Balancing Vision and Ego

Once upon a time, I worked at NeXT.

I remember my time there as an on-going effort to keep the Design and Engineering departments focused and organized while they tried to keep up with the constantly shifting direction from "upper management". While it was a challenging environment to work in (to say the least), I remember it as a campus filled with energized, motivated and largely happy people.

I don't think anyone working there ever really doubted Mr. Jobs or his decisions, but the sheer amount of change the employee base was exposed to (a layoff of more than 50% of the entire staff base, going from the hardware to software business, moving facilities, partnering with companies we actively avoided in the past) ... I guess he didn't make many friends there towards the end before being brought back into the Apple orchard.

I was "just a temp" at the time. I'd decided I'd accomplished all I could at my previous employer and contacted an agency to find me something where I'd be challenged and rewarded appropriately for achievement. Which was a nice way of saying "get me into the electronics industry where the real money is". I was sent to interview at NeXT, which was interesting because the last time I'd driven around in part of the Bay Area was when it was near the city dump. Now, it was an industrial park with signs and green lawns and paved roads. It was beautiful, yanno, for being a collection of buildings near a dump and all.

The interview went well and the folks I talked to seemed really smart. They told the agency they wanted to get me under contract, and the agency said that'd be fine. I enjoyed my job, liked my staff, and was kept busy. However, my agency kept reminding me that it was a temporary assignment. And, in time, that began to bother me. After all - my manager and I worked well together ... and everyone SEEMED to think I was working out well ... but whenever I mentioned how things were going to the agency, the response would be "well that's great. Just remember, it's a temporary job." I'd be reminded of that each time I looked at my employee badge stamped "Contract Worker" or turned in a time sheet ... it got old and, frankly, a little insulting.

I started interviewing.

Since I was "just a temp", I guess I didn't feel I owed my manager an explanation or any advance warning. After all, I figured he had set up the contract and he knew it was a temporary assignment. I found what would become my new job on the first interview. The pay was incredible, the benefits were embarrassingly great, the location was perfect, I'd have my own office, make my own hours ... there was quite literally no downside to the job, except that it wasn't the temp job I already had with the staff I already knew.

A background check was conducted and when the offer letter was sent, I felt like framing it. It was the first time I'd be working for "more than my age" in thousands. (When I shared that with my sister, I learned she also measured her first real job offer that same way.)  All the while, I wished I could just stay put, but there was no point in asking for what I already had been told I couldn't have.  It was both exciting and frustrating - to see what could be but to know I couldn't be a part of it.

When the offer was written up, I went to my temp job and sat down with my manager. Honestly I figured he wouldn't care either way.  Even so, I was still giving him 2 weeks notice and offered to train whomever would be the next temp. I felt I owed him that ... I'd been there for 8 months after all, even if I was "just a temp" and wasn't worth hiring. He looked at the offer letter and then up at me. "You accepted this already?" "I did. I want a regular job and since it can't be here, I think I can do well at this new place." He sighed. "I've been getting approvals for your offer letter for a few weeks now. It's for a higher salary than this. If I can get it to you before the end of today, will you call off the other job?"

It seemed that the "temp only" part of my assignment was the idea of the agency. After all, they got a payment for each week I was there. As long as I was a temp, they'd keep getting paid. (In my defense, it was the first time I'd worked for an agency and I was very young. I should have figured this out on my own, I know, but it didn't occur to me.) My temp staff, temp manager, temp co-workers, temp company really DID like me and appreciated my work.  And, when I explained to my temp manager that I'd accepted and signed the offer letter of the new job and didn't want to go back on my word, he wasn't just gracious - he was proud of me for getting the offer and for having enough integrity to follow through, even if he was disappointed that I'd never had the guts to just ask for what I wanted, no matter who was telling me I couldn't have it.

Steve Jobs was once wildly criticized for having a huge ego when he responded to the comment "Apple builds what people want" by saying that no, that was wrong and that Apple showed people what they wanted before they even knew they wanted it.  As it turned out, that WASN'T "ego" talking ... that was "vision".  A lot of people today are using the word "visionary" because most of the successful CEO's we know by name only have "ego".  The industry and the population it serves suffered a loss yesterday and it'll be a long while before we see that kind of "ego/vision" balance again.