...and we learn, by what we see...

There are a lot of conventions in this town, but there was one that occurred last weekend hat was of particular interest to me. It was the annual gathering of an association of electrical contractors in the unionized electrical construction industry, and for me, their choice to come to the nation’s capital and the  large contingent that attended from Los Angeles meant it was like old-home week.

While the government shutdown probably curtailed their sight-seeing a bit, the idiotic behavior and lack of leadership by some of our fringe elected officials wasn’t going to ruin the trip these self-made business men and women. Most of them went through the same apprenticeship I did before hanging a shingle, and the same qualities that have made them successful in contracting meant they were going to make the most of the trip no matter what.  

They invited me to join them for a get-together downtown on Sunday afternoon, and because I arrived at the event early, I was able to watch as so many people that had a profound influence on my professional and personal life filed through the door. There was one cat I probably hadn’t seen in 15 years named Dan Henrich who ran work for Amelco Electric where I had served my apprenticeship in Los Angeles. He, along with his wife own their own very successful company now, and there are lessons he imparted on me in my late teens and 20s about how to run work and treat people that still stick with me today. Perhaps most importantly of all, he also showed me it's OK to laugh along the way while doing it too.

Stan Lazarian was there too, and though I worked for his great company for only a very short time in my early thirties, I remember the experience well because of the way he treated me over the course of what was a very compressed and high-stress upgrade project. He too taught me a lot about management in that short period (and in the years that followed working in another capacity) that I continue to try to replicate today.

Ralph Woods was also in attendance…and though I didn’t work directly for him, there were lessons to be learned in my association with him working in a labor management capacity through the way he was able to retain his competent and loyal workforce.  He always smiled and seemed to be in a good mood too…and though he was always busy, I never forgot the fact he attended my going away party.

Steve and Cathy O’Bryant, who along with local chapter president Eric Cartier were serving as gracious hosts. I never worked for their company, but I did work a lot with them in a labor/management capacity. They as much as  anybody taught me about how to treat people and about the need to be nimble in a very competitive environment.  I remain forever grateful for the things I observed about their style that I still try to emulate today.

Rick Jarvis  was a superintendent at the time for the last contractor I ever worked for before switching gigs…and he was there too.  I remember standing by the Los Angeles river talking over a host of issues on one of the largest construction projects in Los Angeles in the 90’s. Like all the people above, he taught me lasting lessons about how to run work and treat people that I continue to use every, single day.  

The Local Chapter Manager Jim Willson and my former boss and union business manager Marvin Kropke. It would take three days to read all I could write about these two cats…but in summary, these two folks as much as anybody demonstrated what can be accomplished when labor and management work together for the betterment of the greater good.

I was feeling awfully good after visiting with all these mentors over the course of a couple of days, but other than the normal nostalgia that is common when seeing old friends, I wasn’t exactly sure why. Then yesterday, I was reading a tidbit in the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age.” Somewhere deep in the book, was a paragraph that made it all clear. I’d give it to you word for word, but that would mean I’d have to go upstairs and fetch it…so instead I’ll just paraphrase. In essence, it said that leaders have the single most effective tool available to them when managing people…and that is to demonstrate through their own actions the behavior they are trying to encourage. People learn through what they see…so if you want to get people to behave in a certain manner, you need to lead by example. That’s what sticks with the folks that are listed above and so many others I spent time with this past week…and that is why it was so special. Even after the passage of all this time, these unknowing mentors, along with so many others I've worked with since and now, all demonstrated behavior I still try miserably to emulate every single day.

Have a fabulous weekend, and if you can, see if you can’t remember and then deploy some great lesson someone once taught you. If I had to guess, it’s probably going to have something to do with the way you treat other people. Over time, that is the type of thing that is going to matter more than the stuff we can all get tricked into thinking matters more now.

This morning’s song might be offensive…but if so…I wouldn’t know. Heard it this week on Pandora and thought it had kind of a catchy beat.

I'm more like a dog...a teardrop in a poem...

...and I'm going to try to complain a little less today

There are probably years that go by in between the times I recall the experience, but I do think about it from time and time and it always rushes back every time I climb into the garage attic of my parent’s home in Santa Paula, California. As you ascend the pull-down ladder that provides access to the space above my 84 year-old mom’s light blue full-sized 8 cylinder Mercury Grand Marquis, there’s a well-preserved wooden chest with a white, blue, and yellow Los Angeles Rams bumper sticker on the lid. The large American made wooden box sat in the southwest corner of my room in West Los Angeles when I was a child, and for a good part of my early life it was filled with a bounty of toys.

