Laugh Loud and Often

A few years ago, I worked for a wonderful manager ("S") who had an orange vest reminiscent of a Caltrans worker; it didn't help that the California Department of Transportation was ubiquitously promoting its safety awareness campaign "Slow for the Cone Zone" during that time. Anyhow, as with any seasoned manager, she was set in her management style and had some hard-and-fast rules that we all had to respect. One of these rules was "Thou shall not miss a meeting, less thy lie in a death bed."

On with the story ... I was driving from an off-site breakfast meeting (read into it what you will) and was stuck behind out-of-town drivers -- they were actually going at the posted speed limit! A word for visitors driving in California: please ignore posted speed limits, they're posted so we can get federal funding*. Knowing that I was going to be late to her weekly meetings, I considered all my options:

• Arrive to the meeting late, and hope I've not been assigned any tasks ... I would rather catch the ebola virus.
• Call to let her know I was running late ... why not just call and say I was abducted by aliens, that would be more likely.
• Get into a car accident, and hope I survive ... thus legitimizing my tardiness.
• Call to say I'm taking care of an ailing family member ... almost believable had I not mentioned that I was orphaned** due to the great earthquake of '89.

As usual, time was my enemy and the meeting was to start in less than five minutes, and, even in the best of traffic and driving a decked-out concept car, I was at least half an hour away. I panicked like a MOFO and reached for my bottles of Zoloft, Prozac, Paxil and Buspar***. In a moment of sheer brilliance, a lightbulb light up in my dimming mind on how I to save my budding career.

With minutes before the meeting was to start, I managed to weave traffic and took the first exit to hell. Not knowing the neighborhood, my eyes scanned for the possibilities of a pay-phone; I wasn't a chosen member of the echelon to warrant one and this was before it was chic to issue a cell-phone to every corporate drone. The only pay-phone was in a Jack-in-the-Box parking lot, near the PA drive-thru ordering system.

I dialed into the meeting, and, expecting "S" to be irritated, I blurt out that I had a flat tire. The meeting's discussion of strategic campaigns and tactics was often interrupted with, "Would you like fries with that?" or "No mustard and onions on the burger, is that right?" or "Can you repeat the order please?" There was no way to shield or muffle the PA system or the phone. At the end of the 90-minute meeting, I offered to take orders for those who wanted a late breakfast or early lunch.

That afternoon, with her CSI-like mind, "S" figured that I did not have a flat tire. Later that month, she took me out to lunch and said that my call-in cemented her authority within the company (apparently that story got around). After lunch, she surprised me with a modest gift-certificate to Nordstrom.

I know for a fact that "S" is reading this blog ... she knows my mischievous personality and, if I've offended her, then I'll get an email shortly with the appropriate suggested edits. "S" was the kind of manager that you could really talk to about anything. She was a "manager for the workers" -- much unlike the army of rank-and-file corporate clones that stifle productivity with paperwork and nonsense rules. "S" valued free-thinking and creativity. In my own career development, I reflect on "What would "S" Do?" all the time. My appreciation of her management skills was obvious when I took the course "Leadership Continuum: Behaviors of Managers and Leaders".

*All kidding aside, don't ignore posted speed limits -- CHP (California Highway Patrol) loves pulling people over so they can make quota while cranking out more of those "COPS" shows. Sometimes, as in the case of Rodney King, you can get lucky and cash-in on police brutality, but that's rare. Evidence often "disappear" or are contaminated, and, thus, no case.

**I'm not an orphan, and have never claimed to be one (until now).

***I have never, knowingly, taken any of these.