The Large Man Chronicles

I have to be careful here. I have friends who are important to me who could possibly read the following rant and could also possibly be offended by the intellectual content within. (I realize that ‘intellectual’ may be a stretch, but I like the phrase) Over the past few months, I have been plagued by poor customer service across several different industries … different service industries, and I can hold my tongue no longer.

A couple of years ago (October 2009) I posted a LMC on the subject of courtesy, it’s titled Tips for the Modern Traveler (Be Nice!). At the time, my sentiments were heartfelt and sincere. I was inspired to write the Chronicle because of the attitude I observed from the traveling elite towards the hard working folks on the service side of the travel industry…gate agents, hotel clerks, flight attendants, etc. In a nutshell, I delivered a scathing lecture on why nobody working at a counter in an airport or hotel really cares about how many times the privileged traveler stayed in a particular hotel chain last year, or how many gazillion miles that same traveler has with their chosen airline. What they care about is maintaining their dignity in a shitty job. But when I wrote that story I was only 50 years old, that was a long time ago and things have changed. And I wasn’t pissed off then.

Little boys grow up, and if you are an observant little boy (like me) you learn things, and hopefully, after learning these things, you evolve. I’m 52 now, so I have a lot more experience and therefore I’m a little bit wiser, smarter, or evolved. Life has thrown me a few curves and surprises in that time frame; my cheese has been moved, but I’m in touch with the universe and I have adjusted. I’ll admit that I didn’t see the Peyton Manning thing coming, and I have no idea why the Republican party can’t produce a candidate that makes any sense at all, but I do have the service industries figured out, and I’m changing my tune: No more waltzing for these inconsiderate and pampered lazy ass jag offs; from now on it’s the effing Macarena.

Now sing and dance along with me…

If you are my Mortgage Loan Officer, I’m paying you. And if I’m paying you, YOU are running down the information that is within your reach. If there is no security or proprietary issue restricting your access…especially if it’s needed from third parties within your company; you do it…I’m paying you. If you are an attorney hired to handle the closing of my loan and there are special considerations that need to be deliberated and communicated to the mortgager, you are making the call. I have a job! It’s called “my job” and I need to do my job during working hours so I can earn the money that I’m paying you. Isn’t “your job” the handling of the transaction during my working hours? Please handle it. If I have to do your job, then it really isn’t “your job” anymore; it becomes my job. Why would I give you the money that my wife could be spending on shoes (or whatever it is she buys – love you Babe!) if I have to do the work?

…AAAAYYYY Macarena

If you are a gate agent with a large airline (and I won’t mention any names, but it rhymes with Schmelta) and you’re going to charge me $25 to check a bag, and your credit card reader isn’t working so I have to pay cash, but you don’t have change for my cash…if all these things are happening, it’s your problem, it’s not mine. I’m trying to give you my money – fix your card reader, or get some change.

…AAAIIIII!!!

No, I’m not going to the newsstand to get change for my twenty. You go. And when you come back I want you to smile, and I want you to thank me for my patience. After you thank me and show a little contrition for the inconvenience I have experienced, I want you to treat the elderly woman behind me with a little respect. She hasn’t flown in over 30 years…things have changed a little in that time. You do this every day; she does it every 30 years. She may be of a different culture and ethnicity than you, but she is a fellow human. Please…PLEASE, don’t do it because you’re in the customer service trade, don’t help this nervous and embarrassed woman  because it’s your job and it’s what your company is paying you to do, what I (the consumer of your goods and services) am paying you to do; do it because it’s the human thing to do. You don’t even have to be nice, just be human.

AAAAAYYYY Macarena!!

Why are bartenders, waiters and waitresses the only consistently friendly and courteous service peeps anymore? I have the answer: Because they largely work on a commission basis. It’s called a 15 – 20 % tip in their industry, but it’s a commission. It’s a variable compensation program that is usually more favorable if their rate of service, expertise and sometimes, compassion is exemplary. Pretty simple concept.

AAAIIIIAAAA!

When I rent a car, and you don’t give me the car I requested, you know – the car that I needed because I needed it and it’s the one I ordered; your response to me shouldn’t be, “So Mr. Largeman that 06 Fiesta isn’t going to work for you?”

“No.”

“Can I ask why, Mr. Largeman?” They always call you Mr. or Ms. When they’re preparing you for the act. Mr. or Miss, or Mrs. is the service industry’s version of KY lube; it’s not a demonstration of respect.

“Because I ordered an Explorer, I need a Large car.”

“Did you know that the Fiesta gets better gas mileage, and it has a lower center of gravity so it’s less prone to what we call in the industry a ‘rollover’, if you have to make a sudden left turn… Mr. Largeman?”

“No, I didn’t know that. Luckily for me, I’ll only be making right turns on this trip. Say, could I get your name? I write a blog, and I like to tell stories about the people I meet and the experiences I have while I travel this great land of ours, and I would like to write about you.”

“Really? Me? That’s so cool! What have I done to deserve that?”

