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ALLYSHIP

The Christmas show

One year in my early twenties, I was in a Christmas production for our local church. I played Joseph, soon to be married to Mary, the mother of Jesus. I’m not sure how I was roped in to this role, but it probably had something to do with Mim.

Mim - Miriam was her full name - was the kind of human that was just born with shine. At nineteen years old, she was already completely fine in her own skin - confident, dorky, just as willing to get up on a stage as she was sweeping up the trash after a show. She laughed all the time, and she talked all the time, and her talk was filled with questions, ideas, and rants about God and boys.

Once, she was so into her monologue that she followed me into the church bathrooms, all the way in. She even stepped up to the urinal with me, at which point I waved a hand in front of her face, pointed down, and laughed “Mim. Urinal.”

“What?” She looks around like she just teleported onto the tiles, and her eyes go wide. “Oh shit!” she squeals, and careens away, like a baby giraffe on a slip-and-slide, “Ew! Ew! Gross! Ew!” Mim was great.

So, Mim and I were in this play. For a week leading up to Christmas we would act out the birth of Jesus - the Christmas story. Mim played Mary, and most of the days she got to hold a real live baby, which was pretty special for the audience. There were shepherds, and wise men, and a star, and a choir. We even had a real donkey. Just the one donkey, but it somehow represented all the animals in the manger, or something. What it did best was leave enormous landmines at the door of the church. But between the dumping donkey and the real-live baby Jesus, we had a pretty solid production going on.

What I remember most though, was the Thursday lunchtime show. The show where everything fell apart.

First, the baby wasn’t available. Double booked for a Huggies commercial I suppose. “Fine,” says Mim, “I can nurse a little watermelon or something."

Then, the donkey got lost, somewhere on the farm. Then two of the three wise men had forgotten to ask their parents for permission to be here, and were stuck at home. One by one, the cast dropped away, until our production manager Kelsey declared that we’d have to cancel. She said it was only a small group of parents anyway, and they could attend the Friday show.

Mim shrugged, and looked at me. “What else can we do? We can’t play all the roles ourselves, and I don’t have that many watermelons."

I looked back at her, and because she had asked the question, I felt I needed to answer.

“Let’s do it anyway.” I say.

“You’re kidding. With watermelons?” Mim claps her hands.

“Watermelons are expensive.” Kelsey states with a frown.

“No, not watermelons,” I’m staring over Mim’s shoulder to the television in the corner, some talk show is playing on mute. “Let’s have a question-and-answer time. Mim, you and I can just be Mary and Joseph and let the audience ask us questions. We can still share the Christmas story, but it can be more casual, you know?"

Kelsey is still frowning, but I know she’d rather run something than have to cancel. Mim is nodding slowly, eyes bright, a little half-smile on her lips.

“Let’s do it!” Mim announces.

So, an hour later, before an audience of twenty, Miriam and I walk onto the stage, all dressed up in cliche Biblical attire, and pull up some stools.

—

Back then, I had no idea what the ingredients were for a successful story. I thought we just share information, and label it “story.” That was what our production had been doing all week: We were pretty much laying out the information about Jesus’ birth, with some actors reading some lines.

So when our first question, from a young mother on the front row, was “Um.. How was your trip to Bethlehem?” we replied with some information: “Oh, fine thank you. We took a camel from here to here, there was no room at the inn so we found a stable…” etc. Even as I was sharing it, I felt the energy dropping. Information-sharing isn’t the same as storytelling.

Another question followed, for Mim, “Mary, it must feel wonderful to have such a supportive man by your side, while you carry the Lord’s child inside you?”

It wasn’t even a question, but Mim responded with a smile, “Oh yes, it's really very nice."

Energy. Dropping some more.

What happened next was out of character for me, except that I was playing IN character, so it seemed to fit. A man in the back row was already asking another question, and I stood up, with my fake beard and funny robe, and I held out my hand, which stopped the question mid-sentence.

