One of the oddest things I heard was “Choose your rate, choose your fate.” I never thought much about that little saying until yesterday when I had lunch with a friend of mine who retired from the Army. He’d never heard it, and he thought it sounded good, so he asked what it meant. I thought it might be worth sharing with you too, to give you a different perspective on your job.

When I was in the Navy, my rate was communications technician. It was my job to sit by the printer and make sure everything came in and was routed appropriately. I worked 12 hour shifts, and as long as things were in a normal state, I only had to show up to my actual job half the month. I worked in a completely fortified bunker with no windows, the same group of 100 CDs every day, and I couldn’t bring in anything of my own to work except for lunch. I sat at my desk all day long, and the only blisters I got on my fingers were from typing too much on the computer. I couldn’t take off during lunch and go work out, I had to eat at my computer because there was only 1 of me doing my job. I had nobody to talk to except for the computer and occasionally someone who would stop by to pick up their message traffic (this was before e-mail) or the maintenance guy who rang the wrong button. I had a part-time job off-base that I did 30 hours a week in a San Francisco suburb because I never got called in to work on my off-days.

But oh how I longed to be a Navy S.E.A.L. Those guys got to have ALL the fun! They got to exercise 6 hours a day, outside and inside. I’d see them on my days off running, and boy were they in great shape! I have no idea what they did except for workout, and it seemed like every day I was off, they were off too, at the gym, on the beach, in the weight room. Except for the month here and the month there where I didn’t see them at all.

I chose to be a CT, which meant I sat in an air conditioned office all day long, and worked half the month, and didn’t “work” very hard at all.

They chose to be S.E.A.L.s, which means it was their job to stay in shape and be ready to fight at any time.

From my perspective, they had the life. From the folks I talked to, they thought I had the life.

Choose your rate, choose your fate.

Whatever in life you choose to do, there are pluses and minuses, things you’ll love, and things you won’t love. If you choose the right job,  hopefully you’ll find more pluses than minuses. If you don’t, you should really look for something else and do something that makes you happier.

And so management is for me.

Management of people is tough sometimes. Some days I have to discipline my team, I have to help them see the error in their ways, and shape up or ship out.

Sometimes I get to embrace the great stuff they do, like yesterday, when I get an e-mail from one of our advisors, telling me how my team ALWAYS does great work and he loves working with us, and he copied in my boss, who forwarded it to her boss, and they both let my team know how much they appreciate the work they do for our associates. Or like today, when one of our advisors is retiring, and when I called him about his retirement, he let me know how my team helped extend his career because he’s not very technical and he wouldn’t have been able to use a computer as well as he does except for the help my team provided him over the years.

That’s why I chose management.

Don’t misunderstand me. I still sit in an air conditioned office, except now I have windows and I manage people. E-mail is no longer a manual process, but I still sit by my computer, or with my BlackBerry in my hand, waiting to route an e-mail. I get to look out of my window and see folks running along the lakefront at all points of the day.

I get a team of people to manage, and I can’t stop trying to make their lives a little better.

I chose my rate, and this is the fate I get.

When I get to thinking I’d rather be working out all day like my friends on a S.E.A.L. team were, I remember what they said about the month I didn’t see them. Those days were 24 hour days, where they were in the cold water, waiting for someone to make a move so they could board a boat, or how they had to sit crouched on an airplane with 30 other guys they barely knew and not say a sound, waiting to jump out of an airplane in some foreign country they’d never been before.

They chose their rate, and that’s the fate they got.

What did you choose for today? How does it affect your fate?

Secretary of the Navy courtesy of UNC – CFC – USFK

Post from: EveryJoe

Choose Your Rate, Choose Your Fate