I read a book once on the American war hero (World War II) turned American villain (Viet Nam), air force general Curtis LeMay. (LeMay, though avowedly not a racist, was racist George Wallace's running-mate as a vice presidential candidate in 1968.)
LeMay was an old-fashioned sonofabitch. He believed that the answer to almost any military problem was to "bomb [your adversary] back to the Stone Age." LeMay was rumored to be one of the archetypes of Kubrick's Strangelove.
In any event, LeMay had the ability to work prodigiously. To sit on his keister for hours on end until he had worked out all exigencies and arrived at an answer. That ability earned him the sobriquet "Old Iron Ass."
I don't admire LeMay's politics. His bombast. And much more. But I do admire iron-assedness.
Some times when I am in trouble at work, when we have worked for weeks and failed to come up with something good, I'll sit at my table and type. Once I typed 50 scripts over a weekend. Just recently I wrote a dozen or more. Some of them wound up being good. Answering the bell.
When I am in that mode I think of myself and I think of LeMay.
Sometimes it pays to be Old Iron Ass.
You in trouble at work? More like they don't get what you bring to the party. Nor probably do your clients.
ReplyDeleteIs the clock ticking? For me, it is where I am.
Curtis
Curtis, the clock is always ticking. Rust never sleeps.
ReplyDeleteThanks. Needed this one.
ReplyDeleteI'm not growing roots here that's for damn sure. It will end badly, suddenly, with an argument and the call from HR. Whatever. I won't do crap. No one should.
ReplyDeleteCurtis