ME (rather dramatically explaining my urgent need to get better organized and improve my project planning/documentation processes in light of exploding workload from -YaY!- lots of new agency business): “If I suddenly dropped dead tomorrow, I’m afraid no one would know where to pick up my projects where I left off ,or figure what needs to be done next with the stuff I am working on !!!”
LONG PAUSE as I await expected empathetic response to my obviously important declaration…..
Wise elder statesman co-worker, calmly and matter of factly: “Katie, you would be DEAD. This would no longer be your problem. And in case no one has ever explained this to you, you can no longer be a CONTROL FREAK after death.“
(Have I mentioned that I love, absolutely love this particular coworker?)
2 Responses to “Hubris gets a much-needed takedown”
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One of professional life’s realities is that if we were raptured tomorrow, nothing would change in the office and everything would keep on keeping on. Every time I’ve left a job, I thought it would send the place into a tailspin. Uh, no. Sue who? It’s true for everyone. And, Kate, you’ve been a control freak since the moment of your birth. Why do you think we called you Lucy Brown when you were little? It’s part of your charm.
Leave very elaborate instructions for funeral & family when you die- then you can maintain control from beyond the grave. Of course you have to get organized enough that the instructions can be found when you pass not years later!!! My mother had saved a funeral bulletin from a service she had liked – so we would have blue print but I couldn’t find it when we needed it. from one control freak to another – Mare