Story Time with Gerry

It was a dark and stormy night, and the brigands were in the mountains, and the captain said to Antonio “Antonio, tell us a story-o”, and he started like this; It was a dark and stormy night, and the brigands…

This is a great roll-over story that my mom would tell us when we were kids. Don’t look for plot devices or character development; it’s just a warm childhood memory.
A lady I worked with a few years ago coined a phrase when I would start telling one of my long-winded stories. CJ would always perk up and ask “Is it story time with Gerry again?” Yes CJ, it is.

I recently reconnected with a college chum from the 1970’s in Montreal. Wow it took 3 whole paragraphs to date myself. Peter Anthony Holder (http://www.peteranthonyholder.com/ ) is a successful late night radio personality featured in Montréal on CJAD and Toronto on CFRB. Peter and I had some wonderful chats; we reminisced quite a bit, and shared our feelings on life, the state of the world, and our stations in life. Peter was very happy with where he was, what he had achieved, and was very pleased with how he was keeping himself busy.

I was, as well, initially. As we discussed things more, I mentioned to him that I was envious of his creative ventures. Peter mentioned that one of his easiest forms of expression was writing. We discussed how the written word also had a kind of permanence to it, and he cited his blog as an example (http://peteranthonyholder.blogspot.com/ ) Peter suggested I get back to writing myself; I’m glad I listened to him.

The idea of permanence is actually a version of something I keep repeating to my staff, ad nauseum; “If it’s not written down, it never happened!” I use this line to help my staff understand that the written word has permanence, and the spoken word is too easily forgotten.
I adopted this theory while I was working for a large company in the 80’s & 90”s. We were trying to figure out the best courier with whom to ship a widget. After my department completed a test, I was in a meeting to discuss a solution. It was quite a heated discussion, with some managers seeing a failure of our test as a way to justify greater headcount. I repeatedly attempted to review the results, but no one was listening.

After a few more tries to make my point, and my frustration mounting, I got up from the table and started walking out. The chair of the meeting asked me where I was going, and I responded; “Sorry, since no one was paying attention to me, I assumed I was invisible.” This broke the mounting tension, and we agreed to adjourn the meeting until the next day.

Upon returning to my office, I spent a few minutes creating a simple spreadsheet containing our test results. ( I am reminded of the line from the song [and later a 1969 movie, by the same name] by Arlo Guthrie “Alice’s restaurant” with the line “…twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us…”).

When the meeting reconvened the next day, I handed out my wonderful spreadsheet, with circles and arrows, … To my utter astonishment, everyone in the room thought this was wonderful, and were all happy that we had a working program. I was admonished by the chair for not bringing this information up sooner. I let it pass. With this audience, I figured my invisibility joke was enough.

My boss was at both meetings, and afterwards, told me I should have brought the information forward the day before. When I told him I had, he simply could not recall. I know I was not being shy and retiring because that simply is not in my nature. I have a deep booming voice that I had learned to project quite well while studying Theatre (WARNING! WARNING! age-defining statement imminent) in the 1970’s. If you say something and people do not comprehend, sometimes you can blame the messenger. In this case, I don’t think it was the messenger. Nor was it the message, because it was simplicity in itself.

In this case, my solution was to give them something they could neither ignore (as they seemed to be doing with me), nor could they argue with. After all, who wants to argue with a ream of paper?

So, “If it ain’t written down, it never happened” is something my staff often hears from me. (I find using the improper grammar helps the statement get attention.) And now that I have finally written this down, it has happened.

So as I near the end of my first (of many) long-winded stories, I need to revisit with old my friend, CJ, and ask her; CJ, did you like this one? Did I do OK?

In closing, Peter, thanks for once again pushing an old friend into doing something I should have done long ago.

Cheers folks!