This morning, I arrived at work as usual. I stepped out of my car, hitched my laptop bag onto one shoulder, my purse onto the other, grabbed my coffee and my big box of Cheerios, and I headed in to the office.
As I was walking to the door, I passed a coworker leaving who looked down at my Cheerios, smacked himself in the forehead, and said “I knew I forgot something this morning! My work CHEERIOS!”
Smart-ass.
Shortly thereafter, I sat at my desk grabbing handfuls of Cheerios out of the box and ruthlessly shoving them into my mouth and I contemplated my old boss, Bob.
Bob isn’t with us anymore, and I don’t mean he moved to South America to avoid detection by the IRS (though in other circumstances, that might be how his life played out). Bob passed away. I know his family misses him dearly, and certainly the world is a less colorful place without him.
When I was 20, I answered an advertisement in the newspaper titled Girl Friday. I was called for an interview which led to the job I would have for the next 8 years. I learned a helluva lot in those 8 years and consider that learning foundational to all that I have done in my professional life since then. Bob, therefore, was a pretty instrumental person in my formative years, professionally speaking.
Bob was also the Worst Boss Ever.
At least that’s what we all thought when we worked for him. Oh, he was an eccentric guy, overflowing with nervous energy and wanting everything done now now now now now. He drove us nuts. There were times we tried to slip him a little blue pill that would calm him the @#$% down but he always caught us. He probably fired some of us for it, too.
Bob fired us a lot.
I left that place in 1993 and a few years later, sadly, Bob passed away. The manner of his passing even left me shaking my head wearing a sad sort of smile. You see, Bob was a stress-junkie. He would never even leave the office to go to lunch (and therefore neither could any of us!). He didn’t take sick days. He barely took a vacation each year. It was work work work. He thrived on it, as best I could tell.
Long after I left, when business was slower, he took up the habit of occasionally going fishing on a weekday afternoon. You know – to get away from it all. To relax. To de-stress.
It was on one of these weekday fishing expeditions that he had the heart attack that took him from his family.
Bob never stopped showing us all the ways he was different from everyone else.
Here I am, nearly 20 years after leaving Bob’s employ (And how can that be? I’m only 28 years old, after all!) and I have had some time to reflect back on those years, on Bob and what he taught me. Some of it is pretty important so I wanted to share these lessons with all of you.
FIRST LESSON
My first day of employment with Bob is when I learned that I wouldn’t get a lunch hour. Nobody did. We weren’t allowed to go out for lunch. Employment Law was no impediment to him! You placed your food order with the orders of the others in the office and the driver went and picked the food up. Then, you could keep working while you ate at your desk.
Okaaaay….
That first day, they were ordering Taco Bell. I ordered a Mexican pizza and it was sitting there on my desk as I nibbled at it while working. Each time Bob walked past my desk (and he walked past my desk a lot), he plucked a black olive off my Mexican pizza. With his fingers.
Hello? I don’t even know your middle name never mind your hand-washing habits! What the hell?
What I learned: IF YOU REALLY WANT SOMETHING, GO FOR IT.
SECOND LESSON
When Bob was overwhelmingly busy, he was more scattered than usual. He would bark out orders and we would all jump. Most of the time, it was very focused on the business tasks at hand. But once, he said he forgot to flush the toilet and told me to go flush it for him.
Oh yes he did. My motto became “I get paid by the hour, I get paid by the hour.” And, yes, I flushed.
What I learned: WHEN YOU’RE REALLY BUSY AND STRESSED OUT, DON’T BE AFRAID TO ASK OTHERS FOR THE HELP YOU NEED.
THIRD LESSON
Bob was always trying new things in an effort to improve his health and well-being. Whenever he went on a diet, he would tell us we weren’t allowed to bring in any foods that tempted him. When this happened, we’d all get the irresistible urge to bring doughnuts for all. And M&Ms. And anything else we know he couldn’t resist. Revenge is often subtle, Bob. For awhile, he was drinking so much Coke every day, his vision started to blur and the doctor told him to get off the Coke. He switched to seltzer. Another time when he was trying to lose weight, he decided that eating Cheerios was just the thing to help him, and could be seen at pretty much any hour of the day toting around a big box of Cheerios eating handfuls of them. Customers looked at him like he had 2 heads. I have pictures from the office where you can clearly see the big box of Cheerios in the background on his desk. This trend lasted the longest, I think.
He didn’t care what people thought, and he never let our poking fun of his weird habits bother him or change his course. Naturally, this is why I thought of Bob this morning as I (proudly) carried my big box of Cheerios into the office.
What I learned: DON’T LET WHAT THEY THINK CHANGE WHAT YOU ARE DOING IF IT’S THE RIGHT THING FOR YOU TO DO, EVEN IF YOU’RE SEEN AS A BIG CHEERIO-EATING WEIRDO.
FOURTH LESSON
While Bob frustrated us all every day, fired most of us multiple times, compelled us to label him the Worst Boss Ever, he was a devoted husband and father. He was even a devoted boss. Bob would have given any one of us the shirt off his back (and he actually did once, but that’s another story). He put himself out there in giving advice, even when (especially when) we didn’t ask for it. He cared about each of us in his own quirky way. I received personal benefit from his generosity in multiple ways. He gave me the hand-me-downs from his daughter – beautiful clothing that I could never have afforded myself as I was a single mom with two young daughters. He and his family once took me and my girls with them on a vacation weekend that I otherwise could not have afforded. He paid me a generous Christmas bonus in cash which was the only thing that let me put Christmas under the tree for my kids.
Bob’s wife was instrumental in running the business and there every day. Most days, in our heads, we called her Saint Carol. Once, she casually told me that every morning, he would bring a cup of coffee to her in their bedroom as she got started on preparing for her day. This one personal fact let me see a whole different Bob than I knew day in and day out at the office. This one tidbit of information was eye-opening.
What I learned: LET PEOPLE KNOW ALL OF YOU – THE PERSONAL YOU. LET THEM SEE YOUR DIMENSIONS, YOUR STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES. LET THEM KNOW WHO YOU REALLY ARE.
Because they’ll never forget.
As I walked in with my big box of Cheerios this morning, I thought about Bob.
Thank you, Bob, for all that you taught me and for all you did for me. I will never forget.
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I’m sharing this post with those from my past, including Bob’s lovely wife and daughter. Behave yourselves in the comments! Those of us who were there in ‘nam can dog the experience all we want. The rest of you? You can’t know how it was. Better you not pretend to try. 🙂
OK, that’s not true. I have never even climbed rocks. Well, that’s not entirely true either – I have climbed rocks, but only because of the angry squirrel chasing me. But I’ve never been rock-climbing in any sort of premeditated way. Also? Climbing rocks is not a particularly effective way to escape from an angry squirrel. Learn from my mistakes.
I’ve been thinking about God lately.