Mojo, The Bard, & Me

Caesar and Antony have ever won

More in their officer than person.

-Ventidius

Antony and Cleopatra   Act III, scene i      Line 17

Before I start with today’s Totally Random line can I just say that I realize that you can make some pretty good arguments for why this Totally Random thing that I’m doing is a bit screwy. And maybe it is, but there’s one thing I’d like to say in defense of it. This process makes me look at lines, and sections, that I (and maybe no one else) would otherwise never have keyed in on. And if there’s one thing we’ve come to realize over the past four hundred years it’s that there really isn’t much of anything in Will’s works that’s extemporaneous. It all has meaning, you just have to look for it. I don’t know where I came up with this Totally Random idea, but I’ve been doing it now for eighty-four straight days and I don’t see any signs of stopping. I’m not proud…

And that leads me to today’s line and scene. It’s a short scene with two guys who don’t figure much in this play. Ventidius is one of Antony’s generals and he was sent by Antony to fight the battle in Parthia. Ventidius has fought that battle and won and now his buddy Silius is advising him to go after the routed enemy and make an even greater victory. But Ventidius explains to Silius that he’s not going to do this for fear of accomplishing too much and by doing so showing up Marc Antony. Ventidius is a cagey old soldier and well knows that he has to know his place. He knows that guys like himself are what makes Caesar and Antony great. And this is an important, and well worth noting, point. And it reminds me of a personal story.

When I was first getting started in accounting I was working for a big firm (Big 8 at the time, now it’s Big 4). My manager told me something one day that has stuck with me all these years. He looked at me and said “Your job is to make me look good.” Well my first thought was, ‘Yeah, I don’t think so, buddy!’ But I realized after thinking about it how true that statement is. It was true then, and it’s always been true. And Ventidius knows it too. His job as a subordinate is to make Antony look good. And that’s how Antony, Caesar, George Washington, Admiral Nelson, and all those other great leaders succeeded. They had very capable people, like Ventidius, beneath them. Of course, not all the Ventidius’s of the world know this. But this one does.

This is my only souvenir of my days back in Big Eight accounting. No, it doesn't really have anything to do with making my manager look good. It's a lock that I had to have cut off the briefcase with the work papers in it because I got to the client and realized I'd left the key home. Luckily I was at a client that had a mechanic's shop and that my manager wasn't there that day. So he had no idea that I wasn't making him look particularly good, and that he wasn't winning more in his officer that day.