Let me dissuade you of the idea that I didn’t get anything out of the experience. I most certainly did. It kind of reminded me of being a cabin boy aboard a ship.
Transcript
Let me dissuade you of the idea that I didn’t get anything out of the experience. I most certainly did. It kind of reminded me of being a cabin boy aboard a ship. There are many menial tasks to perform like shutting slop to the men on the forecastle, watches to stand, and someone needs to climb the riggings into the yards to trim the sails. However, while that boy is breaking his back for the captain and crew, he’s learning a trade. He is, for all intents and purposes, an apprentice. He’s learning about many aspects of ship life and how to keep a ship and its crew running. It transfers very easily to business life if you stop to think about it.
Take Frederick Pabst, for example. He was a Cabin Boy who turned Great Lakes Captain, who eventually decided he’d like to run a beer company you might have heard of. Sure, he might have had the aptitude to run a brewing company before he ever set foot on a ship, but the ship made him absorb it along with the salt and sweat and grog and grime. I came into my previous assignment with a microphone in one hand, and by the time I was done, I had a camera in the other. I learned how to create content for mediums I hadn’t considered before and thought I wouldn’t be terrific. The truth is I’m not as good as I could be, but that’s the great thing about thinking of this work as cabin boy experience. If you’re on the boat, you can’t get away from it. You’re going to be doing it every day. So I choose to embrace the work, and in so doing, I reject the idea that I can’t do it. I have to do it. I must do it, or the ship veers off course, the crew doesn’t eat, and I end up getting marooned…or worse.
This little skip of mine needs some work before we sail. I’ve left it for so long some repairs need to be made. She’s a good ship, and she’ll get the job done when asked, but there’s work to do, and that work has already started. Waiting for the tide to come in isn’t a good idea, so it’s best to be ready when it does. So I’ll tell you what I’m doing, share a few stories, and drop some vintage Roley…well, I hesitate to call it wisdom. Lessons from well-earned wrinkles and scars are more like it, but the endpoint is the same.