In the midst of my “anti-computer sabbatical” (a wonderful time, indeed!) I was working at a golf course. I had started in the cart barn but as the summer arrived and the winter visitors headed north to escape the heat, I transferred to the maintenance team.
The cart barn was fun, minus the handful of entitled customers. I worked hard, got wet and dirty, and averaged about 30,000 steps per shift. Nothing like a free workout (and a free hotdog).
Moving to the maintenance team was next level.
No forced smiles for customers. No cleaning up after them. No ridiculous requests to cut in line or listening to the endless complaints of those who blamed the course, and not their pedestrian swings, for their high scores.
Nope. None of that.
Just miles and miles of grass begging to be mowed.
We started every shift at 4:30am. Everyone got to the employee “lounge” a few minutes early and waited for the team leader to hand out assignments for the day. Once you got your marching orders, you headed out in the darkness and got started. The expectation was that you would complete your assigned tasks without fail by the end of the shift.
One early morning one of the newest guys on the team sat next to me in the lounge and leaned in real close and whispered, “I heard you were in the FBI. Are you working undercover here?”
I was tempted to spin a tale about some high-level organized crime conspiracy involving the theft of yellow driving range balls but told him I just liked working at the course. Cutting grass, spreading mulch, driving all sorts of big mowers and other equipment, and a free lunch. Hard to beat that.
I’m not sure he believed me and said something like, “ok, that’s cool, Mr. FBI guy.”
That comment brought me back to a time many years prior when I first began to resent hearing stuff like that.
It had played out many times in numerous settings. I’d meet someone new and as soon as they found out what I did for a living, that was it. That’s all they wanted to talk about.
I once went to a new church where I was thinking about becoming a member and before anyone got to know me I was pitched on day one to be on the security team.
No interest in me, the person. Just my job and their perspective framed from too many years of watching terrible TV shows and movies.
Was it a high-profile job? Yes.
Did it command constant attention and a lot of sacrifice? Yes.
Was that all there was to me? Nope.
I could make a case for many jobs being “important”, even if there is no mystique. And I’d highlight what I saw clearly at the golf course. THE most important job there was done by a guy who will never be recognized outside his tiny work circle.
Not the owner. Not the GM. Not even the greenskeeper.
It was the irrigation guy. Hands down. If that guy suddenly left, the course would grind to a halt.
No one interrogated him at parties, made movies about his role, or treated his job as an identity.
That really brought it home for me. Getting out of my past environment with its responsibilities and stresses I was able to recognize that when leaders confuse their role with their identity, they slowly disappear.
Sometimes they do it to themselves and at other times, it’s the image propagated by those around them.
For many years I was definitely “the FBI guy” more often than I was simply Dan, and not by choice. I wonder if that trained me to perform instead of exist, because once you’re reduced to a title, everything about you gets filtered through that lens.
And the downstream impact is real.
Can you ever turn it off?
Can you truly rest when you’re always “on”?
Can people really know you?
And what happens when the role goes away?
After I left the FBI, it became very easy to count how many real friends I have. Those who knew me and cared about me as a person have stuck around just like you’d expect them to. Those who confused me with the organization fell off immediately. And those who could no longer count on me to give them something to talk about slowly vanished.
I was just another post-government, small business owner. To some, I was just “a cart guy.”
I prefer Dan.
So here’s a question worth sitting with: If your title or job disappeared tomorrow, who would still know you?
And just as importantly, would you?
If this reflection was helpful, feel free to forward it to another leader who might appreciate it.
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Dan
Founder, Leader First Coaching