What do a miscreant grade schooler, a Naval Academy Plebe, and a corporate dude have in common?
They walk around feeling like they’re in trouble.
All the time.
I should know.
I’ve been all three.
And I’m beginning to think that feeling like you’re in trouble is a permanent feature of the human experience.
It started when I threw a rock at a car.
I was in first or second grade, sitting on the curb in front of my house.
A giant Buick went creeping by, as through it were casing the joint.
I had a piece of gravel in my hand.
Which was normal for me at that age.
I never walked past a gravel driveway without picking up a handful of the stuff to inspect it for pieces of gold.
Because, hey. You never knew.
So, the car’s going by, super slow, and I’m turning the piece of gravel over in my hand.
Which I’d already inspected for gold and hadn’t found any.
And, for no particular reason, I thought, why not throw it at the car?
I figured it was a good use for a non-gold-containing, otherwise worthless rock.
So, I did.
I threw it at the car.
And it when it hit the trunk, it gave off a very satisfying “tink” sound.
I had a pretty good arm for my age.
I was a regular on the little league travel team.
As I sat there, congratulating myself for the direct hit, I noticed the car abruptly stop, right in the middle of the road.
And then out came this little old lady.
She walked around to the back of the car and started feeling around on the door of the trunk.
Her hand stopped on what looked like a chalk mark.
And then she started looking up and down the street until she found me sitting on the curb.
“You!” she said. “You did this!”
She was pointing a crooked, arthritic finger directly at me.
But that didn’t stop me from hoping that maybe she was talking to someone else.
Who? Me? I asked, pointing at myself.
“Yes, you! Do you see anyone else around?” she asked, sarcastically.
I did not.
“Why did you throw a rock at my car?” she continued.
Well, there was my thing with gravel and my quest to find gold and buy a mansion with it, and then you drove by, and I had the rock in my hand, and . . .
Of course, I didn’t share any of that with her.
I just continued to sit on the curb in frightened silence.
“Well, let’s just see what your mother has to say about this,” she said, ominously.
And then she walked to my front door and knocked on it.
My mother answered, got the whole story from the old lady, apologized profusely, and promised that I’d be severely punished.
As soon as my father got home.
“Daniel!” my mother shouted. “Get in here . . . now!”
I was ordered to my room, where I was to remain.
Until my father got home.
“Just wait . . .” my mother said.
Now, my father was not a harsh person.
He rarely raised his voice, played a decent game of tennis, and was fond of smoking a pipe at the end of our driveway most nights after dinner.
But, when the occasion warranted, he was pretty handy with a belt.
And for that reason, I sat in my room that afternoon with a sense of dread.
I was indeed in trouble.
Interestingly, I don’t remember exactly what happened when my dad got home.
But I vividly remember the anticipation.
That sense of dread.
The same sense I’d have in Annapolis nearly two decades later.
I’d just returned to my room from my Plebe, or freshman, English class.
It was approaching three o’clock in the afternoon, and I needed to quickly change before heading out to track practice.
But as soon as I crossed the threshold to my room, I was struck with horror.
There, sitting on my desk, in plain view, was my coffee maker.
Shit! My coffee maker.
I usually kept it hidden in the cabinet under my sink behind a stack of towels.
Small appliances of any variety were illegal in the Naval Academy’s giant dorm, Bancroft Hall.
That was because the place had been wired way back in the days of sail, or close to it, and the use of such devices risked burning the place down.
At least, that’s what we’d been told.
I gathered that my coffee maker had been found during an unannounced room inspection.
Those were regular occurrences in the life of a Plebe.
The trouble was, I didn’t know who’d done the inspection and found my contraband coffee maker.
Had it been an upperclassman?
That would have been less concerning to me.
Most of the upperclassmen in my company were pretty chill.
The same was not true of my company officer.
He was the commissioned officer in charge of the hundred or so midshipmen in my company and was an absolute stickler for the rules.
Plus, he could mete out punishments that carried real consequences.
As in, those that affected one’s class rank and could jeopardize one’s ability to capture a pilot training slot upon graduation.
Which I desperately wanted.
What should I do here? I thought.
Whomever had found my coffee maker had left no identifying information.
No angry note directing me to report immediately to him or her.
So, I went out to practice.
A very long and shitty practice, given the sense of dread I carried with me.
Dinner came and went. Then study hour.
Nothing.
Not a word from anyone.
Finally, the next morning, I got the story.
It came during my Friday come-around with my Firstie, the Midshipman First Class, or senior, to whom I reported.
I arrived outside his room at zero-six-thirty to stand at attention and be quizzed on a variety of topics.
Like the weapons, forward to aft, on a Ticonderoga class cruiser.
That was a come-around.
They were a daily occurrence and a prominent feature of the Plebe harassment package.
My Firstie, Mister Newell, began, “So, Bozung, about that coffee maker . . .”
Oh, shit, I thought. Here it comes.
“The Lieutenant found it,” he said.
Yikes! Our company officer. That was the worst of all possible outcomes.
“And he told me to deal with it,” he continued, gravely.
He went on, “The trouble is . . . well, see . . .”
Mister Newell looked up and down the passageway and then leaned in closer to me and lowered his voice.
“The trouble is, I have a coffee maker, too. So, it’s kinda hard for me to get on your case about yours.”
Really? I thought. That’s awesome!
“Just make it go away, alright? Get it out of the Hall, and we’ll forget the whole thing,” he concluded.
Can do, sir.
I wouldn’t have my morning coffee, but I wouldn’t be marching tours, either.
That was fair.
And my sense of dread was relieved.
For the moment, at least.
Fast-forward another couple decades, and I’m walking into a meeting with the CEO.
I have that same damn feeling.
That I’m in trouble.
It’s constant. And pervasive.
I’ve found that in any corporation, you’re always under-performing.
Always failing to meet expectations.
That’s because, as the saying goes, if the business ain’t growing, it’s dying.
And growth often depends upon forces beyond one’s control.
Some years you get lucky.
Most years you don’t.
So, you spend your days feeling like you’re walking around at your own funeral.
“Are you going to hit your numbers this quarter?” the conversation begins.
And then you give an answer along the lines of, Well, it’ll be a challenge. As you know, the Chinese have entered this market in force, dragging down prices. And, since we’re dealing in commodities, without any meaningful opportunity to differentiate, customers are defecting to low-cost providers . . .
Blah, blah, blah.
Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.
Translation: I don’t have a friggin’ clue as to whether I’ll meet my budget.
Likely, I won’t, because those numbers are totally unrealistic and always have been.
But I’ll do this little tap dance every month to make the boss feel as though he’s holding me accountable.
It makes me feel like a kid again, waiting in my room for my father to get home.
Or a Naval Academy Plebe, reporting for a come-around.
It never ends.
You’re in trouble, mister!
Yup.
Aren’t we all?