Sometime in the late 1960’s when I was somewhere about 7 or 8 years old, I’d received a gift from a relative in the days leading up to the Christmas holiday. To be honest I don’t even remember what it was...but I do vaguely recall not expressing near enough appreciation to satisfy my no-nonsense Depression era father. Like many of his hard knocks generational peers, I suspect even my hard-assed dad was content to spoil his child and spare me much of the suffering he’d experienced growing up in rural Washington state (outside Tacoma) with next to nothing, but whatever bellyaching I was doing that conveyed the lack of gratitude for what I’d received had obviously been overdone in my father’s mind…and on this particular morning in mid-December…he’d clearly had enough.

After listening to another round of my complaining, my dad abruptly told me go into my room and empty out my toy chest. He said I could keep three of my favorite things (there had to be at least 30 items in there), but that all of the other less-desirable stuff should be removed. I could tell he was not happy, but didn’t know at all why I was being asked to remove the items. I suspect for a minute I wondered if with Christmas just days away it was to make room for more good stuff, but I remembering having no real clue. My parents almost never argued, but I remember hearing them heatedly discussing something in the den as I sorted through my toys…but I really couldn’t catch the content or pick up the meaning of their spirited exchange.

I remember kneeling down by the chest with the lid open, pulling out bags of little green army men, my red “hot potato” with a timer on the back, a slinky, my Matchbox cars and some games like Operation (I can still picture the face of the guy on the front). There were Hot Wheels, a Wheelo, some Flippy the Frogmen, a couple of GI Joes, cowboy cap guns, a couple of nice footballs and even an “official” plastic blue and white Rams’ helmet like my heroes Deacon Jones and Merlin Olsen wore. There was also this huge read and white metal Texaco gasoline truck that was so big you could actually sit on it. I’m actually not even sure General Motors uses that much real metal in the Cadillacs they build these days.

As I sifted through all my toys, I remember struggling to find the best three…and the truth is this would be a better story if I could recall what I actually chose to keep. As I was working my through my things my father came in with some empty cardboard boxes, and told me to pack the stuff I’d removed. As each box was filled, my father picked them up and carried them down to our black ’65 Pontiac. Then, he told me to put on a coat and that we’d be going for a drive. I still had no clue what was happening, but I knew enough to know that I’d apparently screwed something up and that asking a whole lot of questions probably wasn’t in my best interest.

My dad didn’t say much as we drove away from the house, and I remember vividly how he drove with purpose and having no sense that he needed any directions. As I looked out the window in silence, it become obvious that we were headed into a neighborhood where the homes weren’t near as nice as mine. After what seemed like about a 20 minute drive, my dad pulled off of a main avenue and onto a residential street. As we came up to the first house…there were some young kids (even younger than me) playing out in the front yard of the very old and modest home. My father instructed me to get out of the car, and he jumped out and opened the trunk. Then, to my disbelief, he told me to remove the boxes of my toys from the trunk and give them to the kids playing in the yard. When I hesitated, he picked up the first box and walked over to the disbelieving children.

They were pretty tentative at first…but within seconds, they recognized that Santa had come to town early and began screaming with jubilation at their unplanned good fortune. Within what seemed like seconds, several other kids streamed out of neighboring houses and my father handed them toys as well. I distinctly remember him telling me…  “go get a box…start handing them out.” When we were done several of the parents came outside and with a mix of disbelief, caution and genuine gratitude…offered their bewildered thanks. I remember looking at the mother standing on the rotting wooden steps of the house where we’d distributed the toys…holding her hands over her face with a white handkerchief and crying. She kept mouthing the words…thank you, thank you, thank you.

When we got back to the car my father seemed to be in a better mood. I don’t remember how long we stayed there, but I do recall that he didn’t start the car immediately. He just sat there and watched the elated kids playing with all my old stuff. Then…as he looked out the window….he said something close to the following. “Your mother thought it was cruel to make you give away your toys, and though it’s tough for you to see now…you’ll probably have more stuff soon than you know what to do with before too long. In the meantime, recognize that so much of the things you never had time to play with are like gold to those kids that have less…so when we get back home…see if you can’t be a little more grateful for what you do have. I don’t want to hear any more of your complaining.”

End of story.

It’s Friday, and as we slide into Fall and prepare for the fast-approaching holiday season, make these next few days really count for something.  Most of us want more, but if you're reading this on something that plugs into the wall or is powered by a battery, you're probably living more comfortably than a huge part of the population that lives on less than $1.25 a day or that has never heard a dial tone. Whatever you end up doing these next few days, see if you can’t approach the time away with a sense of gratitude for all that you actually do have.

The Wonder...

...so think twice before you hit the send button.

