I was reminded of a story I heard from one of my sons recently when another son advised me, “Hide, Mom. If they can’t find you, they can’t fire you.”
More on that very good advice in a second. But first, I want to share the story it called to mind.
Some of my sons are big fans of mixed martial arts. They watch matches, follow the fighters, have favorites that they root for. Mixed martial arts fighters have to be ready for random drug tests because that comes with the territory.
Here’s the story my son told me: There’s an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fighter named Jon Jones. Legend has it that the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) was jonesing for Jones and came by the gym where he worked out. Jones got wind that they were there to test him before they caught sight of him, so he hid under the octagon—which is the fighting ring where UFC fights happen—to evade them. Apparently, the USADA drug testers had plenty of time, so they hung around for eight hours at the gym, waiting for Jones to show up. Which he never did, of course, because he was already there. The drug testers left, and Jones, by virtue of his willingness to hide and wait it out, avoided testing that day.
The tale may be urban legend, (although some maintain its truth: https://fightstate.com/jon-jones-hid-under-the-octagon-at-his-gym-for-8-hours-to-avoid-drug-test/), but it hardly matters because there’s so much to love about the story. And no, I’m not an advocate of doping in sports. But I do love a parable where someone outfoxes The Man with sustained chutzpah. It provides valuable inspiration for my own situation.
I’m on contract for my horticultural therapy job. It’s a year-long contract, and it comes up for renewal (or not) on November 30. The administrator who hired me back in December of last year left the site I work at in March. Now that position has been filled and the new administrator started on November 1. To prove their value out of the starting blocks, new administrators sometimes like to shrink the budget. The previous administrator was completely committed to the Horticultural Therapy program, but who knows if this new administrator has even heard of Horticultural Therapy? For someone so inclined, my program and I are a pretty easy budget line item to delete. It’s a bummer that the new admin didn’t start earlier so we could have gotten to know each other and she could have had more time to observe the program in action before my contract expired.
A big element of my eight-year Struggling Goddess plan is keeping this job. I talked to one of my sons about my concern regarding the possibility of getting axed by this new administrator and that’s when he told me to hide. “They can’t fire you if they can’t find you.” Because if we don’t renegotiate the contract, it continues as is. At least until they find me.