“Hold on.” I said, taking in the surprise on each face, and the concern on Kelsey’s. “I.. Um..” I looked at Mim, who looked equally surprised, but excited too - she gave me a little nod and a smile. “To be honest,” I continued, “it wasn’t nice at all. It was horrible.”

There were a few gasps, and Kelsey slapped her palm into her face, but in such a way that she didn’t even blink, which I thought was impressive.

“What was horrible, Joseph?” A grandfather at the side of the group seemed truly curious.

“The whole process!” I replied, sitting back on my stool and shaking my head. “How would YOU react to your fiancé suddenly and mysteriously becoming pregnant, and then saying the baby was God's?” Mim caught up instantly.

“It’s true, Joseph was a mess! He did not NOT take it well.” She crossed over to me and put her hand on my shoulder, still addressing the crowd. “He thought I’d cheated on him. Then he though I was mistaken, making it all up. We had some fights.”

“Some big fights.” I continued. “I mean, she’d never done anything like this before, but it was really hard to get my head around. I was so angry.”

“What were you angry at?” A tiny woman sitting on the floor called out.

“Well, I was angry at Mary, for being so calm about it all, and I was angry at God, for doing things in a way that I just NEVER understand, and I was angry at myself, for not knowing how to deal with it all.” I took a breath. "I wasn’t being my best self, and I couldn’t change it, and I hate that."

I had passed my hand over my eyes for a second, and when I looked up, everyone was staring at us. There were nods in the crowd, a few tears. Mim returned to her stool, and the questions after that became a lot more interesting. We talked about the Christmas story, sure, but we did it in a profoundly human way, with real emotions and conflicts and doubt.

We’d somehow shifted from the surface questions of “what happened?” to the deeper story-questions of “what did you make all that mean?” and “what do you believe about it?”

At the end of our hour, the audience applauded and many came over and hugged us. One man said that he finally understood something he’d been struggling with for a decade. The tiny woman on the floor shook my hand solemnly and said that she absolutely does not believe in God, but she thinks He did a good job when He created human emotions.

Another woman drew Mim aside and sternly advised her to raise the child well, and not let him ever be ashamed of his beginnings. Mim nodded sagely and thanked her with a hug.

I think I remembered that hour so clearly because, out of all the shows, this one seemed to matter. Whatever happened there wasn’t the usual information-sharing, with a bit of entertainment thrown in. It went deeper. The audience were moved. And we felt great playing our part in that movement.

I reckon this was what playwrights felt when they put a new play on the stage, and saw their audience engaging with the story. And it is probably why they write such elements into their scripts as vulnerability, honesty, conflict and beauty.

Because we want our interactions with others to matter. And all these elements of humanity - the vulnerability and the conflict - help to unearth the stuff that matters.

What I learned in the coffee industry

When I was in my mid-twenties, I quit my corporate office job to work across the road in a coffeeshop. It was wonderful. My whole role was essentially to serve, shine, and honour the customer. The mandate from the owner was to "deliver an experience”, to remind the customer that they are important, interesting and worthy of respect.

One of my favourite customers in the coffeeshop was Simon. Long black, two sugars.
He would stride in, run his fingers through his greying hair, and wink at the barista. “The usual, Ellie, and how are we all today?”
We would banter a bit, and bring his order out to his window seat, while he reads through the finance section of the paper. What made him memorable was how often he complained about his coffee - about twice a week, he would return to the counter, look me in the eye, and shake his head.
“Coffee’s shit today, Nath.”
And, in true the customer is always right style, I would nod, and lean in, and reply, “What are you tasting, Simon?”
“It’s burnt. The beans are burnt. Ellie screwed up the shots.” Ellie is right next to me, and utters a tiny sigh.
“Well, Ellie and I are so sorry. We screwed up. Can we make you a fresh cup?”
“Yeah, thanks guys.” (another wink.)
Ellie makes another cup, with exactly the same beans, same shots, and Simon loves it. And he returns twice more that day.