A colleague much smarter than me (that’s not a stretch…they’re all smarter than me) sent me and another co-worker an email earlier in the week that they were proposing to send to someone else. In essence, they sent it along as a draft…in hopes that the two of us might essentially check it for tone (just by reading this you should know they weren’t seeking my expertise around spelling, grammar or appropriate apostrophe placement).  In typical fashion the overflowing nature of my inbox coupled with my pitiful inability to keep up with the insane email volume conspired to result in my reading the message long after it was sent, and many hours after any input I might provide would be of any benefit.  

I did however send along a late evening reply though…thanking the sender for being confident enough to have others check the message and just a general confession that my best days are probably those when I leave the office with at least three unsent messages in my Drafts folder. It’s always those special three…where I’ve really let it rip…and given the potential recipient everything they deserved and managed to do it in a sarcastic way that would have provided me unmatched temporary satisfaction. Conversely, my worst days, or at least my most regrettable, are often the ones when the Drafts folder is completely empty and I’ve managed to hit the send button on every composed email.  The exchange got me to thinking how the workplace and generally the world would probably be a lot happier place if people periodically had their emails proofed before hitting send. That got me to thinking about how much happier my life might be if I could apply that same practice to the words that come out of my mouth.

A couple of days later I was leaving the house about 6:30 when I realized I’d walked outside and jumped into my crappy old car without my smartphone. It’s not like I’d forgotten my  wallet, driver’s license or heart medication…so I got out of the car and walked up the steps into the house to retrieve my electronic equivalent of crystal meth. When I grabbed my phone I noticed there was a message from a coworker, and when I read it, my blood began to simmer. I actually started driving up the street, but stopped to compose the snarkiest and most acidic yet gratifying response I could muster. I suspect I was smiling as I plucked way…angrily typing everything the potential recipient clearly deserved. Then, after a couple of very satisfying paragraphs, I stopped and thought about the old Dale Carnegie adage. Trust your emotions…listen keenly to what they are telling you…then…put them aside and essentially do the opposite. For me, that has been a lifesaver…and pretty much the only reason I’m still employable. So…I wisely heeded Dale’s sage advice and deleted the email. I responded instead in a professional and kind manner that was the polar opposite of my emotional instinct. Now… if the story only stopped there.

About an hour later I was sitting in the office when the person that sent me the morning email that boiled my blood walked into the office. Initially, I was candidate for the Carnegie hall of fame. I may have actually even forced a smile. That actually worked for about 15 seconds, but before long I was verbally letting it rip and managed to share all my unsent email thoughts and then some. Much of what I said wasn’t even really germane (not really sure what that means…but I’ve always loved that word), but man, it was nice to get it off my chest. It really did feel good…at least it felt that way for about eight seconds. Then, after the glee of letting it all out passed, I wished I’d hadn’t hit the verbal send button.

A long time ago a strange and still unexplained set of circumstances plunged me into a situation where I was serving as a “rater” in a big time interview process for a very large employer. I’d never done it before and was in way over my head. Essentially, me and another rater colleague would sit in a padded room (seriously) and interview a potential job applicant. My rating partner was a much older chap that smacked of wisdom and success. He had graying hair…a crisp ironed white shirt with a red bow tie (I still don’t even know how to tie a two tie) and a blue blazer. To me…he looked like a Supreme Court Justice or someone that would be President of Harvard. The session was recorded, and we’d each ask a prescribed set of question. One of the candidates, ironically the most impressive by far to this point, responded horribly to one of the last questions that was obviously designed to check their ethical inclinations. Amazed…I reworded the question and the respondent stunningly provided the same bad answer. After the candidate left, my much older and wiser colleague turned to me and said something like this… “you know…as I look back on my life, the things I really regret the most are some of the bad things I’ve said…not some of the good things I’ve left unsaid.”

Hopefully you’re not…but in the regrettable case you’re anything like me, think for a minute before you hit the send button. Actually, if you really are anything like me…try to change…but in the meantime, you may even want to apply that same restraint principle to more than your keyboard.  Have a wonderful weekend and do something fun that matters with the people you love. Over the long haul, that will dwarf anything you might be thinking is more important that happens at work.

Sorry for all the errors and the horrific writing. I violated every rule today…and time only allowed for one draft and zero proofing.

 

With rails of steel...that reach the soul...

...and the older I get, the more I understand Thomas Wolfe

On the heels of spending about 14 days out in California (10 of which were in downtown Los Angeles at a work-related event), I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s a lot to the old Thomas Wolfe title “You Can’t Go Home Again.” I mean, I suspect you can always go back to your hometown, the question is how much of it is going to resemble the place you grew up and more importantly, how many of the people are going to still be around once you get there.

