Re: Re: Musician's life in the Military


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Posted by js on June 17, 2003 at 21:52:41:

In Reply to: Re: Musician's life in the Military posted by what a shame on June 17, 2003 at 19:50:16:

Obviously I can never fully empathize with you. I've never been in the military, and I'm past the age.

I have been in a touring (jazz) band that involved some long hours, boredom, weird audiences/associates, and screwed up arrangements, and screwed up bread...along with the predictable irritating habits of colleagues, band leader(s), and their tag-along spouses.

Once I discovered that I was feeling disgruntled over 90% of the time, I decided to avoid - in particular - the other two band members who felt it was their "job" to feel disgruntled. Quite soon thereafter, I was no longer feeling disgruntled. I accepted all of the "crap" as part of the gig (What is a "job", unless it is something that doesn't happen on its own?), and realized that every single situation was of my own choosing (maybe sort of similar to "enlistment").

I decided that since I was through with the "disgruntled" thing, I simply would deal with "birdbrained" leader ideas with quiet (in private) "questions" that usually massaged leaders' thinking gently around (sometimes) 180 degrees away from their original "birdbrained" ideas. Though infinitely more difficult (and surely more risky), I would still predict that in the military a "grunt" with the proper tact and savvy could manipulate a superior into believing that a "better idea" is the idea of the superior - rather than griping in vain to colleagues and to oneself.
______________________
OK - OK... "No Joe, you have NO idea how the military works."

... yeah, but I know just a little bit about how people work.


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