It’s the hospitality industry, right? A hundred years ago it was exactly the same. There's a a report from a 1905 newspaper about how the Sears Group treated customers:

"Every one of their thousands of employees are instructed to satisfy the customer regardless of whether the customer is right or wrong. The customer comes first, last and all the time.” - (Des Moines, Iowa, 1905.)

This is the hospitality mandate. We take care of the customer, give them what they want, make sure they’re happy, and they’ll return and buy again. We pretend that they’re right, so that they return, because we want their money. It’s a transactional relationship: "You are paying me money, so I am at your service.”

Thinking back to that coffeeshop, there were actually some concerning behaviours going on.

Simon, long black two sugars, believed he knew more about coffee than we did. The power to decide if the coffee is good enough rested entirely with him.

Tyson, two macchiatos for him and his dad, didn’t care about the coffee at all. But he demanded our time. No matter the queue, we must ask him about his shop and his family, and as long as we listen, he’ll return each day for more coffee. The power to control our time together was entirely with him.

Claire, skinny latte and a slice of toast, doesn’t even look at us. She’s often on her phone when she drops her cash on the counter, and she drums her nails continuously until her order is ready, and then she’s gone. We exist only to get her the fix she needs.

Now, for us hospitality staff, this was fine, par for the course. We knew that we were awesome at making coffee - that the beans were fine, the shots were great. We knew that what we were really selling was an experience, some attention, whatever the customer needed. We knew that in the end, the customer was handing over their cash to us, and that’s the transaction that mattered.

The fallout, though, was that we couldn’t respect those customers who didn’t respect us.

So we treated them like children - We pandered to them, played their little games, and then took their money. And, like children, the customer-who-is-always-right became entitled, entrenched in their belief that they deserved everything.

The power was out of balance, and the respect was out of balance. The expectations were all off.

I'm not making coffee for people anymore, but I do still experience these imbalances. As a parent, I've had children demand their way, as if I just exist to serve them. As a husband, I've sometimes forgotten we are a team, assigning respect and power based on the amount of income we each earn.

Health professionals have patients demanding more, and faster, and better. Receptionists are being abused for not performing. Bazillion-doller corporate deals are falling over because someone felt disrespected. People are dying because others have too much power.

I'm not saying that power is bad, or respect should be prescribed, or expectations should be lowered, or anything like that. These are elements of humanity that spark great and wonderful things in life. But, when the balance goes out, it happens subconsciously, and our response is disconnection: we can't even describe exactly why, but we feel it, and we distance ourselves from each other.

I honestly loved my time in coffee. I loved reminding others that they were important, and interesting, and worthy of respect. I want to be that voice in all my relationships, in all my business dealings. I'm realising that transactional relationships are everywhere in life, with so many "I gave you this, I now deserve that" imbalances, but it's okay. We're all human and we're getting there.

What gives me hope, though, are the outliers. Those characters in the system who just somehow rise above it. They’re in the game, but changing the rules.

Like Aldo, who would swing by for a double espresso every morning at 9:45. He's selling the most expensive commercial real estate in the city, but in the coffeeshop he is an equal. He lingers at the bar, asks us all about our lives and interests, notices when Ellie gets a haircut, asks for advice for his home coffee machine.

Or Wayne, decaf flat white, parks his bike around the corner. So excited about our lives. I shot his daughter's wedding.

And Lucy, who crosses the entire city for a skinny cappuccino from us, who asks for our ideas, shares her stories, and thanks us for making her feel so loved.

For these customers, we would do anything. Their humility and vulnerability opened the door for us to share a collaborative power. We all stood together as equal humans, just with different skill sets. The respect was balanced, and we all drew in, we connected, and were all empowered.

So, I'm working on being an outlier. In a world of transactional relationships, I want to find different ways to play the game. So that us humans can stay connected and equal, and share the power, and collaborate for truly great things.

On the road: Basel, Switzerland

A few years ago Rach and I did some work for Roche Pharmaceuticals. With all the pharma-politics in play right now, I thought this memory from March 2019 was worth sharing.

—

We saw the tower before we even entered the country. And we watched it until our wheels hit the runway.