 

Though there are certainly some things that appeared to remain the same, the fact is that an awful lot has changed since I left Los Angeles about 9 years ago…especially in the downtown area where the event was held. Sure there were some things that were the same…but for the most part…it just didn’t’ seem like the place I spent the first four decades of my life. Perhaps even more striking is the fact that many of the people…just aren't there anymore.

The host hotel (the JW Marriott) where we stayed wasn’t there when I moved back east in early 2005…but it certainly was a pretty nice place to hold up for 10 days in the unfortunate event that you have to spend that much time in downtown Los Angeles.  My corner perch on the 18^th floor offered a bird’s eye view that was like a snapshot of my life…or at least part of it. Out the window to the left was the Good Samaritan hospital where I was born in 1961 (it was also where several of my North Dakota ancestors worked when they first migrated to California in the 1940s). Through the glass in the distance straight east were the lights of Dodger Stadium…where I spent so many days and nights rooting for my beloved Dodgers. Looking down to the right on the east side of the 110 freeway, I could see many high rise buildings where I worked for so many years as an IBEW electrician. So…at least at first glance…there were thankfully a couple of things that reminded me of home. But there were many more things that didn’t,  and while it was a memorable trip, and though there is little argument that the downtown redevelopment has made for a better city, I guess it just didn’t seem much like my city.

The convention center where we held the event brought back some old memories. Walking down the cavernous halls on my daily 20 mile (OK…it was really only about 18 miles) morning treks from the hotel to the South convention hall made it hard not to reminisce about the many nights I spent at big union meetings in the West Hall of that complex. Man…there were some wild nights in there.

The old 24-hour Pantry restaurant where I used to eat breakfast when I was working with the tools is  still there too…and I even managed to make it over there for two artery clogging breakfasts before the insanity of the convention made off-site dining next to impossible. That was kind of sad, because had I been able to eat there all 10 days, I’m convinced I could gotten my diastolic blood pressure up well north of 200 (not a big lift when it’s already at 190). But  again, while there were certainly some things that triggered old memories, there seemed to be so many more newer places that had me wondering where the old town, and many of the old people had gone.

Once the convention was over, I was yearning for more familiar turf so I met my old buddy Chuck for breakfast over on the Westside in the old neighborhood. I was supposed to meet him at 8:00am, but after leaving the hotel at 7:10am, it took me 90 minutes to travel the five miles down the westbound 10. It made me fondly recall the old freeway shooting craze that gripped the area many years ago, and had my Enterprise rental Yukon come with a gun rack and a Winchester 30/30 lever action, I would have resurrected the practice and happily rid the world of a few more idiots while making my way past the Western, Arlington, Crenshaw, La Brea, Fairfax and La Cienega off ramps before reaching my destination on Robertson.  

I hadn’t allotted that much travel time to go five miles, because when I was a kid, traveling west towards Santa Monica on the 10 (west of downtown) was against the rush hour traffic pouring east into the city. Now…with the construction of new piece of the metro rail system (they call it “Expo” something I think) serving the westside, Chuck informed me that traffic heading the opposite direction of the old commuting flow is a nightmare almost all the time.  

Even Chuck isn’t the same, having dropped something like 44lbs on Weight Watchers. He probably noticed I’ve changed too, as I’ve been doing Weight Watchers as well. Recently, I’ve watched my weight climb from about 195 up to 215. We met at a place called “Old Goats” (or something like that) and though it’s apparently been there for a while…I didn’t remember it either. Though the diner sat in the middle of the old hood...I didn't recognize a soul in the place. 

 

Once outside  I glanced around the businesses on Pico Blvd and while the Conroy’s open air flow shop and Stanley Holden dance studio (no…I didn’t dance...I only know that because my wife took ballet lessons there) seemed to have vanished…I was glad to see the Kentucky Fried Chicken was still on the northwest corner of Patricia Ave across from St. Timothy’s.  The Rancho Park golf course was still there too…but they’ve put a fence around it that makes it look quite different than the inviting entrance I remember it as a youngster.

I cruised by the old house at 10635 Esther Ave too, but they’ve added a second story to the 1929 Tudor so it doesn’t look much like the place I grew up. Most of the neighborhood is different now as well.  My childhood buddies Jeffrey Russell, Clayton Riddle, Keith Sylber, Michael Cooper and Billy Horning have long since moved away…and many of the older folks (Mrs. Burns, Mr & Mrs. Beerhouse, Mr. and Mrs. Ramie, Mr. Robinson, and my old Piano Teacher Mrs. Lee) passed away decades ago. Most of the houses look different as well…although there are a couple that still look pretty much the same.

