Tangible or Intangible

You may be perplexed at the accompanying photo here. If you consider starting a basketball team, most people would probably start with names like Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson or Kobe Bryant because when checking the stat sheet, those are the names you would often see at the top. Right there in black and white were tangible results laid out in terms of points, assists or steals. However, what you MAY NOT see is that guy who will stand there and take a charge or disrupt shots with tough D or dives for loose balls.

Hence the photograph which most people would not recognize. Unless that is, if you were an Indiana University basketball fan in the mid to late 90's. And if you were, the guy in the photograph, Brian Cardinal was a guy you loved to hate. Not because he was a bad guy but because he specialized in diving for loose balls, hustling and taking a charge that would turn the game around. He was not the most talented player and would never throw 30 points up on the score board, but he affected the game in profound ways with his toughness. You might say he did a lot of the dirty work. To be perfectly honest, he was annoying because he was playing for the wrong team. How dare him play for Purdue rather than going to IU. If he were in an Indiana uniform, I would have loved him and I suspect other foes had the same view.

Maybe, perhaps some of us will have lots of tangible skills and have so much talent as software developers. Some of us have a great head start already. But if you are like me, you are banking on your intangibles for the moment. What are those? Well, it is different for everyone. For me, I feel like I have a lot of experience working with a team, management and general problem solving that will hopefully get me started down the right road. The problem solving and working with a team are aspects where it is pretty easy to see how they translate, but what about management because if I ever get back into management, it will probably be a while. However, I think because I have been there as a manager, I know how important it is to be easy to manage, so that is my goal for the immediate future. In addition to all that, I had a dad who was an extremely hard worker and in my mind set the standard for what work ethic was. He worked at the same company for 45 years and only called in sick a few times. He was never paid a lot but took such pride in his work and always talked about how much he loved his job. I can only hope to have a fraction of his work ethic. You might say he was the Brian Cardinal of his industry.

So maybe, I was thinking, I can strive to be like Brian Cardinal. How? Well, by taking on the task that no one is excited about or encouraging someone when they are down or taking a few extra minutes to do things right and not take shortcuts. Here is the question I want to leave us with and something to ponder. In regards to work, what do we do when nobody is around and nobody will notice?