No Surrender

This entry is part work blog, part songs everyone should own. I'm not going to try and make up for the missed days, because today is just about one song.

No Surrender - Bruce Springsteen

The thing with Springsteen seems to be you love him or you loathe him. His raspy 3-packs-a-day voice is kind of an acquired taste. Personally, I love him, and you will see at least one more song from him on this list before it is over.

This song, though...it's all about the one lyric:

No retreat, baby, no surrender.

I play this song when I'm pissed off, sad or depressed. It's fortifying.

I am still suffering the vestiges of this career crisis that began about a year and a half ago, and although in many ways it is coming to an end (seeing as how I've made my decision, and abandoned all of my other options), the doubts linger. Yesterday some events at the office called these doubts to the forefront.

No, it wasn't the lava lamps. Okay, it wasn't just the lava lamps.

Something happened here about a year and a half ago that set the whole career crisis in motion. There was an issue that almost split the firm in two. I was asked to pick my side. I did. I did NOT pick the side everyone thought I would. I DID pick the side I thought was right. There was no agenda on my part.

The group with which I work most closely felt I had betrayed them. It was a political nightmare.

While this has been to some extent resolved (the firm did not split), the group with which I work most closely has never quite forgiven me, and on occasion, I still get backlash from this. Yesterday, was one of those backlash days.

Each time it happens, I am frustrated, upset and just plain pissed off. The whole thing is so high school, I start trying to remember my locker combination and wonder where I put my algebra homework . Each time it happens I want to tell them all to fuck off, pack my office and start over.

But I don't.

Instead, I rail to my two co-workers, whom I trust, and who help me through these things. One agrees with me completely and helps build up my righteous anger; the other is all logic and sense, and talks me out of my tree. Then I go home and rail to CO who rails with me, on my behalf. Then I call my mommy, who gives me comfort.

And the next day I come back to this hell with fluorescent lighting, and I play this song, and I am ready to start again.

No retreat, baby, no surrender.