Overland Avenue Elementary still looks pretty much like the public school where I attended grades 1 through 6 (over the span of 8 years) and I think the old “No Trespassing” sign on the front gate we used to climb over everything afternoon in the summer to play stickball might be the same one that was there in the 60’s and 70’s. It was weird driving by it though…as I couldn’t help but notice that the whole campus just looked smaller. I drove by my old High School on Robertson too…and thankfully…Hamilton High looked pretty much the same.

After visiting the westside, the last few days of the trip were spent up at my mom’s place in Santa Paula. My dad passed in 2006 shortly after I moved east, so I try to get up to her retirement place periodically to help her with some basic chores. I stayed pretty busy changing light bulbs, power-washing the exterior of her house, cleaning the outside windows, waxing her car (she’s 84 and still drives), fixing and oiling the garage door hinges, repairing the sliding closet doors and working on the automatic sprinklers. But even with all that work, it was always nice to wrap up about 3:30 each afternoon with a cigar on the patio before heading in to shower so I could drive her to dinner by 4:30 in the afternoon (we ate at 3 different nice restaurants and were the first ones seated).  

My mom would come outside and sit while I decompressed and exhaled carcinogens into the pacific breeze.  As we sat there visiting, much of our afternoon conversation was about all the people and relatives that aren’t here anymore. When I was a kid, these folks seemed like giants, and after surviving the Depression and at least one world war, I was certain they would be around forever. Uncle Ted (he was at Pearl when the bombs dropped), aunt Helen,  aunts Nanny and Selma, uncle George and aunt Marie, Grandpa Nelson, aunt Mary and uncle Fred, uncle Donald, cousins; Alice, Pam, Martin (was a tailgunner on a bomber over France), Paul, Helen, Roy, Bob, Bill have all passed on…and that is only naming a few.

After supper in the evenings my mom and I would sit around signing old hymns while I strummed the Tenor Uke. She still sings a pretty good alto, and we’d  harmonize many of her favorites like “How Great Thou Art," "Amazing Grace and “The Old Rugged Cross,” and usually even a chorus or two of “Home on the Range” or “The Red River Valley.”  When we finished we’d usually spend a few minutes talking about how good we sounded…but often the conversation would drift back to more reminiscing about old times and additional friends and family in California and North Dakota that aren’t here anymore. That topic got my mom to speculating about heaven, and her hope that there really is something to the promise of seeing loved ones in a mansion on a hilltop with streets paved of gold.

What’s the point of all this? Well, if you’ve visited this site or read this blog before, you probably already know there isn’t much in the way of a well-organized thought. More than anything, it’s really all I could muster up in the four o’clock hour on an early Friday morning in mid-September.  

But perhaps if you’re younger, let’s say under age forty, you might just want to think for 10 seconds about all places and people around you that you presume will be here forever.  Some of the places will undoubtedly stand the test of time, but unless something changes, most of the people probably won’t and ultimately neither will you. I never thought about that at all when I was younger, and you probably don’t want to think about it either. But sometime around age 50, when I realized more was behind me than ahead,  it hit me like a ton of bricks.

There’s no doubt it’s at least somewhat depressing, but if I was you I wouldn’t avoid it because you’re counting on some big reunion in the clouds (or in my case, a coal shoveling party in the furnaces down below). If nothing else, maybe this will cause you to reflect on the inevitability of your own mortality a bit, and if that encourages you to email an uncle or text an old friend, it will have all been worth the otherwise directionless keystrokes. Heck…if you still can, you might even end up picking up the cell and calling your mom or dad.

Have a great weekend…and if at all possible, have the clarity to push aside the stuff that belongs at the bottom of the pile and do something that matters with the people and pets that you love. If you can, spend the time like you know things will eventually change…and treat each interaction like you understand the people you care about (and you) are only on this planet for a finite amount of time. 

Like a blind dog without a bone... 

 

...and have I got a story for you...

In my former life I used to do a fair amount of public speaking…at least compared to the very little I do today. For a while the many invitations had me duped into thinking I was decent at it, but I’ve  since recognized that the multitude of speaking opportunities were much more a byproduct of the stroke of the position and the organizational clout that came with it than any perceived prowess I might of thought I possessed at the podium.

There was one particular large yearly conference that was kind of my baby to organize…or at least that’s the way I liked to remember it in my head. The truth is there were a host of talented people that worked tirelessly to put it on (they still do…and the product is even better), and man let me tell you, they poured their hearts into it. I remember one year in 2007 working 66 consecutive days leading up to the event without even thinking about taking a day off. About a week before the conference, I can even recall staying up for several days without even trying to go to bed (I didn’t even lay down).

