When I was 42 or so, I happened to board the home-going bus behind two chatting people. The woman was first, and she half-turned to her male companion as they entered the vehicle, announcing that she’d finally done it.

“It” was quitting her job, and by his comment I knew she had been working for a big business – PG&E or the phone company or something like that.

“I just couldn’t take it any more. I hope I’m done with that kind of position forever,” she said to her friend. “You know how it is: if you’re incompetent you’re given more resources, and if you’re competent you’re given more work.”

We took seats a distance from each other, so that’s all I heard. It’s all I needed to hear; she hit the nail on the head. Ain’t it the truth?

In fact, that’s the very theme that struck me when I first heard the fairy tale “Rumpelstiltskin.” The big thing in that story, I think, is what happens after the first night, after the miller’s daughter has made her deal with the elf and spun a room of straw into gold. The King’s response is to then give her two rooms of straw to spin.

I put it in a sonnet:

She labors in a straw-filled room to make
improbable conversion into gold.
To realize her father’s claim, she’ll take
whatever way she must, and hold
herself of small account. She strikes a deal
with ugliness, and then to keep her son
she has another puzzle to unseal:
the secret name of the unlucky one.

The legend is engorged with meaty themes
like lies and names and promises unkept,
but one idea keeps after me, it seems,
concerning those too few who aren’t inept.
If one can spin a room to gold, then sure
reward for that will be to spin two more.