and important writer I so clearly am. A professional wouldn’t wallow in such nonsense. Pros don’t dwell on real or imagined slights. Pros say, “Here’s my card. Send me a note next time you’re hiring and I’ll give it an estimate to re-write your help wanted ad.”
How’s THAT for a power play?
(That’s the phrase, right? Power play?)
So, how will you be more professional and less of an amateur this year? For me, it starts with ordering a fresh batch of business cards this weekend. I often hear people say that business cards have no real value these days. But a business card isn’t (and perhaps has never been) about exchange of information. It’s a prop. It’s a tool. It’s the difference between suggesting you keep in touch and instructing someone to follow up if they’re really interested, and I can’t wait to have a fresh batch for a fresh year.
What I’m Reading These Days
Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson. Get a bunch of crime writers on a rural train-turned-writing-festival in Australia and sparks (and bodies!) will fly. I love Stevenson’s quirky, unconventional style.
A Siege of Bitterns by Steve Burrows. A Canadian inspector. A British salt marsh. And a famous conservationist about to hit 400 birds on his life list. Oh, and murder. Lots of murder!
Elizabeth of York: A Tudor Queen and Her World: Alison Weir. Come for the gossip surrounding the royal court. Stay for powerful insights about the interiority of one of history’s most important yet overlooked women.