In my second year on the job, the 2007 conference was held at the Hyatt Peachtree in Atlanta.  At least in my own mind, I was just getting the hang of things and really starting to understand what I thought it took to be adequately prepared. On the second day of the conference, I would typically give about a 10-15 minute speech to open the segment and the cool thing was most of it was spent highlighting the great work of others. The remarks were usually pretty rudimentary, but I would take at least a month practicing the words several times a day…and do so to the point that the teleprompter we provided for our plenary speakers was mostly unnecessary for me…as I had memorized almost every non-extemporaneous word I planned to deliver (one upside to having to only give one big speech a year).

After an unsettling night’s sleep leading into day-two of the conference, I awoke about 3:30am and went for my customary pre-dawn 3-mile run through the underwhelming  and somewhat sketchy streets of downtown Atlanta. The run was uncharacteristically easy that morning, as my mind was pretty much consumed with the pre-game excitement that comes with putting on a big conference. Day two was the construction seminar, and after spending the opening day in the production booth with a colleague and good friend Alan Freeman calling the show for nearly 1300 delegates (that was the real nerve-racking duty), it would soon be time to take the stage and do what I loved.

After showering I walked down to the plenary room about 5:30am. The ballroom was long and narrow and set with 1300 classroom-style seating so the rows seemed like they stretched for a mile to the back of the room. Though I’d probably run through the speech 200 times leading up to this day, I thought the pre-dawn solitude would provide the perfect time to walk up to the dais and rehearse the speech one more time. About mid-way into the remarks, I planned on talking about my father and the pride he felt shortly before he passed away when he learned I’d been given the opportunity to hold a prominent job for the organization he so loved. The segment came about 5-minutes into the remarks, and though the story was difficult, I’d managed to get through it countless times without stumbling on all the previous run-throughs.

The mic was oddly hot that early hour, and as I began practicing to the then empty and cavernous room, it was clear that all the previous rehearsals had paid off. I felt confident, comfortable and moved through the first paragraphs with ease. Then as got near the part about my father, I could feel the emotion swelling up. When I got to the specific section…I broke down for the very first time.

Thankfully I composed myself…but it was a struggle. I remember thinking “ain’t this a bitch?” Here’d I gone through this over and over without a problem…and now…just hours from show time…I was really struggling (oddly…the stuff I’d read suggested that preparing would help you overcome the intrusion of emotion on game day). After I finished rehearsing, I started to walk off the stage when a comforting and familiar voice from behind the curtain said “you sounded fantastic…you’re going to do a great job.” For a second I thought it was god, but then realized that unbeknownst to me, my friend and teleprompter guy Danny Patsko had been sitting backstage getting ready and listening the entire time.

I was embarrassed, and remember apologizing for getting emotional. I went on to tell him I wasn’t sure how it happened…as I’d practiced a gazillion times without a problem…and it was frustrating to deal with it now. Then, we had an exchange that I will never forget…and it went something like this…

Me: “I’ve practiced this thing a thousand times…and I know every word. If I feel myself getting emotional and get the sense I can’t get through it, I’ll just skip this section and move onto the next piece. Just scroll down on the prompter if you see me veer off script…and you’ll see where I’m picking up right after the story about my dad.”

Danny: “No…don’t do that. It wouldn’t be a good idea.”

Me: “What do you mean no? If I can’t get through it…I don’t want to breakdown so just skip over it. I’m not going to make a fool of myself, so if I want to leave it out…we’re not going to do it.”

Danny: “Well…we could do that, but I’ve read through this thing twice now and just heard you deliver it… the truth is it is by far the best part of the speech. The story about your dad is the thing folks will remember. Not the charts, not the stats, not the substance…but they’ll remember you talking about  your father. If you feel yourself getting choked up, just get through it…people will understand…but most of all…they will be touched.”

Me: “Pack up your crap and get out of here…you’re fired.” Okay…that’s not what I said. Plus, if I'd have tried to fire Danny...I would have been canned. I guess it was something more  more like “Okay…well you know this stuff better than I do…I’ll give it a try.”

So later that morning, when the show began, I got through my remarks and the story about my dad. Thankfully…I didn’t breakdown, but I was clearly right on the edge…especially at the end. It’s funny, I used to do presentations like this all the time. I build animated PowerPoints with video, music and colorful chats and data that would make the world’s hippest Prezi creator weep like a bullied schoolchild.  The substance of the presentations was compelling, but now years later, people rarely ever come up to me and say anything about the numbers I showed or the fluorescent trend lines that floated over graphics. I normally only get one thing…and it’s usually about some stories they remembering hearing…like the one I told about my dad and the IBEW.

