The first week of May brings anticipation of many beautiful things to come, not least of which is First Holy Communion, next Saturday. But for me it brings also a specific memory, an anniversary in fact: thirty-five years since I started my First Real Job.
There were six full years between my graduation from college and my entry into seminary, and even if the gap year had been a thing in those days, six would have been out of bounds. So I had a real job: career track, federal paycheck, and all the trimmings. It took me a while to get it, almost a full year for security clearances and background investigations in addition to the more ordinary bureaucratic process and hurdles. But after living in this area since September, part-timing, temping, and contract working, finally on Tuesday May 5, 1987, I put on my jacket and tie (we still did that in those days) and went to work.
So while most of you know my life now is very different from most of yours, there was a time when it was not so; and I have experienced many of the realities of professional workaday life, such as cubicles, commuting, running out of annual leave, and having a really bad boss.
Yes, Bad Boss Syndrome (BBS) is the memory that comes back to me, because my very first assignment gave me fascinating, challenging, worthwhile work; talented, interesting coworkers; a rich social life; and a horrible boss. I share with you not my own unique assessment, but a twenty-year consensus.
Not only did my first branch chief dislike and disadvantage me personally (as was widely acknowledged at the time) but the same branch chief made life miserable for a number of my peers and colleagues. To be a staffer who was favored was almost as horrible as to be one who was disfavored.
As evidence that this is not simply a case of sour grapes from a malcontent, about twenty years after I left the organization, once I was a priest and a pastor, I was contacted seemingly out of the blue by three of my former coworkers; they wanted to let me know that the selfsame manager had been officially and somewhat ceremoniously removed from eligibility ever to manage people again. They contacted me in acknowledgement of my disproportionate suffering, and to let me know that the madness was finally ended.
To give one example of my experience of BBS, I have one strong, physical memory. After my first year of work for the bad boss, that manager had been moved to another branch, then later I had been moved to another branch; so I had enjoyed over a year with reasonable supervision and direction. But the whole division was to be reorganized, so at a meeting of all sixty or seventy of us, the new assignments were read aloud. My name was in the final group, and the manager was to be ... yes, that one. I became physically ill. Everybody saw it. They all knew what it meant, and I received condolences from dozens of people in the next hours and days. I remember that feeling.
The symptoms of Bad Boss Syndrome are demoralization, discouragement, and depression. None of these bolster the impression that the employee is a good one, which only makes the situation worse. It is a vicious circle from which there can seem to be no escape.
So when I see the faithful people of this parish, and your constant concern and effort for your families, your neighbors and your friends; when I pick up on signs of strain at work or professional frustration, I know those signs. I may not know all the specifics, but I understand the situation. In such circumstances, relationships keep us going; our obligations to provide for our family both in the short term and the long; our obligations to our coworkers and perhaps to the mission of our organization. These are the motivations that force us to endure BBS, and make it possible for us to endure.
My pre-priest career was much more besides a bad boss. My final three years with the organization provided what I needed to discern clearly my vocation. For me, that was a genuine happiness with my life, and a real satisfaction with my work, which confirmed for me that in following this strange and wonderful call to priesthood, I was not running away from anything. Not failure, not loneliness, not a bad boss.
Even that dreadful experience has been turned to the good by our gracious God. Bad bosses will come, but they will also go. Let me share with you the one boss, the supreme supervisor, the unchanging overseer, who suffers it all for us, who suffers it all with us, and whose reign does not pass away. It is our relationships of love, and this relationship of divine love, that provide what makes it possible to endure, and anticipate the many beautiful things to come.