AYYYYYY Macarena!!

Thanks for reading, I feel better now.

The Large Man

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Lately I have been struggling with the concept of competition and the youth of our country. I guess ‘struggling’ might be a stretch, because I don’t really know how I feel about this issue. In fact, I usually don’t get too worked up or chatty about societal issues because just about every time I step up and express an opinion, somebody presents a point that I had not considered and it forces me to re-think my position. I don’t like to waste a lot of time on thinking.

This makes me a poor candidate for a leadership role of any kind because other than:

• the love for my wife and kids
• my belief that child molesters deserve an equal form of torture
• failure to give the very best care for our wounded military personnel is a crime against humanity equal to the atrocities perpetrated by that Kony dude in Africa

…other than those things and maybe a few others, you can argue just about any social issue with me and you can probably convince me that your position is valid. Leaders need to know. I don’t know very many things; or at least I’m not sure about very many things. Life is complicated, and I know that I don’t know all of the things that I don’t know.

But here is something that I think:

I think competition, and winning and losing, and keeping score is a good thing. And I think that recreational leagues or ‘instructional’ leagues might not be as great or beneficial to the self-esteem of our children as their proponents claim. I think these things came about because of the jerk Little League fathers that got into screaming matches from the stands, and the small minority of ‘win at all costs’ youth league coaches that almost all of us have had an experience with. Those guys fucked it up for all the rest of us, and our kids.

I think motivation to win makes you better at things; I think it breeds passion (among other things). Passion is awesome. A life without passion is like a life without beer, or sex, or movies, or steak fries with cheese and bacon. Who would want to live like that? Competition breeds motivation. It also breeds a butthead every now and then, but dealing with, and learning how to manage a butthead is a useful skill. Buttheads are a fact of life and a consequence of a free society. (I’m using ‘butthead’ where I would normally use ‘asshole’ because by dropping that F-bomb in the previous paragraph I’ve pretty much spent my offensive language allowance…butthead will have to suffice, but you all know what I mean)

Motivation:

My wife and kids are pretty much my motivation for everything. From simply hauling my lazy ass out of bed in the morning when there is nobody around to notice one way or another, to (also simply) fastening my seat belt. I am motivated to provide a nice life for my family…our capitalist society works well for someone like me. For a man with an ego, (and that would be me) there are few things better than being needed. That’s my motivation, that’s why I compete in my day job.

Competition:

I play golf. I play it for camaraderie and atmosphere, and the drinking of beer during camaraderie while enjoying atmosphere. The very worst golf course I have ever set foot on was a pretty place. Who wouldn’t want to walk on that grass, smell that honeysuckle, and look at that landscape?  (And don’t even get me started on the girls who drive carts that are full of beer, peanut butter crackers and Snickers) I don’t understand throwing or breaking clubs after a bad shot. It’s golf. I like having a better score than you if we play a round together, but I don’t need to beat you. But that’s most likely because I compete in other arenas in my life. These things probably look different to me at age 52 than they did at 26.

Now put me on the field in my day job, and we have a different story. I compete all the time and I love and I am motivated by the competition. When we win it’s awesome. When I lose; it’s a very bad day.

On December 21^st 2011 I lost a huge deal. It sucked. The deal didn’t change the course of my company’s future. Nobody is going out of business, lessons were learned that will make us better next time, and we have moved on. But… there is nothing that anyone can ever say to me that will make the deal that was lost OK. I lost, and I lost because I wasn’t better than whoever it was I lost to.

I will be OK. I am OK…but I will never forget December 21^st 2011 as long as I am a member of the work force. That’s not a bad thing, and that’s the point of this story. Because of what happened, I will have many wins in the next 15 or so years; and I’m gonna win because of that loss. The ass kicking that I took on December 21^st 2011 will be a thought cloud in the background every time I get a high five from someone for a job well done. When I walk across that stage in L.A. to accept my Best Screenplay Oscar, the memory of that defeat will be in the back of my mind, keeping me humble and focused and present. I won’t lose sleep over it (anymore), but it will be with me.  This is what losing is like for me when I’m defeated in a competition that matters. I’m OK with that burden and weight on my soul. That weight becomes motivation.

When I was a kid nobody ever gave me a trophy for trying. There is not a single plaque anywhere in my home for showing up. When I was a kid we didn’t celebrate participation, we celebrated exception…we celebrated triumph. There was very little shame in second place…or fourth place. Disappointment, yes… but no shame. There was no shame because you tried…you competed. I have no shame telling the few dozen of you reading this story that I failed on December 21^st 2011, because I did compete, and I took something from it, and I’ll win again. I’ll win again because of the scar tissue and ‘weight’ that comes with a loss. There is no shame in my failure, because I know this comes with competition. Nobody goes undefeated for a lifetime. You win some and you lose some, and sometimes it rains. I’m 52 years old, and I know that everybody doesn’t get a trophy. I’ve collected a trophy or two in my day, and I’ve watched others collect trophies that I had hoped for.  I learned things from both experiences.