So…what’s the point of all this? Maybe it’s that like life, making an impact on people is often much less about the substance…than it is about connecting emotionally. Have a great weekend, and if you can, do something that would make a good story someday.

Let's enjoy it while we can...

A friend and mentor once told me that the key to good writing was “seven drafts.” Well, if that’s true, than this hurriedly written, non-proofed pile is on the other end of the spectrum. Sorry for all the typos, bad spelling and just plain lousy grammar.

...and I don't even have time for baseball

We’d go almost every night there was a home game in Los Angeles (we rarely missed an evening in the summer). Sometimes, when our beloved Dodgers were on the road, we’d even drive down to hell (Anaheim) to watch the deplorable Angeles play.

The routine was  pretty much the same most nights, after spending the day working, or at school or  at the beach honing my wide riding skills, me and a couple of buddies (Steve and Rob Lurie, Steve and Chuck Price) would hop into my red ’72 pinto and jam to the Commodores as we drove eastbound on THE 10 towards Chavez Ravine. We’d cruise through Echo Park and turn up Scott Ave to climb one of the steepest residential hills in Los Angeles before driving past Elysian Park. We were too cheap (the little money we had would be better spent on hot dogs) to pull into the parking lot and pay, so in the early years I parked on a hill outside the stadium and we’d all walk up to the ball park. The last year I did this, I went to 56 home games. Often times in the later years I’d drive down by myself or with Julie (my wife to be), but would almost always run into guys I knew like Jimmy Pettersen, Jay Belshaw or Harold Katz.

The interesting thing is that in all the years we attended games at Dodger stadium, we never paid for a ticket. Never. We were among a small legion of dedicated ticket “moochers,” and we were proud. In the early years we’d stand just outside the entrance to the Field Box level on the first base side. If there were more than two or three of us we’d usually spread out, lean on one of the light-blue bollards that protected the turn-style entrance and the crusty old vendors selling programs yelling “you can’t see the ballgame without a program.” As the sea of fans would approach the entrance to the stadium, the line was always the same. “Have any extra tickets?”

Sometimes people would stop, open an envelope they’d pulled off a bulletin board at work and notice they indeed had four corporate owned tickets when they only needed two. The ticket price on those yellow and white field box tickets (the best in the house) was $4.50, and there was always some rookie fan that expected you to pay them at least face value for the ticket. We’d usually just respond with “sorry…don’t have any money…just want to see the game.”

Once in a while someone would even hand you a ticket and say something like “here you go kid…you can buy me a hot dog inside.” We never even blinked…before saying no. We had a code…and there was nothing lower than actually paying for a ticket in any manner. We were there to get in for free…and we never failed…even at World Series games (that’s a more involved story). We even believed there was some karma associated with the practice, and part of the moocher’s oath was to never resell or look to profit from the practice. We were there to cheer on a team we loved, night after night…and you never wanted to risk our good fortune by unethically selling a ticket we’d obtained for nothing.

There were a lot of occasions where someone would hand you more than a couple of blue Reserved Level tickets and we’d quickly hand them back saying something like “no thank you…we don’t sit way up there.” On many evenings we’d get more tickets than we needed, and found ourselves either having to eat them or look for other kids to hand them to. We enter the stadium and usually sit a few rows back on the first base side between home and first base…right behind the visitors’ dugout. We such snobs that we often wouldn’t even sit in the seats we’d mooched. We just used them to gain access to the prime Field Box level and then find open seats that notoriously late-arriving fans would make available. On the best nights the ticket holders would never show…or better yet, we’d actually mooch great seats and comfortably sit there all evening. We’d even roll our eyes in disgust when some affluent family would arrive late and look at us with this confused look on their faces as to why their seats were occupied. We always just hopped up and moved to another open seat…unless it was a really big game, then we’d move to the seats we’d actually mooched.

We’d sit there in ecstasy. Rooting for Ron Cey, Steve Garvey, Davey Lopes, Billy Russell, Joe Ferguson, Steve Yaeger, Rick Monday, Dusty Baker, Don Sutton, Reggie Smith, and Manny Mota. We’d listen to Vin Scully on our transitor radios, eat a couple of Dodger dogs (never did figure out how to mooch those) and look out onto the manicured field and palm trees swaying behind the out field bleachers. We weren’t in Iowa…but we were in heaven…and we knew it.

What’s the point of all this? If you know, use the comment section and fill me in. Could be that I’m feeling nostalgic this morning…could have something to do with recognizing that the best things in life are often pretty simple…and don’t need to cost a whole lot. Have a wonderful weekend, and if you can, try to take some time out of the busy world to do something you enjoy. You may even decide to take in a baseball game. If you do, bring your kid or grandkid and you might just get in for free. And by the way...take two minutes and four seconds to listen to this morning's song. While you do, close your eyes and remember.

