Would You Do it Differently?

I texted a friend this morning: "Listening to Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. Man, they'd be fun to see in concert someday."

She sent me back a laughing emoji.

See, it's funny because we went to a Me First concert together. I saw the opening act and one song from Me First and then heard the snippets of a few more as people came in and out of the bathroom. She saw more as she and one of the other of our foursome popped in and out to see the show and also check on the last member of our group as she puked in the sink while laying on the bathroom counter.

I stayed with our puker the whole time. I'm a sympathetic puker so it was quite the challenge not to join her in the vomit fest. But as I'd had one drink at dinner and one drink when we got to the concert I wasn't in as bad of shape as she was. I can't remember how many she had, the other ladies and I tried to count them up but also all agreed she had started before we ever got to dinner so it was impossible to tell. But she was very far gone. Thus the vomiting in the sink.

She was drunk enough I wasn't comfortable leaving her alone in the bathroom. That and the fact that she kept trying to play true confessions with everyone and tell them she was sleeping with our boss. If she had done that it would have blown up her relationships with everyone and more importantly the dynamics in our small agency. At the time both of those things mattered to me. This morning I wondered if I knew then what would happen over the next few years (which our puker had a heavy hand in) would I have made the same decision?

I'm not sure. I'm not sure I would have protected her and our boss the way I did. I'm not sure I would have taken it upon myself to protect the agency. But someone needed to. And she wasn't. And he for sure wasn't. A previous bookkeeper of ours told me once that the reason she left was that she couldn't keep worrying about the company more than he did. And I probably should have taken that to heart even more and left as soon as she did. But...

I always used to get really invested in the places I worked. I think most of us do. Capitalism doesn't work if nobody cares about the company or their jobs. We get the whole "we're a family" here speeches over and over and again. And in smaller companies it can really feel like it. Because what you do on a daily basis does really matter in keeping the company afloat. The problem is, it's still not your company. It's still not really your responsibility.

But that can be really hard to remember when you are in the thick of it. Even when you understand that you might be a family but you are a very dysfunctional one.

I've mentioned before (but it was a long time ago) that I used to keep a staff photo from a pitch next to my desk. It was from a pitch they did when I was in Colorado so I'm not in the picture. And that was the point. I kept it there to remind myself that the company didn't fall apart while I was living in Colorado and it wouldn't fall apart if I left again. That I was just a cog in a wheel, I wasn't the wheel. The company did eventually fall apart. And yes, it was after I left, but no, even though my ego would love to claim it, it wasn't because they just couldn't function without me. It was that the owner had no idea what he was doing with the finances and made some really bad decisions.

That and there was a parade of bookkeepers that read like Spinal Tap drummers. Instead of each of them dying in a new way each of them worked to kill the company in a new way. Until the very last one, and if they had gotten her first they might have stood a chance. But by then it was too late. The books were a mess. There was no going back. The company was done.

What would have happened if I had let our puker puke out her confession? Would the company have failed sooner? Would the damage have been lessened or worsened? Would people have decided that wasn't any of their business, or that they couldn't work for someone who was that fucking stupid to dip his pen in the company ink? And most importantly,

Would I have seen more of the concert?

I'm not sure what would have changed. But I have to admit even knowing now how bad it was going to get. Knowing how much damage to me personally our little puker was going to try to wreak. Knowing that in the end the company was going to fail. Even knowing all of that, I still would have sat with her in the bathroom as she puked her guts out. She was too sick and too out of it to be left alone. She was what she was, and I am who I am.

But, man, it sounded like a fun show.