Everything is bigger in Texas......I'm here at a conference and have had almost no time to think let alone look around San Antonio. With any luck I'll get a chance to look around for an hour or so today.
One interesting event going on here is the Shriners, EAST-WEST college football game being played on Saturday. Most of the players are staying in my hotel and these guys are BIG.....I mean REALLY big. Aside from the players There are scouts from all of the NFL teams, and "Jerry Mcguire" agent weasels. It's interesting to see all of these "JETS" or "Cowboys" jackets and sweatshirts and realise that the guys wearing them didn't get themm in the gift shop..... It's a curious sight seeing a huge 6'5" 20 year old towering over a cigar chomping, Blackberry tapping money guy. "We're talking mucho dineros Lamar.....I mean MUCHO. ....."
What strikes me is how friendly and polite these kids are. Elevator rides are punctuated with "Hello Sir, How are you doing today?" "I sure hope you have a wonderful time in the United States...... you have a really GREAT day"
Well
Back to work. Not much of a note I know, but I wanted to check in.
Terry
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4 comments:
Texas? What happened to the Dubai office? Has your assigned region changed. Noticed how people there tend to move in a lackadaisical manner? Anyway, take care T.
Thought you would post a picture of you in a hat eatting a big steak as you need meat on your bones
He worked himself to death, finally and precisely, at 3:00 a.m. Sunday morning.
The obituary didn't say that, of course. It said that he died of a coronary thrombosis-I think that was it-But everyone among his friends and acquaintances knew it instantly. He was a perfect type A, a workaholic, a classic, they said to each other and shook their heads-and thought for five or ten minutes about the way they lived.
This man who worked himself to death finally and precisely at 3:00 a.m. Sunday morning-on his day off-was fifty-one years old and a vicepresident. He was, however, one of six vice-presidents, and one of three who might conceivably-if the president died or retired soon enough-have moved to the top spot.Phil knew that.
He worked six days a week, five of them until eight or nine at night, during a time when his own company had begun the forty day week for everyone but the executives. He worked like the Important People. He had no outside "extracurricular interests", unless, of course, you think about a monthly golf game that way. To Phil, it was work. He always ate egg salad sandwiches at his desk. He was, of course, overweight, by 20 or 25 pounds. He thought it was okay, though, because he did not smoke.
On Saturdays, Phil wore a sports jacket to the office instead of a suit, because it was the weekend.
He had a lot of people working for him, maybe sixty, and most of them liked him most of the time. Three of them will be seriously considered for his job. The obituary did not mention that.
But it did list his "survivors" quite accurately. He is survived by his wife, Helen, forty eight years old, a good woman of no particular marketable skills, who worked in an office before marrying and mothering. She had, according to her daughter, given up trying to compete with his work years ago, when the children were small. A company friend said, "I know how much you will miss him." And she answered, "I already have."
At the funeral, the sixty year old company president told the forty eight year old widow that the fifty one year old deceased had meant much to the company and would be missed and would be hard to replace. The widow did not look him in the eye. She was afraid he would read her bitterness and, after all, she would need him to straighten out the finances-the stock options and all that.
Phil was overweight and nervous and worked too hard. If he wasn't at the office, he was worried about it. Phil was type A, a heart attack natural. You could have picked him out in a minute from a line up.
So when he finally worked himself to death, at precisely 3:00 a.m. Sunday morning, no one was surprised.
By 5:00 p.m. the afternoon of the funeral, the company president had begun, discreetly of course, with care and taste, to make inquires about his replacement. One of three men. He asked around: "Who's been working the hardest?"
. . .
Thanks Ellen ....(I think)
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