“You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, well, you just might find, you get what you need.”
I love this song. I always have. I also love how Hollywood used it in the funeral scene of The Big Chill. It was a guaranteed laugh kicking off a great movie. It’s also a great life lesson & anecdote for me.
A few years back I was looking for work. I was fortunate enough to have two suitors. I was confident of going back to work with only a small interruption.
Suitor #1 was a large commercial printer. They were actually larger than the company I had just left. They boasted full web, sheet offset, digital, fulfillment and an in-house direct response mailer.
They’re definitely the real deal. They were located in my hometown too. I was convinced it was “Divine Intervention.” It was meant to be.
Suitor #2 was smaller. They were a solid enough company but there wasn’t anything exciting about them. They did offset and digital. They were quite small compared to my former employer.
I was committed to working wherever it occurred but privately, I was most excited by suitor #1.
It didn’t happen. Suitor #1 never came through with an offer. I wound up at suitor #2 a few weeks later.
“It’s ok” I told myself. I’m underemployed but I can make this work. I only need to squeeze out two more years. If I can pull that off, I can retire in good shape.
Read the rest of Bill’s column on Printing Impressions.
