Part Three of Reasons NOT to Come to Detroit.
Dear Reader: if, for whatever reason, you’ve been paying attention to my timestamps, you’re probably wondering why there is such a large gap between the last blog and this one. For an explanation, please see Article #3 here and/or Article #1 here.
It never stops, and look how pretty it is. That prettiness distracts from the … distracting-ness.
For three reasons not to work in Detroit, please read on:
1. Work is too engaging.
Reader, if you’re sitting in your windowless office or a droning lecture right now and want nothing more than to continue your quiet life uneventfully and without whirlwind excitement, do not even bother to proceed. This first reason should be more than enough.
You sort of hover in a state of constant possibility, alternating with intense creativity.
Working in Detroit is a wild storm of using your creativity and thinking about problems and projects in innovative ways. You will arrive home at the end of the workday and find yourself thinking about ways to align a project more fully with company goals. You will willingly schedule weekend meetings to discuss how to more fully meet a non-profit client’s needs. I know this because I have done both. If you want your work to stay on your desk and never excite your mind, Reader, do not apply to Detroit!
2. Your work will have the pressure of meaning.
Reader, you may be wondering: What does that mean?
I’ll explain what I mean to you, but if someone could explain what the above picture of the Detroit Tigers means to me, that would be great.
What I mean is that there is a high chance that your work will have meaningful results both immediately and in the long term. With Challenge Detroit’s non-profit partners, we have had the benefit of seeing the work that we do put into action with surprising alacrity. What we put effort into paid dividends with real-time, real-world consequences – point of fact, we recently learned that a report we put together for Matrix Human Services has already been used with success.
That awareness that your work has meaning can be a lot of pressure, Dear Reader. If your personal preference is for work that disappears into the bowels of corporate paperwork with nary a clue as to its final destination, turn back now.
3. Innovation and ideas will be both encouraged and demanded.
My host company is Cornerstone Charter Schools, a young charter system that just opened two new schools this past August. At the very beginning of my time with CCS, I was asked to create a communications plan for the entire company. Excited, I created Powerpoints and charts, Excel files and Word documents. Then I presented them to my CEO, COO, and CAO, with a mental note to prep backup plans in case of rejection.
Perhaps if Scar had worked in Detroit, he might have found a place for his unusual ideas and personality and all that tragedy could have been avoided.
To my total surprise, the response I received was “Great! Let’s do it!” When pressed on details, I was told, “Some of these may not be implementable right away, but we’ll get the ball rolling as soon as possible!”
That’s right, Reader: in this city, in my job, I can come up with new ideas that have never been done before at my company and not only have them accepted but encouraged. If I wanted to start a club at our new high school, I could (and I have). If I wanted to set our company holiday party in downtown Detroit in order to support COLORS-Detroit, I just needed to make the reservation. If I wanted to create an appreciations program, I just had to design the system. Almost any idea I have I can float, which means in turn that almost any task I want to take on I can take. Reader, if you have workaholic tendencies — beware. There is work a-plenty for you.