Friday, October 14, 2005

I Am Not A Crook

Sometimes, you get a win at work, but it's unseemly to talk about it in case someone thinks (rightly) that you're crowing. Well, screw it... I am crowing a little.
One of the finance people wanted to put out an internal memo on some corporate actions we had to take recently, and wanted to make it very clear this was in no way related to fraud. So, in a fairly understandable way, they stated that clearly in the memo.
When it came to my desk for review, I nearly fell out. Luckily I had just visited with my friend The Cuban, who showed me some of her media relations training materials. Something I read in that material stuck with me and started flaring as I read the memo.
"You never want to introduce or repeat the negative," The Cuban wrote in her material. "Think of Nixon's famous line: 'I am not a crook.' What everyone remembers is that Nixon was a crook - whether he was or not."
So after I read the memo I picked up the phone and called the author and we had ourselves a nice, polite, slightly passive-aggressive moment (she's a VP+, I am not) but in the end I won - and I managed to get a few more people to my side in the process.
Which tells me that the faster you can get to the essence of your argument, the better chance you have of winning it.

I'm writing to you from the Amtrak 187 to Washington DC. I love wireless broadband. Amtrak isn't so bad either - they have outlets handy for computers and whatnot. My iPod (the new one - the 30-frigging-gig with slideshow ability - is running low on the juice and I forget to bring the usb cable, so I'm plugged into my computer literally. Nice comfy seats, too.

It struck me while waiting for my train to board at Penn Station that we (the people) are so weirdly tribal sometimes. Maybe all the time... but definately while waiting for the train. Penn Station is designed for frequent travelers - not for the once-in-a-while folks like me. There are no Amtrak people roaming the general lobby area, answering questions and otherwise pointing people in a general direction. The Big Board with all the train numbers and track numbers is a study in controlled chaos. Trains don't board until 7 minutes prior to scheduled departure. Or so it seems.

So while all of this is going on, I noticed that there were roughly three types of people waiting in the lobby: 1) People looking to hook verbally with another human life form; 2) Human shells; and 3) Barely contained nerves and energy.

Group 1, if they were there alone, wandered up and down the concourse and somehow managed to have five to eight micro-conversations: "Got the time?" "You know where 243 is boarding?" "Have they called the Acela yet?" I picture these people on the end of a long leash, barely tethered to the Earth - exhilerated by the risk but terrified at the same time. Knive edge, man.
If any Group 1 people were fortunate enough to have a travel companion, they usually were engrossed in dense and intense conversation on amazingly stupid things. Some of these Group 1 conversations took on a slightly aggressive tone in a fake attempt to match emotional and verbal discourse. No dice. Just boring and lame after all that.

Group 2 - human shells. These are the bodies lying across bench seats at the airport, or the slumped over forms on the train on your morning or evening commute. I like human shells, because sleeping people are peaceful. And I like the idea of the body's muscles at rest. I picture big fluffy clouds and a bed of soft grass to lie on.

Group 3 would normally be suspected of narcotics use if they bopped around anywhere except Penn Station. These are the people traveling to meet a lover, quit a job, break good news to friends or attend a funeral. They exist in a high emotional state, and therefore are vulnerable to the slightest provocation. I remember when I left Atlanta the day before I started my new (current) job; I was a total Group 3, and the asshole checking me in curbside said he couldn't find my reservation. I told him, I'm on the flight to New York at 3:50 and he said "There's no 3:50 flight and there's no you in the computer." Which made me so homocidal it still bothers me today that my mood could change so quickly and hotly. Turns out he only checked LaGuardia and not JFK. Total dick. I was crying with anger within three minutes.
So when you run into a Group 3, or if you happen to be one yourself, watch for the signs that it's all going to fall apart and split the scene pronto. If it's happening to you, I suggest you drink heavily or slap on your iPod and tune the world out. Sometimes the world sucks.

I haven't played word of the day for a while, but I started a new game with B at work - hardest working tally. He usually stays later than me, but the last two weeks I've been smoking him, including an all-nighter and three 17 hour days in a row. His title as hardest working is now in jeopardy, so we're starting the official tally on my white board.

The other thing from this week is for the "WTF" file. I got bitch slapped by a VP for issuing a press release on Yom Kippur. My official response was "If the markets are open, we're open, and I'll put out press releases." What I should have said was "Gee, R., that's not very Christian of you." or "Aren't you supposed to be atoning for something?" or "Well, it's in God's hands now." But that's not PC, and it's just not nice either. So there you go.

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

My iPod Knows Me...

I have an iPod Shuffle, and I think it knows me. I mean, it plays exactly what I want to hear. For example, this morning it played all the harmonic stuff while I winged my way to work. Which was really needed, since I hopped on the V just for kicks, which required a switch at Queens Plaza to the E. And since I usually take the much quieter F train, the soothing sounds of Aimee Mann and Slaid Cleaves was the perfect zone music for the rocky trip.
And this evening, as I raced from work to get to Macy's in time to buy the perfect jewelry and evening wrap for the Brazilian Chamber of Commerce thingy that I'm going to tomorrow night, the music spoke to me again. Lots of The Killers and Green Day. "Get to the store before it closes!" it said. So much so that I got off at 42nd just so I could walk to Harold Square. Which was a dumb move - I had to dodge tourists.
Which is another story. This is episode 17 in my continuing series of "Becoming a New Yorker." In this episode, Identifying Tourists beyond the normal tells (camera, shorts, black socks with gym shoes) goes beyond the visual and becomes the psychological. It makes you a little crazy, but as soon as you see three or more people strolling abreast in the middle of a busy sidewalk, you feel the word tourist - you don't even have to say it in your head. You pause your iPod in case you have to execute the Lance-pass ('scuse me, 'scuse me) in case someone asks for directions. (Prior episodes, unwritten here but experienced just the same, cover the NY-dweller's requirement to give directions in clear, concise terms: Down two blocks, take a right and one avenue over...)
So the Tourists were a technical problem, but I slalomed my way and made it in time. I spent roughly 3 times on the jewelry than the evening wrap. Macy's has the old-timey wooden esaclators, so I rode those a little, too.
On my walk home, I saw a plastic crate in the middle of the cross walk at 34th and Broadway, so I thought it would be a good deposit in the Karma bank if I picked it up and put it on the sidewalk. But Karma is a funny thing. As I was doing it, nonchalantly and in my oh-so-New York way, I realized I was now out of balance in my Karma bank. You see, last week I stayed with an elderly woman who had fallen and roughed up her arm while my colleague ran to get an EMT from a nearbby car crash. That was my payback for mildly cursing (to myself) a certain media type for inaccurate reporting that caused no end of annoying midnight phone calls from other nutty media types. But now, with picking up the plastic crate, I was in the positive on my Karma bank. I'm not sure what happens now. But I stepped carefully on the way home just in case.
No one had a good day at work today. By lunch time, we were all freaking a little bit, or on the verge of total coma. We're exhausted and there's still so much to do. This can't be the new normal. But we decided to write it all off today.

So let's talk about Our President's choice for his Second Supreme. I
swear... he must've pulled a muscle in his neck searching far and wide all
the way down the hall to his chief counsel's office. She was in charge of
the Texas Lottery.
I swear I'm not making this up.

So to review: presidency of the Arabian Horse Association (AHA!) makes you
qualified for FEMA. And running games of chance mostly played by the
working poor in a desperate attempt to realize the American Dream makes you
perfect for the highest court in the land. Ok. Hello Einstein, your
dog is calling.