A very senior university executive sat next to me at a meeting, looked around as if to make sure there hadn’t been some mistake in the seating arrangements, and said to me, “what area do you work in?”
“I teach writing,” I said.
“Oh, so you’re in the arts and humanities,” he said, eyeing off an empty chair next to someone more promising. “You guys do all the soft stuff.” He turned back and looked me straight in the face. “I’m from maths, engineering and science. We do all the hard stuff.”
I took a breath. “Yes,” I said. “You design the pill that lets people live five years longer. We help them spend that time with joy, interest and meaning.”
But I didn’t say that. That’s what I wanted to say. The words had even arranged themselves in that order in my mind when the senior executive finished speaking. I felt like Voltaire. But I didn’t have the courage to spit those words out.
What I actually said was, “Yes, but think what an imposing trivia team we’d make.”
Pathetic. Grovelling.
The words of a company man.
– Yannick