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Columnist: High demands of modern productivity edifies improvisation

By Sarah Mann

Posted on Feb. 20, 2011, at 11:20 p.m.

There are certain skills you acquire over the course of an education, both academic and hard-knocks style —you learn the outrageous mathematical theorem for doing something you’ll never have to actually do in real life.

You learn how to look like you belong in a city so you don’t get jumped.

But here at the University of Maine it seems the biggest lesson I have been taught is how to proportionally spread myself thin. Sacrifices have to be made when enduring “Hell Week” for one production while starting rehearsals for a second, as well as writing papers, attending classes and still trying to have a semblance of a social life.

The thing most often on the effigy is sleep. The whole campus is overrun with the over-tired for one reason or another. Whether there aren’t enough hours in a day to get the things done, or that last game of Mario Kart is now coming back to haunt your 8:00a.m. class, sleep remains the first sacrificial lamb.

I am the teaspoon of jelly scratched over the burnt toast and it won’t change any time soon. I fell ill last week and couldn’t place whether it was an honest-to-God virus or just the consequences of my lifestyle.

Having a cough and baggy red eyes could mean any number of things, and I need more convincing that I didn’t just bring it upon myself by not climbing into my bed when I should have.

In “Pirates of Penzance” this past weekend, one of the cast members had a sinus infection and went on regardless. Singing opera with a sinus infection is no joke. It’s tough enough on your system to deal with one or the other, but throw them both together and you’ve got an Olympic-sport-sized series of hurdles.

After the show, we converged upon him saying he had to go home and rest, only to be met with, “But I have class.”

It seems Mark Twain was indeed right: In order to be successful, we must stop letting school interfere with our education.

In professional theater, it wouldn’t even be brought up to “sit this one out” if you had a cold. You’d be jeered and looked at like a baby if you screw up on stage, you are obligated to save face and improvise — not unlike actual life.

If you’ve fallen ill whether by germ or exhaustion, then you are expected to improvise until you’re back to 100 percent. Being sick is no longer a good excuse to miss class — we skip classes to go for a sandwich now because that seems like a more respectable reason to skive off.

“I’m sorry, I’ve been coughing up blood all morning” is now “I’m sorry, I needed to eat.” These basic events of feeding ourselves and recharging are being sacrificed to the gods of productivity.

A friend told me she had a half-hour lunch break the other day and somehow managed to drive from Orono to Milford, eat, run errands, return and have fifteen minutes left in that break.

Now, if that’s not impressive, I don’t know what is — and it’s a skill she has learned right here at the university.

When we graduate, will we recall the general education lectures or retain how to drive a stick shift with a knee while peeling a banana? Which will help you more when that mysterious celebrity client you’re now the assistant for needs a shopping list of strange tasks completed?

Mental health is a luxury — a physical health, a second thought. It’s all relative in the arena of getting things done. I can’t think of better lessons. The ladder to success is laden with the stressful peanut butter of our ever-elusive time, just waiting to trip you if you let it.

I am not endorsing running yourself ragged at all times, but merely pointing out that knowing how to do so efficiently is the greatest thing I’ve learned here.

Now the paradox comes when one has finally made it to the top and can’t recall the subject matter of a book up for discussion because one didn’t attend the class that day in liew of getting a sandwich. There’s the rub — this balancing act must be topped off with a real perked-up sense of wonder.

What will weed out the ragged from the efficient is who wins both sides of the war. If you can do an impossible set of overlapping tasks on a regular basis and still somehow maintain all of the information being thrown at you by your serious professors, then you’ve really graduated.

Or you’re a superhero. Either way, prepare for some very nice paychecks.

Sarah Mann is a fourth-year English student. Her columns will appear every Monday.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 20th, 2011, 11:20 pm. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.