2 years ago, I took a big risk. I left a job I’d only started 6 months before, because a friend was willing to take a bit of a chance on me, and hire me to work with him to build the digital team at an agency best known for print, direct mail, and in-store work.
Needless to say, it paid off. The last 2 years have been an amazing learning experience, and I’ll spend the rest of my life being grateful to the team at OSL for what we accomplished together, and how I’ve grown with the influence, help, and support of so many individuals there.
But the times, they are a-changing.
On Monday, I’ll be joining the strategy team at Klick, and starting in an industry that’s new to be as well, working primarily in the health space.
It’s not just new challenges and new opportunities that motivated me to make the switch. I’m excited to work with the people, and the culture that I’ve been introduced to in interviews and conversations with the Klick team.
So, starting on Monday, I’ll be working downtown again. Which I’m hoping means I’m going to be a little more available than I’ve been in the past couple years, given the lack of commute.
I’m really, very, incredibly (possibly unreasonably) excited. Change is the one constant in life, and this feels like a very good one.
New job, new challenges, same Jon Crowley. Very excited to do this.
There was one day, years ago. I don’t even remember the name of the person I was talking to, but I remember the conversation.
She was hurting. We’d never met face to face, but she was dating a friend. At that point, in university, I spent a dozen hours a day in front of a computer. So I was usually pretty available.
A friend of hers had committed suicide.
And this girl, this deeply religious, incredibly sensitive girl, was wrestling with a problem I’d never considered before. She was figuring out how to talk to the small child left behind. How to explain to a child that her mother had killed herself.
We talked about illness. About society’s insistence that we treat mental illness as something somehow less real than physical illness. And I had to explain to this person, this girl I never met face to face, that there’s not often a rational, healthy person who decides to end their own life when not suffering or dying.
This went on for a few hours. Different approaches, explanations, scenarios.
That was the first time I had ever explained to someone that the brain was an organ the same as a kidney or a lung. And when attacked, it declared war on the entire body as a response, at times.
I can’t even remember her name. But I remember what I learned that day. That this is a thing to understand, that not enough people do.
Being human is more complicated than we’d like to admit.
I’ve basically noticed two categories of unproductive ways of dealing with drama.
Option one is being too nice, and essentially bending over backwards to avoid conflict. Often, those who take this approach end up angry, feeling taken advantage of.
Option two is cutting people who create or invite drama out of your life entirely. This is basically salting the earth, and can work, but will probably result in making life boring.
