I had a strange dream last night and I think I have worked out why I had the dream. Before I get to the details of the dream let me explain a few things that are going on in my life that I think led to this strange dream.
Over the past summer, my parent group at work was re-organized. We do this every year or so and just refer to it as “re-org” for simplicity’s sake. I have had 12 managers in my 12 years with my company but I have, for the most part, done the same job for all those years. But this re-org was a little different in that I was moved to a completely different group of people (no former teammates moved with me) so I was the new guy in this group as most of them worked with each other before the re-org. This group is terribly overcommitted so while the welcomed me to the team openly, they had ulterior motives in that I might be able to shoulder some of their extra workload. I do not blame them as I had the same hopes. Being outnumbered did not help me in my quest to pass off some of (what I thought was) my extra workload. So, as a result of this, I have been asked to help with some existing work. Most of this work is supporting a tool that I have relatively no experience with so I feel a little uneasy. I have been invited to multiple meetings over the past few months to represent my team and when the meeting organizer realized that I would not be able to immediately help them, they were disappointed. It is I who ask the questions instead of answering them. Also, they tend to need help right now, not 2 weeks from now. Anyway, remember this feeling when I get to my dream.
Another thing in my life (and I have blogged about this before) is my attempt to learn how to play guitar. I have been practicing since late January and I am getting better. If you concentrated really hard while I was playing you might even recognize that it was “Puff the Magic Dragon” or “Let It Be” that I was trying to strum out. My left hand fingertips are getting quite calloused (so much so that it is affecting my ability to type) and I am getting better at switching from chord to chord (though the F chord is hit and miss). Anyway, while the wife and kids are forced to listen to me and they cheer me on, I am not quite ready for prime time.
With these 2 things in mind (my inadequacy at work and my flailing guitar career) I give you the details of my dream as I remember them. The dream started with me in a car. Looking around the car I recognize one person as Michael Sweet. There is another person in the car that in my dream I know but I could not tell you who it is now that I am awake. We arrive at some place that appears to be a concert hall and as the dream went on I realized that Michael had hired me to play with the band. We arrive at a room with drums and other musical equipment like speakers and microphones. I begin to feel a bit uncomfortable not unlike I feel during those meetings I mentioned earlier in this blog entry. I know that there is no way that I can pull this off. My fears get worse when their lead guitarist shows up. Nowhere to be found is the bass player. This would mean that not only am I in the band, but I am hired to be the bass player. This is very much like at work when I am asked to fill in when I have no working knowledge and the need is immediate. It is obvious in the dream that there is a concert that night. I pull Michael aside and confess to him that not only am I woefully under qualified to help, I have also never done what they hired me to do (play bass guitar). Before I talked to him, I half thought I could pull this off (after all it was a dream so I might be an awesome bass player in dreamland). Anyway, Michael was disappointed and a bit upset. It was at this point in time that I woke up from my sleep.
I had a very uneasy feeling for several minutes. Dreams have a way of doing that, keeping the feeling in your mind that you felt in the dream for a few moments as you sort out reality from dreamland. Even now, a few hours later, the feeling is still there below the surface. Maybe I should change from practicing Beatle’s songs and work on some Stryper tunes, just in case.
Jon
