Elsewhere.
'Nobody cares how you pay your rent. Your job is to show us something we didn’t know we needed to see.'
The best leaders sneak up and buffet us then draw us forward on their slipstream.
We're minding someone else's business. Going through the motions. Comfortable. Smothering our inner restless child with our pillow of outer respectability so none of the other happy successful people around us hears its death rattle.
We're marching to the rhythmic drum drum hum drum drum hum drum of the boss and the managers and the meetings and the courses and the mission statements and the core values and the consultants and the professional development and the change management and the teams and the acronyms and the buzz words and the performance reviews and the clichés and the emails about cake in the staff room and the promise of Friday afternoon.
Loitering for the fortnightly hit from payroll.
She is here. No introduction. No names. No preface or title.
Her voice distracts us from ourselves long enough to rouse the child who squirms free and gasps for air.
We know nothing of her other than she wants to be elsewhere.
She's not waiting for us.
Nor are we.
We leave ourselves behind to go and see.