Are the Lines of Your Resume a Tangled Mess?

When I say I like hot weather over cold weather, I’m not saying I want to be hot necessarily. I’m just saying that temperatures that allow me to be comfortable in a pair of shorts and flip flops appeal to me more than mucklucks and parkas.

Recently, a friend of mine agreed to climb the mast of my boat to take care of an issue that jammed up the line used to hoist my mainsail. Now, understand, climbing the mast of a sailboat is not a task to be taken lightly and requires a concentrated effort on the part of the person going up, and the part of the crew assisting down below.

I’ve talked about this in other blog posts, but just as a reminder, the person going up is strapped into a harness called a bosons chair and is hoisted to the top by at least two people using the most convenient winch available either attached to the mast or nearby. While the person is up the mast, the ground crew is charged with keeping an eye on things for the safety of the climber. The ground crew is also responsible for sending tools up and the occasional bottle of water if the job takes a little while.

When someone agrees to go up my mast, they can request anything they want and I will hop to it chip chop chip in order to accommodate them. Believe me when I tell you, the last thing you want is someone getting overheated and passing out while up there. I mean, it makes one heck of a mess on the deck of your boat to have a 200-pound man land on it from 40 feet up. Oh, and he probably won’t want to be your friend anymore either.

Anyway, back to my point. So, this was the hottest day so far this year, and as Jac and I stood below the mast we literally began to melt. There is no shade where we had to stand, so you are just out there with full-on sun. The few clouds that were moving around overhead were purposely staying away from the sun. I’m not kidding about that either. I actually looked up and saw one make a right turn just before it would have been covering the sun.

Between the three of us, we must have drank somewhere near 27 gallons of water. For me, that much water would’ve easily meant several trips to the little sailor’s room for pressure relief, but this was not the case this day. No, this day my body was like the cartoon character that gets shot full of holes then takes a drink and ends up looking like a multi spigot water fountain. You get the picture.

Now, this job was only supposed to take a few minutes. But two hours later, my buddy was still up there, and Jac and I were still working on our sunburns. It seems the line had got caught around a pulley and was wedged in just enough to require some major pulling, pushing, banging, bending, and more banging then a little cursing, followed by pulling again.

Just inches below our feet was an air conditioned cabin where Louie, Jac’s miniature pinscher, was resting comfortably, and we desperately wanted to be there with him.

But we would have felt a little twinge of guilt leaving our pal out there alone. After all it was our boat, and he was probably saving us several thousand dollars.

While he beat on the line that was tangled at the pulley, Jac and I were trying various ways to put pressure on the line from below to help pull it through. It took several more attempts, but finally it snapped and we all felt 15 degrees cooler and relieved that it had not been a wasted endeavor.

Was it hot? Yes.

Was it miserable at times? Yes.

Was it a worthwhile endeavor ultimately? Yes.

Do I ever want to do it again? No, but sooner or later I will.  For as long as we own a sailboat there will always be something we‘ll have to do that won’t be fun, but we will suffer through it and as a result our understanding of the boat will be amplified by the experience.

If the lines of your resume are a tangled mess right now and you’re dreading the unavoidable task of going up the mast, so to speak, just think of how good it will feel when that line pops free, and the phone rings welcoming you to your new position. All the blood, sweat and tears will have been well worth whatever angst and discomfort you had to endure to get things lined out properly. And as a bonus, you may just learn a few things about yourself along the way.

By Rob Poindexter

(Photo by peakscan, flickr)