Becoming a Resident Musician, Part One

Part One of an ongoing series of reflections by resident violinist Chase Spruill.

When you take a new job, there are certain things as a responsible new member of the team that you want taped on your chest when the Taxi drops you off on the company doorstep. For one, know your acronyms. Every company has their own lingo and the best way to feel like you can contribute to the information being hurled around in conversations and meetings is to know what in the world they’re talking about. Still, though, you won’t know everything, and it’s best not to panic.  Secondly, accept the fact that you’ll probably mess up…a lot. You’ll want to minimize the damage you do to other people’s work due to being ignorant of the way their world works, but nonetheless, you don’t know anything until you know it. And third, don’t feel bad if you don’t make friends. You can’t force it. People who’ve been working together for a long time already have a relationship with one another, and it’s got nothing to do with you, but eventually, hopefully, it will…

These are some of the thoughts that spun through my head between my three connecting flights in the middle of August 2012 en route to Providence, Rhode Island from Sacramento, California. No one knows you and you don’t know them. And if that isn’t anxiety enough, your family is going to be joining you in this adventure in three short weeks, and you still don’t officially have a place to stay. When I first accepted this job, Heath Marlow—CMW's Managing Director who first contacted me about potentially applying—had urged me to be in contact with members of the community. I was advised to ask about housing, ask about neighborhoods, places to eat, grocery stores, day care, breathing, and on, and on, and on… All really good stuff, except no one in Providence knew me, and I didn’t know them. I wasn’t a member of the community. How could I impose? That wasn’t my thing. Perhaps, when they get to know me, if they like me, maybe I could have those conversations. But only once I know I’ve become a member of the community. But how does one do that? What a hefty task to undertake, and lo and behold, it’s in your job description. And how do you know when it actually happens? Is it something at which you can actually succeed?
   
Between the takeoff of my plane at Sacramento International Airport at 7 am on August 10, and the time I actually landed in Providence on August 11 at 2 am the next day, a series of disasters had struck. A storm came in and cancelled a few of my connecting flights. I was rerouted to Washington D.C., only to have another flight cancelled. The newly rescheduled flight had been oversold and seats were all messed up, and to add insult to injury, they decided it would be a good idea to fly me straight into a lightning storm. All the things you love to go through when you’re like me and have slight hesitations about travelling by air. And through all of this, I had been wondering if this were some kind of terrible omen about my weeks to come and my eventual year at this new job.
   
Surely enough, over the next few days, it was one disaster after another. The first place I looked at renting became a fiasco of comedic proportions. The second place I found and ended up renting wasn’t ready to be lived in and…well, as it would turn out, wouldn’t be ready for quite some time. I had received my first parking ticket because I didn’t realize there was no such thing as overnight parking in my new neighborhood. And half the furniture I bought ended up not being able to fit through my front door or any other door in the house.
   
If this was my first week in a new place, I couldn’t even begin to imagine what my first week at work was going to be like…