Look what they've done to my song

Running through my mind are slightly misremembered words from Melanie Safka's song from 1971, "Look what they've done to my song".

Look what they've done to my song, ma

Look what they've done to my song

They took the only thing I could ever do right

And turned it upside down, ma

Look what they've done to my song

(The real lyrics are available here)

Why should these words suddenly pop into my head? Because last night there was a palace revolution, a coup d'etat, and I was replaced as the musical director of the children's show. Not, I hasten to add, because of anything that I might have done, but because of circumstances and because the director wishes to work with someone else.

Of course I'm hurt and I'm insulted, but hey - it's show business.

What really hurts is that it's my son's party, and now all the enjoyment that I should derive from it has withered into nothing. Naturally I will have - by choice - nothing further to do with the production of the show and will see it for the first time only days before the grand performance (actually there will be two performances before audiences: the first before the invited guests from outside, and the second for the kibbutz).

As my wife pointed out, the director is the one who prevaricated for the last month and prevented much work being done in advance. She (the director) has made her bed and now she must lie in it.

I think of a pyschology book called "Learned Optimism" by Martin Seligman which I bought last summer and subsequently lent to a clinical psychologist here. What would the book tell me? It is not my fault. I do not have to bear responsibility for this. I should see this as a good thing: I will now have my evenings free for the next few weeks and not have to suffer burn out as I did when my daughter performed in her barmitzva show.

What hurts the most is that this marks the end of the 'age of volunteering'. Why bother volunteering to do something for free when afterwards someone can turn round and say "Thank you very much, but I'm paying someone else to do the job".