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The Management Training Seminar
By Travis Thomas
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My boss Fred's face used to get really red when he talked about his boss, whose
name was Dick. I know that was his name, because Fred used to say it a lot. Dick
this, and Dick that. Sometimes he called him Dicky, or Dicky-boy, or Duck.
Sometimes he called him Duck-Dick.
I liked Fred, even if he was a little bit repetitive. Fred used to tell me the
same things two or three times in a row. Fred always had me sit right next to
him at our department meetings, saying he wanted to be sure I could hear him
clearly.
One day Fred came to my desk and said I was going to be promoted, because Fred
was leaving the company. I asked him where he was going and he said
"anyplace." Fred told me that Dicky-boy had asked him who his
replacement should be, and Fred recommended me for the job.
I was disappointed that Fred's face wasn't turning funny red that day. In fact,
he looked really happy and was talking in a gentle, soft voice.
I asked Fred what I would be doing, and Fred told me that I would be doing his
old job.
Now, I have to admit that I had not been paying much attention to Fred's various
comings and goings and ramblings, and I told him as much. His face started to
get a tiny bit red in the cheeks at that point, and he said "Yeah, I kind
of noticed that." But he said everything would be OK, and that he knew I
would do a great job for Dicky-boy.
I asked Fred what I should do first. He just smiled and looked at me for a long
time. Then he said "Follow your heart, buddy. Just follow your heart."
Fred said we were going to have a special department meeting. When we walked
into the meeting room, there were a lot of people there. Fred announced that he
was going to be leaving the company "to pursue other oppor-fucking-tunities."
Fred said that I was going to be his replacement. The people in the room looked
at Fred, then they looked at me, then they looked at Fred. It was funny the way
their faces just went back and forth, back and forth, like they were all
watching a tennis game. One guy started to laugh, but after a while he quit. A
short fat guy got up and walked out of the room without saying anything. A tall
lady asked Fred if he was telling a joke, or something to that effect. Fred
smiled and smiled. After a while he said, "If there are no more questions,
then I'd like to end this meeting. Bon voyage!" I never saw Fred again.
I liked being a manager right away. There was an old lady that sat outside my
office and she liked to help me. At first I thought she was my boss, but she
said she wasn't. I asked her if she knew what I was supposed to do, and she said
maybe I could start by checking my mail. The mailbox was around the corner in
the mailroom.
It had been a couple of weeks since I became a manager, and I noticed that the
mailbox was really full. I picked up all of the inter-office mail envelopes that
were in my mailbox and started carrying them back to my office. Another fellow,
I think he was also a manager, saw me and said "Looks like you got a lot to
do!" and seemed to admire me for that. That's how I first figured out that
if you have a lot of inter-office mail envelopes people think you are doing a
good job. That made a lot of sense to me.
Another thing I liked about being a manager was all of the stories that people
told me. People would come into my office and tell me a story about their job,
or about their life. Sometimes it was a short story, sometimes it went on a bit.
But I enjoyed listening to them. They were really nice people, but I couldn't
remember their names very well. So I gave them little nicknames in my head.
There was Tall Lady, and Curly Hair, and Blue Shirt. I didn't see Blue Shirt
very much, just every couple of weeks or so. I saw Tall Lady a lot, and she told
me a lot of neat stories about her job.
After a while, there were some long silences, and I figured she wanted me to
tell her a story too, so I would tell her about my day, and things that had
happened to me. But sometimes people would ask me for advice, like I was their
father or something. At first I used Fred's old line and said "Just follow
your heart." Then I realized that people wanted me to give them an answer
that was a "Yes" or a "No." I wasn't sure what to say. I
would tell them to ask the old lady outside my door, but then the old lady told
me "I'm going to have to refer them back to you on these issues."
One day I was looking out the window when Curly Hair was asking me a question,
and I had an idea. There was a big stop light out there. It so happened that the
light was green when there was a silent part in the conversation, so I said
"Well I think we should just go forward. Let's move forward on that."
Curly Hair looked surprised at first, then he said "Um, great. Yeah, that's
what I was thinking too, let's move forward." Then he nodded and smiled at
me, so that made me happy. After that, I always looked out the window when
people told me their stories, and if the light was green I'd say something like
"Let's go forward. Go, go, go!"
Another thing I liked was all of the mail I got, because I got to file things.
The papers I would get in the inter-office mail envelopes would not always be
the same color. Some would be white, others blue, occasionally a pink or yellow.
So originally, I had the idea that I should file them by color. But after a
while, I noticed that my "white" file was getting really thick, and
the other colors were still not very full at all. So I had a new thought: I
labeled one file folder "Mostly Words" and another one "Mostly
Numbers", and started filing things that way, based on what was mostly on
the paper.
