Sunday, July 24, 2005
Accomplishment
Whenever I think that I have done something in PR, I step back and wonder what is real accomplishment. To me, physical change is more important than conceptual change. The fact is that PR people rarely resolve debates. We represent positions, and we hope to influence the course of events a little, but we don't derive the equivalent of a theory like evolution or the mathematics of subatomic structure. So, it is important to accomplish something physical once in a while.
That is why I have a feeling of satisfaction that a room we have been working on for weeks is nearly finished. All the carpentry, patching, scraping, priming, taping and painting is largely over. The canvas has been cleared from the floor. Everything is swept and mopped and the windows have been scraped clean. Now, it is a matter of fixing peccadilloes that lurk here and there and putting furniture back.
There are times in the middle of projects that one knows they will continue forever. It is an earthly version of hell. The end seems just in front but something goes wrong. Something always goes wrong, of course, as happened in this room as well. Two times in a row, paint peeled from the ceiling for no good reason other than it failed. We are in the middle of a third attempt, and that is the biggest task remaining. If it doesn't want to stay up there, I don't know what I'll do, but I'm not going to let it interrupt a momentary feeling of accomplishment.
It feels even better than working in PR.
That is why I have a feeling of satisfaction that a room we have been working on for weeks is nearly finished. All the carpentry, patching, scraping, priming, taping and painting is largely over. The canvas has been cleared from the floor. Everything is swept and mopped and the windows have been scraped clean. Now, it is a matter of fixing peccadilloes that lurk here and there and putting furniture back.
There are times in the middle of projects that one knows they will continue forever. It is an earthly version of hell. The end seems just in front but something goes wrong. Something always goes wrong, of course, as happened in this room as well. Two times in a row, paint peeled from the ceiling for no good reason other than it failed. We are in the middle of a third attempt, and that is the biggest task remaining. If it doesn't want to stay up there, I don't know what I'll do, but I'm not going to let it interrupt a momentary feeling of accomplishment.
It feels even better than working in PR.
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