It's not that it's particularly big, but more, that it's alone. Every other structure is regular-sized: Houses and apartments and commercial buildings, all obeying the usual sizing rules of ancient European cities. But the Roche tower is a completely different creation. It stands tall and singular, like the first kid in school to hit her growth spurt. But without the awkward.

It's stands there, an alien beacon awaiting re-enforcements, breathing in 5% of the entire population of the city, like a scheduled apocalypse. 7:00am and they're all gone. And those left behind go about their day until the sunset return of all those who were taken, blinking in the afterglow of sunlight they never saw, wondering what's for dinner, and where the time went.

At least, that was the conclusion I drew, standing on the Wettsteinbrücke bridge overlooking the Rhine, with the softly spectacular homes of Basel Switzerland lining the shores. And that peerless tower, quietly breaking the horizon.

I watched the kaleidoscope sky reflect off the tower's shiny faces and sharp edges, and concluded that a corporate pharmaceutical juggernaut had landed in this quaint town, and is now feeding on the townsfolk, and honestly, how would you even say no to such a beast? We have bills to pay, loved ones to create experiences with, families to care for. We all need money. We all need to live.

I stood on that bridge, and compared the reflections: The crystal windows of the tower, and the slow running river below me. Clinical perfection, versus organic flow. Solidity and Fluidity.
Future and Nature.
The windows were winning, as far as clarity went.

Rach stood beside me, and I'm sure we were thinking the same thing:

What have we subscribed to here?
What possible part can we play in this world of billion-dollar pharma players?

Our message is one of empowerment and empathy, love over fear, celebrating difference and diversity. Who, in that tower, will listen, or even care?

--

The next morning, we were taken to the top floor. I could see France to the left, and Germany to the right. And below me, our enormous shadow, stretching across houses and spaces for blocks and blocks in the early morning light.

I wondered what it would be like to live in that shadow. Sunrise, but no sun. Just the monolith. The whole street would feel colder.

And then we were into it. Our workshop room had the most enormous table I'd ever seen. Someone flipped a switch, and the floor to ceiling curtains glided open, revealing a sunlit green courtyard, scattered with employees drinking their coffees and sharing their perspectives on, I don't know, world domination.

And then our people arrived. Scientists, researchers, health professionals, patient liaison experts. All serving in the Rare Disease Space. And all completely exceptional humans.

All my preempted judgements, all our fears of distant corporate robots, were just blown away by the absolute humanity of these attendees. They were passionate about their work. They want to save lives. They are searching for solutions that don't yet exist.

There were tears, and honesty, and vulnerability, and an overwhelming sense of love.

Yep. These aliens love us.

Turns out, this tower is filled with people who care about people. They've moved cities and countries to be a part of the team. To find cures, and solutions, for others in pain. They work long hours, they give up their own comforts, in the hope of finding needles in haystacks. We spoke to one researcher who has a child of her own with a rare condition that doesn't yet have a cure. But her job is finding a cure for a different condition, one that will save other children's lives but not her own. She works extra hard because she knows the pain the other parents are feeling, and she has to trust that somewhere else, there is a researcher close to a cure for her own child.

It's like this whole industry rests on faith. A daily belief that there is more to learn, more to find. Solutions still to be uncovered. Techniques still to be unearthed. There's this tenacity for justice, that declares "This is not right, and someone needs to fight for it".

I know Roche is a pharma giant. But inside those walls, we met the people doing the work, and in the rare disease space at least, they are doing the work of justice, and miracles. Inside those walls, there are thousands of people dedicating their lives to other people.

I know nothing is perfect, and I know corruption is everywhere. I grew up in a church, that I loved, so I'm well aware of the negative power of the institution. But what I saw in church is what I see in Roche:

Despite the corporation, despite the external shell of power and profits and popularity, there are thousands of people with hearts of gold, giving their lives for something meaningful and needed in this world.

Behind all the sharp corporate edges, beat soft warm hearts, and they are well worth appreciating, and applauding.