 

Like most days…no time to proof this even once. It’s probably horrific…so I do apologize.

 

...if they don't win it's a shame

...and that annoying sand is taking its toll

It’s about 4:14am  on a Friday morning and for about the third week in a row, the well is pretty dry. I could sit here and try to think about something to pound out on the laptop, but after putting together a post on kindness last week that was about the poorest performing with respect to site visits since this blog’s inception, I’m really just not feeling up to it. Plus, after tooling around on the scooter last weekend in the Black Hills, re-entry into the real work-world was especially tough this week. It’s never easy returning from paradise and having to go back to reality, but one thing that doesn’t make it any easier is all the little crap you have to deal with.

 

That got me to thinking about a previous post that was among the most popular (and shortest) of all-time, so rather than try to make something out of nothing, here’s another 18 month old offering that is reposted in what you can consider part of the August series of summer re-runs. I actually just reread and it made me feel a little better already...

"It's not the work that kills men; it's worry." "It's not the revolution that destroys machinery, it's the friction."

At first, I wasn't entirely sure about the connection of the quotes to the free electronic iBook entitled The Art of Public Speaking I was reading during a return trip from Florida. Initially, the link between the lines and the chapter topic emphasizing naturalness (cadence, pitch, etc…) when speaking didn’t seem obvious. Essentially, the authors of the1915 book (Joseph Berg Esenwein and Dale Carnegie) were making the case against monotony, and arguing that mundane repetition is the enemy of genuineness. While it seemed like an odd reference, the more I thought about the quotes the more they resonated...and I found myself thinking about my own work life and the root of most causes of most of my job-related frustration.

You see, though I often find myself lamenting the actual work, it's really not the job that usually gets old; it's the unnecessary headwind. The ominous nature of most daily tasks are formidable enough to tempt a smarter person to throw in the towel, but like most people, I'm actually excited by the toughest of challenges. It is however the little things...the unending resistance, the annoying pushback, the aversion to even the smallest change...the friction, that too often has me perusing the Internet for retirement properties in south Florida. 

While thinking about this, I was reminded of an old story I'd read some time ago from a textbook on Public Administration. It was entitled something like "The Sand in My Shoes," and it was about an old man that walked across the United States from coast-to- coast. As you might imagine the long trek took him forever, and when he arrived on the west coast looking haggard and tired, he was asked by waiting reporters if he was ever tempted to give up when faced with crossing vast deserts and climbing over tall mountains. The old man surprised the reporters by noting that he viewed those formidable obstacles as challenges, and that he really had little problem mustering the needed will to conquer the monumental roadblocks.

"So," the reporter followed up, "you never thought about quitting?" "Oh yes" the old man replied, "I thought about it every day." "But you just stated you were motivated by the toughest of challenges...if you could cross deserts and mountains, why ever did you think of calling it quits?" "It was the sand" the old man said..."it was the sand in my shoes. After a while...it got very, very annoying."

Like the man, most of us are wired in such a way that we're happy...maybe even eager to do the toughest work. For us, it's not the size of the challenge or the frenzied pace of the work that destroys us....it's the friction. It's not the work that kills us, it's the worry. It's not the mountains or the deserts that tempt us to throw in the towel… it's the annoying sand in our shoes.

“Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things. It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out - it's the grain of sand in your shoe.” - Robert Service

If it weren’t for my family, friends, red wine, books (picture books), pushups, red wine, trash TV, cigars, jumping rope, my speed bag, bourbon, copious amounts of red wine and an occasional cigarette, I wouldn’t be able to cope with the self-imposed frustrations at work. My best days, are those where I focus on the things I can control, and brush aside the annoying little grain of sand while keeping an eye on the big things that matter most. Too often, I fear that my focus on minutia at work is the grain of sand in some valued colleague's shoe. I sure hope that isn't the case, because the job is hard enough without the perpetual friction that can bring folks down.

Have a great weekend and try not to worry. Whether it’s family, friends, a chilled straight up Manhattan, hiking, pets, a relaxing dinner, books, exercise or wine, do something that brings some genuine chill to your life.

 

One of the great things about rolling around western South Dakota on winding two-lane roads through pine forests and green meadows covered with buffalo, antelope and prairie dogs, is that it just has a way of putting things in perspective. If you're really lucky, your generous cousin might even swap bikes with you so you can tool along in comfort on an Ultra Classic listening to some classic country music with the wind in your hair and the sun warming your face. When your in a setting like this...your dusty old cowboy boots could be full of sand and you wouldn't even care.

 

 It's alright cause it's midnight and I have...