One of the most important influences in my life was a director I worked with in College. Her name is Dana Tarantino, and she changed my life with the following line:

“Writing is rewriting.”

Welcome to my next day experiment, called 5 drafts.

Instead of writing five blog posts in five days, I’ll rewrite the same one through five drafts of thinking. No idea where this will go. Welcome to the sausage.

Escape from the Mailroom, Draft 3

(Write well.)

Pushing a mail cart for a living is humbling.

Every time you put a piece of mail on someone’s desk, a little piece of you dies. There is a silent stigma attached to being the mailroom guy. Many in the company see you as the hired help. In fact, they’d rather not see you at all – you are only to emerge from your mailroom den if absolutely necessary.

When you sort mail for a living, it’s the universe telling you that this is all you’re good for. It’s the company telling you that this is all you’re good for. It’s you telling yourself that this is all you’re good for.

I was once helping someone set up for a meeting in a conference room. My job was to move chairs from point A to point B.

She couldn’t decide if she wanted this set up, or that. I offered her my opinion, because my back hurt and I was tired of lugging the same ten chairs from one side of the room to the other.

“Yeah, I’m gonna listen to the mailroom guy.” She said with a hint of twisted pleasure.

I was the help and the help does not speak.*

At that moment, I felt my most worthless. I was distraught. Yet that was the spark that set my my plan in motion.

It was time to escape from the mailroom.

The Plan

[start with an action-packed description about an elaborate plan, burst bubble in next paragraph]

Here was the plan:

I would stay late, after everyone left. I knew the security guard’s patrol route, because I was once the security guard.

Once the HR area cleared out, and the guard was away, I would pick the lock on their employee records room, find my file, and change my role in the company.

Then I would come in the following Monday, and assume my role as the new anything-but-mailroom-guy.

Maybe not.

Truth is, I was too lost and depressed to have a plan. I just knew that I needed to be defined by something other than my job. It was a matter of survival at this point.

If I wasn’t fulfilled at work, was my life outside of the suck any more fulfilling better? Was there anything about me that had value?

It’s sad how low you can go when you attach your sense of self worth to your job.

Below were the things that helped me claw my way out of the demons den.

Hobbies

Meeting new people back then was hard.

When people would introduce me, it would go something like this:

“Hey Jack, this is Vlad. He works in…uh…office services.”

I think they would be ashamed for me.

What they didn’t know was that, in my mind, I was Vlad the reader, the tinkerer, the writer, the magician, the sketch artist, the budding body builder. As soon as I met people, I felt the need to say smart things, because everything about the business worled world said that I wasn’t. I didn’t realize how much I was trying to impress people with my intelligence, and it put them off.

But that didn’t matter.

I had my hobbies. I never stopped tinkering or learning. I was a collector of random thoughts and curious self experiments. It was the thing that defined me, the way that I coped with my station in life. I leaned into being a nerd, and it was my solace from the hours of sorting mail and carrying boxes.

Ultimately it was a curious experiment in Google sheets that taught me one of the most important mailroom lessons of all: those things that make you different and happy, find a creative way to weave them into your daily work job.

Using Sheets, I built a scoreboard to track conference room cleanliness for the team. That planted the seed for a future expertiese obsession with system flows and Excel. It wound up being the cornerstone of my professional development, and a thing that built my reputation.

The stacking of skills that I was kind of good at became my unfair advantage. I wasn’t the best Spreadsheet editor, but I was the best spreadsheet editor in the mailroom. I wasn’t the best writer or people person, but I was the best at it in Ops.

The hobbies became the point of difference that contributed secondary skillsets and helped me stand out.

More importantly, they kept me sane. No matter how hard the day was, I knew that I could come home to an escape. And before the work day started, I knew that I already hit the gym.

The Boss

Does your boss exhibit any of the following characteristics?

Megalomaniac, no regard for other people’s time? Has no idea what your workload is, yet has the gaul gall to assign more of it? Has no regard for other people’s time? Doesn’t know An adult that acts like an insecure child? Loves the sound of their own voice? Has absolutely no interest in your feedback? Doesn’t empower you, or recognize the potential that is you?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then…Good.

This is the fuel that will feed your fire. This will be the thing t Let the lack of recognition, the lack of support and human decency drive you. A daily reminder that you are not where you belong, that you have so much more to offer the world.

This was the pain that fed my own growth. Not my professional growth, it ignited my personal journey. The career was a side effect.

You’re also being given a great perspective and opportunity: insight into what not to do as a manager. Your boss is probably not a bad human being, my bad ones weren’t, they just weren’t self aware.

It’s the chance to break the cycle, and not become them as you grow. Make a list of everything they do wrong, and why it made you feel that way. Use that list as a guiding principle (or principles to avoid) as you develop your own leadership style.

Pushing a mail cart is the most humbling feeling I’ve ever experienced. Sorting mail into bins was not a complex pattern recognition that I expected to apply. Every inch of that cart Every foot that I pushed that cart, a little piece of my soul died.

I was once helping someone set up for a meeting in a conference room. My job was to move chair from point A to point B.

She couldn’t decide if she wanted this set up, or that. I offered her my opinion, because my back hurt and I was tired of lugging the same ten chairs from one side of the conference room to the other.

“Yeah, I’m gonna listen to what the mailroom guy thinks.” She said with a grin.

I was the help, and the help does is not to speak.*

Stop Networking

“I’m not here to make friends, I’m here to work.” – every miserable middle manager I’ve ever met.

Instead, build relationships. Make friends. In the dark days of the mailroom the thing that helped me survive was being friends with my co-workers.

And ultimately, it was friends outside of the department that dragged me out of the mailroom, in spite of the evil forces clawing me back into the abyss.

It’s a hostage negotation, and you’re both hostage and negotiator

Just finished reading Chris Vosses’ unbelievable book, Never Split the Difference. It’s one thing to learn about negotiating contracts, another thing to learn from an FBI Hostage Negotiator.

Here are the critical points that you can apply in your next exchange with your insane boss.

-Mirroring

-Labeling

-Listening – Listen for their religion.

The Notebook

Your notebook is your best friend – talking back when they’re on a diatribe will do nothing for you. Write random words they say, or just reminders to listen. I can’t tell you how many pages of my notebook are covered with the word “listen”. “Keep Listening.” Write down random words that they seem to emphasize more, and repeat them as you write the words, while nodding yes.

In their eyes it looks like you’re taking diligent notes on every unreasonable, illogical and inconsistent thing they say. Good mailroom guy.

Don’t get a flashy or fancy notebook, don’t get a smart or digital notebook, a simple, cheap notebook will do.