After a while, I noticed that people didn't come by to tell me stories about
their day quite as much. And I wasn't getting quite as many of the inter-office
mail envelopes. In fact, one day Sister Mary Fran, who did the mail runs, said
"Hardly anything for you today! People forget you're here?" Then she
laughed but I got a little worried. That day, I addressed fifteen inter-office
mail envelopes to myself and I put some papers from the "Mostly
numbers" file in the envelopes. I put them in the out-mail box in one of
the offices down the hall. Sure enough, the next day I got them all back and
Sister Mary Fran said "Huh! Looks like they found you!" and then I
felt better.
After that, I never let a day go by without addressing some inter-office mail
envelopes to myself. At first, I would put some kind of recent paperwork in
them, but after a while I didn't put anything in them at all. I also started
sending them from different locations, because I enjoyed walking around and
saying hello to all the people. I would drop some off at Receiving, and take
another stack over to Marketing, and still have a handful left to leave off in
Human Resources. Sure enough, they would all come back to me. I couldn't help
strutting around with them a bit when I picked them all up in the mail room.
"Looks like I got a lot to do," I'd say, or "Looks like they
found me." People would smile and nod when I said that stuff, and that made
me feel happy.
I think I got a little carried away with the inter-office envelopes. At one
point, I figured out that I had 447 interoffice mail envelopes in circulation,
originating from various points of departure within the company. Sister Mary
Fran evidently went to her boss and demanded help, because she couldn't keep up
with the surge in volume. So they hired a part-time assistant to help carry the
mail. At that point I realized I had better quit sending inter-office mail to
myself.
They actually fired Sister Mary Fran over the whole thing. They thought she must
be getting senile, since there was practically nothing for her assistant to do.
That's kind of a shame, since Sister Mary Fran was so close to retirement and
all.
But this isn't really the story of Sister Mary Fran and all of her various
problems. I really wanted to tell you about the Management Training Seminar.
One day this guy stopped by my office and said that I needed to attend a
Management Training Seminar. I think he might have been that Dick fellow. I
really can't see why Fred always called him Prick, and Flick, and so on. He
seemed really nice.
The Management Training Seminar was in a fancy suite at the Regency Inn across
town. The seminar leader was a guy named Rick. Rick had long brown hair that was
tied in a ponytail, and the biggest beard I ever saw. He had us all sit in a
circle on cushions on the floor, so we wouldn't have any barriers between us.
Then he told us that he was here to help us with management problems, using his
new approach. It was called "The Eight-Ates" approach. He built his
approach around eight words that ended with "ate". For example, there
was Investigate, and Delegate, and Cogitate, and some other words I can't recall
at this point. So Rick asked us to each identify a problem that we had, and then
we would "run it through the process", as he liked to say.
There were a few people that talked before me. None of their problems had
anything to do with inter-office mail, or filing. They all had interesting
problems, but they all seemed to be problems that were sort of like bragging.
For example, this blue-haired guy said "I'm ashamed to admit that I'm a
workaholic. I just can't let go of work, even at home on the weekends." And
a pretty lady I saw around the office sometimes said "I'm just too
hands-on. I work and work to get everything just right for the company. I guess
I'm just too perfectionistic!" And Rick smiled and said "good, good,
right" and then he would "run it through the process" with them,
to teach them how to Delegate, and Separate, and those other -ate things.
Then Rick came to me and said, "So, what problem can we help you
with?"
I had to think a long time about that.
Finally I said, "You know, every since I was a small child, as long as I
can remember, I've had this problem. It's hard to describe. You see, for all of
my life, at the very edge of my perception, just barely audible, I can
hear-somebody screaming."
"As long as I've lived, it's been there with me, and if I just stop and
listen—really listen—I can always hear it. It goes on and on. And for all
these years, it has never really changed. Maybe it has become a little more
hoarse and desperate as the years have worn on. I don't know." Then I sat
down.
There was kind of a silence after I said that, and the other people looked at
Rick, then at me, then at Rick again. It was funny, just like with Fred. Finally
Rick cleared his throat a couple of times and said that he was sorry he hadn't
provided enough structure, and that it was his fault, but could I identify
something that was a little more work related?
So I said that I was too much of a perfectionist, that I couldn't delegate, and
that I was having trouble letting go of details. Rick smiled at me then, and
said, "Good, good. Let's run that through the process."
____________________
Travis Thomas is really a lot smarter than he
looks and sounds. He dreams of someday becoming a paid assassin, but
realizes he will probably always remain an enthusiastic amateur. He was recently
quoted as saying 'You can lead a horse to water, but you can't just shoot it for
no good reason.'
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