Trial By Fire

I haven’t blogged in over a month. Mostly this is because the past month has been a tad overwhelming. The ninth month of pregnancy has been…well…how do I put this? I’ve reached the pregnancy breeds contempt portion of the program. Don’t get me wrong, there is glowing and excitement. There are also lists and lists of nesting activities that need to be done before the baby comes and have filled all time not dedicated to eating and sleeping. Buuuut you didn’t tune in to hear about my aches and pains, so I’ll move on….

I’m about to turn over my job to two people who will replace me when the baby comes. My job is sort of hard to describe. It's part personal assistant, part class programmer, part actor advocate, part marketer, part human copy machine. This jack of all trades position has taught me to be a sponge to everything I get to be a part of and has led to opportunities to write, direct, coach. I feel very lucky. But how do you train a replacement to take over such a vague position when most of it really just involves trying to read the mind of a quirky old Jew. His words. Not mine. A small sample of the words I would use are: hilarious, bellowing, dapper, generous, I could go on and on.

This exact job didn’t exist before me. The awesome Erica did a lot of what I do, but it sort of grew organically out of circumstance and proximity. Suddenly three years later I find myself knowing a lot but having trouble telling someone how to do it. It’s not rocket science. If I can do it, the two very capable ladies that are taking over can do it. It’s just that no day is the same and I don’t know how to help them start.

It sort of reminds me of being a camp counselor where my job was to take care of every aspect of the kiddos…sure, the class I taught was water skiing, but the job also included getting them to drink plenty of water throughout the day, remind them to write letters to their mothers and kill all the scorpions that got into the cabin. Or when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer…I taught a few classes per week, but also had to make friends in the village, drink a lot of beer and dress up to visit the chief. What odd jobs I’ve had.

The few times I’ve found myself behind a desk, I end up wanting to slit my throat out of boredom. The routine is in no way comforting to me. Acting fascinates me because no job is exactly the same. In fact getting to immerse myself in what is unique to each character is what I love about it. Even doing the same scene twice, it is never exactly the same.

Good to know I’m pursuing something that will be a perfect fit if I can make a post-baby career happen. In the meantime, I should at least tell the replacements how the bossman takes his coffee. 

"No training can completely prepare you for the trial by fire you get in the ring."

Sugar Ray Leonard