Again and again in my life I met and meet songs that have an almost magical effect on me. Currently it is the song “Run from it” by the songwriter and German rapper “Danger Dan”. The piece also reminds me of stations in my life where I went to start something better.
Run away, run away, run away
Run away as fast as you can
Before they get you
Run away, run away as fast as you can
And start all over again somewhere.
The rapper “Danger Dan”, who is actually called Daniel Pongratz, sings with full heart and conviction on his new solo album. In the cool music video for “Run Away”, he breaks into a “Steinway & Sons” branch and plays the piano until he is put back in front of the door by security. The song is about the escape from a “normal” and prepared résumé.
There was a job, one with flexible working hours
In a hip agency that knows how to market itself very well
An after work party with the boss every week
Such a start-up entrepreneur wearing Ramones shirts
I was just writing the application email with my résumé
And stuck a friendly and serious photo on it
When Lou Reed appeared to me and said, “Run away!”
Harder than getting in is getting out again.
I had to grin at these lines, because as a connoisseur of our colorful advertising and communication world, I know the described scenery and the sung-about boss only too well from personal experience. The last line of this passage has something almost philosophical for me. The dreaded “hamster wheel” in which many of us have already been or are not yet found can be described in a smarter way.
Adventure with an uncertain outcome
I can well remember one of my first professional positions at a large corporation. “You can stay there until you retire”, I still have my mother in my ear. It was already taking too long for me to wait for the next promotion. After my great boss said goodbye, who had challenged me as well as encouraged me, the successor told me that it would now be the long-serving colleagues “turn” first. I did the math and when a two-digit year appeared in my mind’s eye, I ran away.
Shortly afterwards I saw an advertisement in the FAZ: “Unusual job for an unusual type”. The sales promotion agency Stein Promotions was looking for it. Their slogan was: “We start where others stop.” Exactly the right thing for someone like me, who had annoyed his father as a teenager with the t-shirt print “I am the greatest” – a tribute to the best boxer in the world at the time, Muhammad Ali. I went to the interview and met a lively bird of paradise as the boss who spoke, thought and decided just as quickly.
I immediately received a contract and the keys to a 5-series service BMW. I was 26, had no idea about sales promotion, but wasn’t scared. I had fled from years of expected boredom and standstill in development and embarked on an adventure with an uncertain outcome. It went well and the many years in the promotion agency were an unbelievable ride, always towards the sun.
The courage to dare to do something new and get it done with commitment, curiosity and willingness to learn has taken all fears of being shipwrecked on my further path. I always went back later when it didn’t feel right anymore. I’ve never regretted it. For me, new beginnings and changes are like regular “rescheduling in my head”, that’s how the advertising agency Scholz & Friends put the realignment of the car manufacturer Opel very aptly in one sentence.
New job at 52
Last week my wife and I watched our favorite documentary show in the ZDF media library: “37 °”. It was about “senior trainees”, people who start their careers all over again in old age. Our favorite was Heike, 52 years old, studied IT, married and the mother of three children. When they were out of the house, she wanted to go back to work. Her old job no longer appealed to her, she ran away and started all over again: with an apprenticeship as a train driver on the Stuttgart S-Bahn.
Not only was she the oldest student, she was also the only woman. “The whole of life is change. I’m not waiting for my retirement in 13 years. I want to shape my life now, and I like to do something new. The work fulfills me, so it’s just right for me” said the sympathetic woman. Chapeau.
A great story and when she made her first real train ride in the cockpit after passing her exam, I had tears in my eyes because I was so happy with her. When I hear the following passage in the song from “Danger Dan”, I think of Heike, beaming with her husband, children and friends – a locomotive driver’s hat on her head – celebrating her restart:
Lou said: run away and start over
I wouldn’t have done that
I would definitely have been lost
Do you have your everyday life or did your everyday life make you?
That night I packed my bag
“The world of work is changing rapidly, we will all have to get used to the fact that lateral entrances to previously unknown jobs are becoming more normal,” a recruitment consultant friend of mine recently told me. In said “37 °” episode, the camera team also accompanied Matthias, who had worked as a banker for 30 years. At some point the pressure became too great for him, he quit and started training as an educator at the age of 54. He used to earn significantly more, but now he gets the most sensible currency in the world: Appreciation. With shining eyes, the ex-finance manager said in the TV report: “Dealing with the children is enriching. And that you are simply liked, children are totally honest there.”
Such people impress me and I’m sure, “Danger Dan”, whose vita is anything but streamlined, thought exactly of Heike, Matthias and all the others with this song. I recently told a friend about the song, we listened to it together and talked about his dissatisfaction with his current job. Yesterday he wrote to me that he has quit his job and will go into business for himself. He sounded liberated, euphoric, highly motivated. Thanks, Daniel, “Danger Dan”!
Run away, run away, run away
Run away as fast as you can
Before they get you
Run away, run away as fast as you can
And start all over again somewhere
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
