A welcome re-wind

Completely by chance, over the last six months, I have become involved in a semi-commercial business project – if that is the appropriate description for something that in the final analysis and scale of multi-national corporate activities is infinitely modest.

As the deadline for its launch has drawn nearer and nearer, so the need for decisions and positive actions on all aspects of its development to be taken has become exceedingly intense. Whereas for weeks, even months in some cases, on all manner of topics there has been a general degree of ‘flaffing about’, suddenly the need for dynamism and taking responsibility for decisions that will have far-reaching consequences has become paramount.

For someone like me, who effectively retired from my long-term career more than a decade ago, the ‘galvanisation’ factor that all this has prompted is fascinating to behold, even though I’m saying that myself!

Whatever age you are, and whether your daily existence be complicated or relatively simple, the fact is that – human nature being what it is – the short-term tasks you feel you have to perform tend to fill up your day somehow.

Even if, when you gradually ‘come to’ at the breakfast table, the limit of that day’s ‘to do’ list is as modest as (1) collect your dry cleaning; (2) visit the bank; and (3) send a letter by ‘special delivery’ from the local Post Office, there is an inevitable tendency for those three to somehow fill up your day. The phenomenon brings to mind the old adage “If you want something done, give it to a busy person”.

I’m certainly finding that it applies to me at the moment.

After nearly a fortnight of 9 through to 12 hour days slogging away with a colleague on all kinds of production issues I find myself re-connecting with degrees of positivity and dynamism that have been dormant in me since about 2002.

One of my current priorities is clearing copyrights. In recent times gone by a schedule of phone calls to be made to (for example) utility organisations or vast commercial operations would require me to have to steel myself for five to ten minutes (usually rehearsing my opening lines) before proceeding with each one.

In contrast these days, not least because of the imperative that time is now of the essence, I’m finding that I can make three or even four such phone calls – and then fire off following-up confirming emails without batting more than a proverbial eyelid – in less than half an hour.

The personal transformation has been invigorating. I feel like I’m ten to fifteen years younger than I was half a year ago. I’m regaining a sense that I’m doing something worthwhile, revelling in the opportunity once again, in my own small, insignificant, way – as Marlon Brando memorably mentioned in the ‘back seat of the car’ scene with Rod Steiger in the movie On The Waterfront – to be somebody who matters, a contender.

Right now the project I’m involved with has reached a crucial stage. If it doesn’t launch in time for the Christmas market there’s very little point in pressing the ‘start’ button until maybe even this time next year. In short, we’re already beyond the point at which we could have been certain of being ready to launch this Christmas. Unless we get the go-ahead within the next 12 to 24 hours we may as well pack up and go home.

And you know what? The funny thing is that I don’t even care.

What I do know is that I’ve been doing back-breaking hours for the last fortnight (they would have been back-breaking even if I’d suddenly been transported back in time to being 25 years old again) and there is literally nothing whatsoever further that I can do to contribute. All that is required is for someone, somewhere, to either say yes or no. And at this stage, for me personally, I really don’t mind which it is. Already I can feel myself gradually winding down, becoming more and more tired as my recent efforts begin to catch up with me, but I’m glowing with a wonderful feeling of being alive and ‘back in the game’.

I’d rather have a succession of one-off projects that require endless intense hours of flat-out work to meet some sort of deadline than ever spend my life commuting to work and – after a 9-to-5 existence pushing paper – commuting back home again and living life like the bulk of the population seems content to do.

I’d far rather scorch across the sky like a meteor in a blaze of glory and then just conk out.