The art of non-conformity.

Once in high school, this girl Kelley was trying to dissuade my crush on her because it meant that, as long as I vocally liked her, more popular kids were sitting away from her at the lunch table.

So, one night on the phone, she told me that she didn't want me sitting with her at lunch anymore. Because, even though I was smart and nice enough, the popular kids were fleeing because of me, she said.

"Well, why would you want to be friends with people like that?" I asked.

"Because I'm trying to fit in at a new school," she said to me.

"But people who would judge you because you sit with me are dumb for doing so," I said.

"You're probably right," she said, "But I still don't want you sitting with me."

And I got upset.

So Kelley said to me the following statement, which immediately became carved-in-stone in my memory.

"You're a non-conformist, and that's good," she said chirpily. "John Lennon was a non-conformist. Then again, so was Hitler."

I don't fit in. I never have. Heck, with my leg, my family, my mouth and my mind, I don't think I was ever designed to play to the crowd.

Last week, I wrote that I fit in by standing out, which is what I suppose I'm supposed to do ... if you believe in design or fate.

This week, back at work with people who don't "get" me and aren't particularly tolerant of my methods - even if they see my competence, I'm a little frustrated.

They want me to be more even, more predictable, more focused and more involved in the work that I do.

But the work that I do is, at face value, boring and sorta unimportant. And I'm not the sort that you promote. This is stuff I know.

I'm capable of more. And I want to motivate myself to something more personally involving than this.

(I'm not alone. Last week, Miss Gibson, facing a similar ceiling, wondered aloud to me if she had "too much personality" to be successful. If she were quieter, less opinionated and less frankly herself, she reasoned that she might hit fewer glass ceilings. I can't personally imagine that version of Miss Gibson. And I don't think she can either, which is why it frustrates her.)

My favorite old boss Bob, who called me the worst kind of employee because I was a "performing non-conformer" - meaning that I could do good work but didn't want to follow the rules, talked to me about my frustrations today, spurned by the fact that my supervisor Ethan finds me capable and yet unmanageable.

I thanked Bob for understanding me, for pushing the right buttons with me and for, to be honest, encouraging me to do something that I wanted to do while I was still young enough to face a change and not get stuck.

"You're a procrastinator," Bob said. "I understood that. You dawdle around during the day, then push yourself to get a lot done at the last minute. I'm the same way."

"I learned it reporting for newspapers," I said, which I guess is kinda true. (How else do you think I write these occasionally long blog entries during the workday? I'm fast and distracted and get bored easily and want to do something that I find personally important and challenging. The right job might make me a better worker. I fear my current one, other than providing me with a paycheck, won't make me a better worker.)

"I try talking to people, but they don't listen to me and walk away," I said to Bob, laughing. "I don't get why they want me to be less than who I am when I'm here."

"Nobody wants you to be less than who you are," Bob said to me. "But the challenge is to occasionally be more than who you are."

I feel bad about this. There's an inevitability to the whole situation, and I fear I know how it's going to play out. I have to go eventually. I have to try. I have to take a risk.

Bob said he understood. And he said he got what other people couldn't get about me. They're too busy being frustrated by me to see how I tick. Bob wasn't forgiving it, certainly, and blamed me for it. But he also knew that the solution isn't here at this office at this time.

I like Bob. Even though he called me the worst kind of worker, I felt completely cool about asking him for a reference on my resume, which I decided to update after four years. (My four-year anniversary at this job, which I began as a temp, is tomorrow, actually.)

He has a bit of the non-conformist in him, too. Which puts me in better company than Hitler.