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5 things you dont know about me

Mrs. "neo-neocon" has tagged me with one of those blog memes, so here goes.

1.In high school, I was an A/V geek, worse still; I also ran the school ‘radio station’. I could not have been a bigger nerd if I had hornrimmed glasses, which 'thank the maker' I did not. It is true that I had acne so bad my face bled if I smiled, but glasses? thankfully and inexplicably, no.

Yes dear reader, I was one of those pimply faced do-gooders who ran between classes moving slide projectors and audio equipment from class to class and from school assembly to school assembly. I was the master of feedback and a mover and shaker of wiring. I was responsible for the care and feeding of the the most expensive electronic things on campus. I was in fact, not much more than the Principals “roadie”. Honestly, my work in the A/V group is a close as I ever came to having an artistic outlet. In between moving equipment around campus, I studied photography, films and filmmaking, the use of slide projectors synchronized to soundtracks as an interactive special effect for presentations. It actually was my first foray into the world of technology, which would make the basis for my career. People who knew me then fully expected that I would surely find a career in radio, as some sort of “announcer” or disk jockey type thing. But I had other ideas, almost none of those ideas involved work in something as public and exposed as being in radio or God forbid a disk jockey.

2. While my job does on occasion require that I give technical presentations to large numbers of people, and I do perform this effort with absolutely no problem at all, I find the idea of being in a room with more than 5 people at a time just for recreation purposes, alarming to the point of nausea. I am now and shall always be, a very non-people person. Its nothing personal, its not “you”, it’s the whole human crowd thing that I have trouble with, it just give me the hives. Give me a book by the pool and I’m happy. That is, of course, if no one else is at the pool. Put me in a party with people I don’t know, and I’m quickly looking for the most remote corner of the room and I’m stacking the furniture around me as a barrier. I have to say that over the past 20 years, my phobia has improved. I used to simply vomit and pass out in the bathroom, now I can manage about an hour before I start to cringe uncontrollably.

3. While I consider myself a car aficionado, I have owned a ‘63 Chevy Corvair, an ’82 Chevette, an ’84 Pontiac Fiero. Only the Fiero was bought by choice, the rest were out of poverty driven desperation and all three were staggering examples of “how not to build a car”. The ’62 Corvair was bought on my 15th birthday, with my own money for 300 dollars. My idea was “Well at least it runs”, my father had a different idea. I awoke the next day (my actual birthday) to find the car completely disassembled – every bolt from every nut, and a gift copy of “Chiltons Auto Repair for the 62 Corvair” as my birthday gift. He had given me exactly 365 days to accomplish this task and I had absolutely no clue how to put it back together. The old man had a seriously warped sense of humor. I was successful in the task, and out of spite immediately sold the car and bought a motorcycle, which was promptly taken away until my 18th birthday. I was a difficult child. My favorite car that I have owned was the 1990 Nissan 300zx. My favorite motorcycle was the Honda 1975 750/4. I tend to prefer motorcycles to cars. Its the whole "crowd" thing again, I guess.

4. The proudest moment in my corporate life occurred when I was being viciously attacked verbally by a Vice President of a large Oil Company ( it starts with a "C", ends in "RON"). Unfortunately for this particular VP, the week he picked to attack me that I was on sulfa drugs for a major kidney problem I was suffering from. You see, Sulfa drugs tend to have a nasty side effect of making people very “irritable”. Given that I also had to fly almost 18 hours to have this meathead yell at me(for something that was a) no longer a problem, b) not MY problem in the first place as IT WAS HIS IDIOT TECHS THAT BROKE THE SYSTEM IN THE FIRST PLACE, c) a two second fix over the phone, therefore totally not necessary for me to fly from Tennessee back to California, with a broken kidney I might add, just so he could scream at me like a spastic 15 year old girl.) I was to say the least, “most irritated”. After being yelled at in the most unprofessional way for nearly 20 minutes, I just totally and completely "snapped" and began to unleash verbally back at on the poor bastard with all that my Navy upbringing had taught me about the anglo-saxon language. After my returning his verbal fire in several non-stop, spittle covered, rage filled minutes, moving step by step closer to him at the end of each profane stanza and calling down from hell all that the ‘lords of cussing’ could muster onto this mans head like some crazed ‘preacher of hate’; he was left in tears, cringing and simpering behind his desk, holding only his decorative letter opener towards me as his only remaining pathetic defense.

Most people will occasionally find themselves in a situation where they want to really yell at their boss or their customers. Well, I actually did it, and the really cool thing is, I didn’t get fired for it.

Two months later, I gave a presentation to a group of ‘key investors’ for the company I worked for. One of the people was – you guessed it - the said same cringing Vice President of a large Oil Company, last seen taking shelter behind his desk, with a letter opener in his hand, looking for all the world like an Eskimo with a really, really small spear and I was a rather large enraged polar bear.

Not only did he not just get up and run out of the room screaming when he saw me start up the presentation, after it was over he reached out and shook my hand and congratulated me on a "job well done". Apparently, he had forgotten about the day I nearly threw him out of a 6-story office window just for the fun of watching him splatter on the ground below.

Later I asked my boss about this. His explanation is something I’ve never forgotten.

"Frank, do you think that Mr. XXXX is a jerk?"

“Well yeah, he’s an A-Class Jackass Jerk of the first order”.

“Do you think everyone thinks that too?”

“Yeah!”

“Do you think you’re the only person in history to ever scream at the top of your lungs at him? Well, I've got news for you, to you this was a big deal, a most unusual event, but to him it was just another day at work. He thinks that sort of thing is normal. He doesn’t remember what you did, because since then it’s probably happened half a dozen times again. I’ve screamed at him half a dozen times myself. It just doesn’t mean a thing. ”

And that explained why I still had a job after verbally attacking a Vice President and and corporate investor of my company.

5. I have known my best friend since he and I were 15. We first worked together at a miniature golf course and go-cart track. We went to college together and we have both worked at the same companies professionally, but we have never worked together since the days at the miniature golf course. His wife and mine were also roommates in college, and we both live within a mile of each other to this day. It’s pretty amazing when you think about it.

Well that wasn't so bad.

Posted @ January 08, 2007 11:57 PM | Current Affairs