Vicarious Living

A few weeks ago the “Blizzard of 2011” wiped out one of my weekly paddle matches.  Now this isn’t that big of a deal except for the fact that it’s a pain in the ass to reschedule the match.

After a series of e-mails between me and our opponents we agreed on Monday, February 14^th.  I reserved the paddle court, and sent out the final “confirmation e-mail.”  Unfortunately, at the last minute, my partner e-mailed me to say that he could not play due to the fact that it was Valentine’s Day.  Our e-mail exchange went something like this:

My partner – “Clay, I’m sorry for the late notice, but I just realized that tomorrow is Valentine’s Day and I have big plans and therefore cannot play.”

Me – “Are you kidding?  Is this a fucking joke?”

My 29-year-old partner went on to explain that he is currently dating not one, not two, but three different girls (one of whom he apparently met in a lingerie store . . . buying lingerie for one of the other girls) and he had separate plans with two of the ladies for Valentine’s Day.

So I sent an e-mail to our opponents that went something like this:

Me – “Hey I’m sorry, but unfortunately we’ve got to reschedule this thing again as my partner has big Valentine’s Day plans.”

My opponents – “Are you kidding?  Is this a fucking joke?”

So in the end my opponents and I agreed on a new date, and we also agreed that we were all going to live vicariously through my partner, and when the four of us finally did get together for this make-up match, we were going to get the details about his Valentine’s Day, as no doubt it was going to be VERY DIFFERENT from ours.  Ah, to be young again.

But that whole thing got me thinking about “living vicariously” through someone.  I think it happens a lot. 

I think the life my paddle partner is living right now is an easy one to vicariously live through.  After all, I can’t run around shagging three girls at the same time, but damnit I’d like to hear about.  

And I suspect we’ve all vicariously lived through a friend who got some great job that allowed them to travel to cool places or meet neat people. 

And I KNOW I’M RIGHT when I say that I think most dads live vicariously through their own sons.  We all hope that our boys will achieve the kind of success (mostly athletic success) that we never achieved.  I’m convinced that this vicarious living is the reason that youth sports are so out of control.  We all want our kids to sign the major league contracts that we were never offered.  Of course years from now, when our kids are not major league players, they’ll have kids of their own and will live vicariously through them.  This one is a vicious circle that never really ends.

But a few weeks ago my wife got a call from a recruiter with a job offer.  Now, it was a job that she had been interviewing for, and there had already been some “back and forth” regarding negotiations, but I just happened to be in the room when my wife took this call, and I suddenly found myself living vicariously through my wife as she negotiated with this recruiter. 

Now I love my wife, and I respect my wife, and I am her biggest fan and most loyal supporter, but I’m not sure it’s normal or healthy for me to be “living vicariously through her.”  But there I was, listening to her masterfully negotiate with this recruiter, and thinking to myself, “God, that’s freaking awesome.  I wish I could do that.”

The call was simple.  The recruiter told her that the job was hers and listed the salary and told her of the benefits as well as her new title.  My wife, without hesitation, asked for a bigger salary, more vacation time, and a laundry list of benefits.  The recruiter told her she’d have to get back to her.  Within 10 minutes (I’m not exaggerating), the recruiter called back, offered her everything she wanted, and asked if she could start in a week.

Unbelievable.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  Oh, I’ve been in negotiations before, but they’ve gone much differently.

One of my first jobs was working for a small broadcast public relations firm, and one of my weekly duties was watering the office plants.  Now I hated this one aspect of my job (frankly I hated a number of things about that job, but this watering of the plants was top of the list), so at my yearly review I asked to be relieved of those duties.  They said no.  In fact what they actually said was “If you don’t like watering the plants we’ll find someone else who will.”  So basically it was me or the plants, and they chose the office ficus tree over me.  And by the way . . . on a side note. . . . I’m not entirely sure what’s more pathetic. . . the fact that that’s a TRUE STORY, or the fact that I just blogged about it.

Now, I’ve certainly had more important negotiations than that.  Not long after leaving that company, I was working for a marketing firm downtown and things were going well.  I was helping to run a couple of the agency’s major accounts, and was slowly but surely moving up the corporate ladder.  Well, my wife was pregnant with our first child and was overdue.  So knowing that we were heading into the hospital that weekend to give birth, I let my boss know that I would probably be out a few days the coming week so that I could be home with my wife and new born.  My boss’s response was, “Nope.”  So I said that I didn’t need the whole week off, but would definitely like Monday and Tuesday off.  Unfortunately the negotiation ended when he said, “If you like your job, you’ll be here on Monday.” 

And I’ve had the salary negotiations before, but they didn’t go quite as smoothly as my wife’s salary negotiations.  You see, I was working for another ad agency and was once again doing well, and running some fairly large accounts.  Well, my annual review came up, and I went in with a plan to ask for a raise of 7% (bigger than the “cost of living raise” that my boss typically gave).  The negotiation went something like this:

Me – “I think due to my increased account activity and growing knowledge of the industry, I deserve a 7% raise.”

My boss – “Clay, unfortunately we’ve got to let you go, but don’t hesitate to list me as a reference should you need one.”

So there are two things to learn from today’s blog.  1) I will never be an agent or any job requiring negotiating skills.  2) I should probably keep my vicarious living to a minimum.