Introduction

Have you ever been put in the middle of stuff? Unusual situations, tragic situations, aggravating situations. Maybe you're a middle manager at work, sandwiched in between a boss and your employees, Clowns to the left of you, jokers to the right, and there you are, stuck in the middle. Hi, everybody, my name is Jim Polling, and yes I paraphrased a line from an old Steeler's wheel song, stuck in the middle with you. You probably don't know me from Adam's Housecat. But this podcast series is not about me. Well, okay, yes it is, but it's about you too. It's called My View from the Middle, and it's from a book I might write someday. Maybe possibly. I don't know about my experiences being in the middle of things. Somehow I always seem to find myself in the middle of stuff, not on top or below, but dead center. I was always in middle management, with people above and below me that put me in the middle of things by design. Sometimes these experiences dovetail with some major news events that you might be familiar with, like the assassination of JFK, the destruction of the Space Shuttle Challenger, or the death of a Pope. But there are other experiences too, like the time I had to peel my boss's hands out from around the throat of a huge shoplifter dude, or maybe the time I spent the evening at a bar talking to one of the greatest baseball players of all time and I had no idea who he was. I talk about things that don't always put me in the best light, like the time I wound up having to apologize to the mayor of the city of Orlando. I talk about my faith and how some of the things that put me where I was and m were God things. I talk about a health crisis I had and some weird experiences that surrounded it that maybe you can relate to. I didn't make any of this stuff up. Some of it was hard to talk about because I couldn't remember all the details, and some of it was hard to talk about because I could remember all the details. An example of the latter was the episode about the shuttle disaster Roger go At throttle up. That was a tough day to remember. I talk about some things that maybe you're dealing with, like my time as a middle manager and some of the Ivory Tower managers I've worked with over the years. Now, I don't intend for this to be a tell all thing. I'm not mad at anyone, at least not anymore. That would be silly. I also don't go naming names of people who have done dumb things to me or my employees. I've done enough dumb things myself over the years, so who am I to judge anyone? In general? The only person I call out for doing dumb things is well me. I also don't talk politics. There are plenty of other podcasts and radio shows for that. Don't need any more divisiveness than we already have. So the podcasts are short. I don't think any of them go longer than twenty five minutes. I don't know how people can listen to an hour or two hour podcasts, but hey, maybe that's just me. I try to present them in an entertaining style. Either're free to listen to and don't take much of your time. These are stories spread out over sixty plus years, sometimes funny, sometimes scary, and sometimes tragic. If you like them, fine, If you don't, that's fine too. I'll be posting an episode about every two weeks. The first one deals with the adventure I had covering the first Space Shuttle mission is called Blood on the Floor, Episode number one coming up. I'm Jim Polling and these are my views from the middle