Wear the Hat

It’s more than a bit disarming/disconcerting when spurious things insert themselves into our personal agenda and impose themselves on our personal radar – things we didn’t “ask for”, that  don’t really “fit” the persona we have meticulously shaped for ourselves, that just don’t “feel” right and that we just don’t “feel” like doing. 

And it’s an even more direct affront to sensibility when we find ourselves behind and beleaguered by things that are on our personal agenda but untended. 

Like it or not, dispatching and dispensing agenda items, no matter how they got there or by whom or from where, is the “business” we’re in for the duration – preferably executed professionally with excellence.  But sending a cobbler – not to mention a reluctant, disinterested novice or untested “whatever” insouciant – to do a tailor’s job just won’t cut it. 

In the course of events, we’re called upon to wear many different hats.  These may variously include: sales, service and maintenance, customer service, writing, accounting, healthcare, food services, environmental services/housekeeping, entertainment, social services, research, performance analysis, problem-solving, organization/administration, inventory, computer skills and services, report preparation, counseling, construction/renovation, fabrication, editing, fashion/design/decorating, hosting, lawn & garden services, purchasing, etc. 

Here’s today’s suggestion:  In the moment you need to be a writing professional, put on the writing professional’s hat and BE a writing professional.  In the moment you need to do math, put on the mathematician’s hat and BE a mathematician.   And how about the collar, raincoat, shoes … and maybe even the belt and suspenders!  The Smothers Brothers probably said it best:  

“My old man’s a sailor:

Whatta you think about that?

He wears a sailor’s collar,

And he wears a sailor’s hat.

He wears a sailor’s raincoat,

He wears a sailor’s shoes,

And every Saturday evening

He reads the Sunday news.

And some day, if I can …

I’m going to be a sailor,

Just the same as my old man.”

“My Old Man”

Oscar Brand, Hollis Music, Inc.

“The Funny Side of the Smothers Brothers (think ethnic)”

At the very least, wear the hat.

“BE the professional you need to be for whatever it is you need to be doing, and do it with excellence.”            Quartermaster