I know people talk to their plants, say loving things and tell them to ‘grow, Honey, into that leafy emerald goddess,’ and I think that’s sweet. If I were some shy Minnesota houseplant yearning for a little more sunny goodness from November - May, those words might be comforting. Uplifting, even.

So, I’m just saying, I know it’s not weird to talk to your plants. Or sing to them. I’m sure I will some day.

However, I talk to the yard plants as if I were their CEO and they are my employees. I’m not sure it’s normal to threaten downsizing for some of the underperformers and talk to the desirable plants as if there are advancement opportunities if they just show up a little on the weekends.

It started normally enough, I guess - just a quarterly meeting, really.

I would chat with them about last quarter’s harsh Spring - the numbers were NOT good - and how “second quarter is really our big time of the fiscal year to move product.” I swing my arms with a little energy, like it’s an off-site meeting in a Hilton conference room. “So, let’s all get geared up for Photosynthesis ‘08! We’ve got Marketing putting together some great slogans!”

I think they’re responsive. My yard plants are definitely proactive and love to think outside the box.

Well, some of them do. But there are non-team players, like Charlie.

Creeping Charlie.

I’ve tried to have his ass fired from Backyard, Inc. so many times and yet he always manages to get in good with Human Resources; he makes me out to be the big-bad middle-manager trying to crush his career goal of racing throughout the lawn. Surprise, Charlie, you shouldn’t have take the front-yard-account away from me, because now I’m using my fiscal ‘09 budget to hire some outside consultants who specialize in organic removal. Outside. Consultants. That’s how far you pushed me.

In the mornings, even days usually, I tour the Raspberry Factory. I nod approvingly but with a slightly haughty demeanor. The hard-workin’ Joes who are busy producing squishy, crimson fruit like to see the Big Boss wandering around every now and then, nodding at their blossoming performance.

It motivates them.

Our nearest competitor is Rose, who is an amazing gardener. She lives next door (and no, she’s not a plant-metaphor-thing. She’s real. I just didn’t think about how confusing that would be when I started this post.) Years ago, Rose planted these pencil thin twigs against the rustic, wooden fence joining our two lots.

“Trust me.” she said.

I was skeptical.

Now they’re an impossibly thick arch - hundreds of bright pink roses, literally hundreds. She trained them up and over the gate, so walking through that fushia foliage is like a like being the prize-winning horse at the Kentucky Derby. It’s intoxicating and my heart swells every single time.

Rose isn’t a competitor anymore, she’s a strategic alliance. A resource partner. She tells me things, organic cures and such, and tonight I offered her some impatiens, a lateral career move for a eight-pack of seedlings who felt they would have better advancement opportunities over there. Good luck, guys. Remember what they say about the grass being greener.

After processing some common weeds and filing them under N for Nuisance (hey, it’s my filing system and it works. I can find anything). I often do an onsite at the satellite office - the window box out front. Later, I retire to the corporate housing, through the exclusive C-level entrance, the deck. It’s an entrance the majority of the employees of Backyard, Inc. never get to use.

And the unfortunate few who DO make it to the deck are decapitated on their stems and their bodies are proudly displayed in a vase on the plastic table on said deck. Everyone in the backyard can see their pink-slipped coworkers, bobbing in water.

There is often a nice green tablecloth to soften the blow of their stolen comrades, but nevertheless I know it’s upsetting to the ranks of Backyard, Inc. because these on the table in the vase - they were the yard’s star performers. Why did they deserve this? How did this happen?

Corporate politics are so confusing, sometimes.

I do worry about how much my corporate career has seeped through my life.

The Mighty Corporate World is like a mission-statement/religion I did not intend to worship, these metaphors and crumbly phrases conveying mirthy acceptance of an adequate life. Not great, but adequate. We all know that the ones tossing around the catch phrase, ‘think outside the box’ couldn’t get out if the box was on fire and the only path was littered with cool, blue diamonds.

I can’t watch the TV show, The Office.

It makes me sick to my stomach. I know, I know…it’s funny. I have seen parts that make me laugh out loud. It’s not the show, it’s me. When I laugh at something funny in The Office, it’s like laughing when I have a toothache and have forgotten that the rush of air inside my mouth is about to jangle a nerve in about 1.1 - NOW, actually. Ow.

It’s not funny to me, I guess, because it’s too damn familiar. I feel like someone should pay me to watch that show because it’s like being at work. Make no mistake - my coworkers were awesome. Not nearly as dim or obtuse.

But I worked as a consultant for 17 years which means I have actually worked for roughly 100 companies and I watched them operate. The gi-normous bunglings! The insane decision-making! Plants are often mindless and seemingly vicious in their competition to survive, but at least they produce beautiful flowers sometimes while doing so.

I take this confusing mind-clutter out on the backyard, my strange language, mental constructs. I think it dehumanizes me when I think of the backyard as a Venn diagram of resources and time and garden space. I am not entirely grateful for that kind of thought process.

And some days when I’m forgetful of Corporate America, I do chatter mindlessly to the plants, saying supportive things like a motivational coach instead of a boss. Sometimes I work through fiction-writing problems with them, talking about how ‘if this character does this…how will he get over here…’ and they listen without giving advice because I didn’t really want advice. I wanted someone to listen. We’re colleagues in these moments, when I soften my brain and consider their beauty.

I think that’s why the Creeping Charlie never quite gets canned, year after year. I’ll be growling about their following the wrong incentivizing program maximizing market share - and then suddenly I will see them all waggling in a breeze, winking neon purple smiles and I remember that beautiful maxim: weeds don’t know that they’re not flowers.

Oh. Okay.

Right.

This isn’t one of those things where I have to win…I have to co-create. Right. I do that sometimes with the universe - we create stuff together. This is one of those times, huh?

If I can just soften my brain from some of the corporate mindset that I seem to have adopted, I am softer to them, maybe softer to myself as well.

Maybe they will invite me to the company picnic this year.

When I tour the Raspberry Factory, I will appreciate their beauty, plump red blobs bobbing in salutation. And I will try to remember that life can be less about productivity/efficiency and a little more about laying in the grass with my hands behind my head and casually saying to the nearest vegetation, “Enough about me. What would you guys like to talk about?”

This entry was posted on Friday, June 20th, 2008 at 11:07 pm and is filed under Warrior. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.