My kids don’t know this – they don’t understand the concept at all. They don’t know how to compete, and when I think about their future, this scares me more than earthquakes, salmonella, and those spiders that hop like crickets. I fear that good enough, or just showing up, is going to be OK for them.

It’s not. I think you have to compete.

Last fall I watched my daughter give up a few goals as a goal tender on her soccer team – never even touching a ball as they flew past her and puckered the net behind her. I watched these goals scored, and I watched her smile an ‘oh well’ smile. In my mind, as a twelve-year-old, that shouldn’t be a ‘smiling’ moment, it should suck. Not for the rest of your life, not even for the rest of the day, but for a moment at least. But it doesn’t suck for her because they don’t ‘officially’ keep score in this league. You don’t win or lose, you just play. It’s an instructional league. Because I refuse to be ‘that guy’ that messed it up for the rest of us, I just smile and give her two thumbs up. “Keep trying, sweetie!”

Instructional league…hmmm. What is being ‘instructed’ here? When she’s 27, she won’t need to know that you have more accuracy kicking a ball with your instep as opposed to your toe…she probably will need to know that when she gets a callback for an audition, she needs to be better than everyone else who was called back as well. She needs to compete. Competition is good. Lessons come with winning, and lessons come with losing.

My son is a physical beast, but he may also be the sweetest, most kind and gentle person I have ever met (I have NO idea what gene pool these traits came from).  He will be an adult with the body of LeBron James, but he will have the disposition of that Stuart Smalley character from SNL. “Good enough, smart enough, and doggone it, people like me…” doesn’t work when you’re interviewing for a job. You know what does work? “I’m the best person you can hire for this job because I know how to work when things aren’t great. I have been successful because of ABC, and I have learned things because of XYZ. I’ve slugged it out, and I’m better than anyone else you’re going to interview.” But he’s going to have to have been through these things to believe them and convince someone else to believe in him. I hope he does.

The games my kids play on the soccer field, or on a basketball court, or on the playground won’t matter 10 years from now, but the lessons that come with competing will matter forever.

At least that’s’ what I think.

Thanks for reading.

The Large Man

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This week my day job has taken me to southern Florida. When I left my home at 7:00 AM on Valentine’s Day, I slogged through snow, sleet, rain, fog, salt and sand, and a few traffic accidents on my way to Pittsburgh International Airport. I always stop at the scene of an accident to see if there are any injured ladies who might be in need of mouth to mouth resuscitation. My life saving mouth to mouth services have never been needed, but you never know… sure enough, the first time I don’t stop…

So anyway, when I stopped at the second accident the dude appeared to be in some real pain, his leg was broken in seven places and he was bleeding through his eyes. Problem is, the only first aid that I know is mouth to mouth and I didn’t think it would have been beneficial for either one of us, so I tell him “…I’m sure that someone else will be along soon”. He didn’t even thank me for stopping; he just started cursing at me as I left. Kinda selfish, right? This dude showed no empathy for the fact that I had to catch a plane and I needed something to eat before I got on the plane because I had a short layover in Charlotte and there would be NO time for a quick bite before getting on my next flight. I get really light-headed if I miss a meal. I explained all of this to him as I was checking out his injuries. I guess he expected me to live on airline peanuts. This dude clearly had a different set of values.

So over rivers and through woods I go, I have my slice of Sbarro’s pizza and a Coke Zero, I hop on flight #1015 to Charlotte and then hop, skip and jump my Large behind into seat 10C on # 724 to Fort Lauderdale for a few days of sales calls and prospecting in someplace warm…someplace…warm. That sounds nice, that should be a Jimmy Buffet song.

I have never been to Fort Lauderdale. Most often, my day job travels are planned around a specific reason to be there. Usually I’m loaded with two or three ‘have to’ appointments that are pre-planned weeks in advance. Not this week. I don’t have a single appointment. Everybody I see this week knows my company, but only two people know me. I’m as anonymous as…as…somebody they don’t know.

I’m sure these facts are boring to you, but to me, they are about as exciting as waking up after a night of robust drinking and finding an unplanned stripper in my hotel room. It’s like I’m a new employee…learning the trade, adding contacts, getting referrals… “Who else should I see while I’m down here?” It’s actually more fun than waking up with a stripper in my hotel room because I can tell my wife all about it. Now, she will be just as bored as you are right now, but like you, she’s invested in the story teller so she’ll patiently let me finish in the hope that there may be a payoff by the end of the tale.

I wouldn’t expect much here.

So I stuff my fleece jacket into my suitcase in Pittsburgh as I checked my bag – willing to endure the cold of the PIT terminals because I wanted to get the full effect of walking out of the Lauderdale terminal into air that was warmer than 40 degrees. The Sunshine State did not let me down. I walked out to catch a rental car shuttle and the seventy-three degree Florida air takes my hand and pulls me in for a little hug. The hug wasn’t sexual, but it was certainly suggestive. ‘Why don’t you live here?’ that balmy Florida air asked me. I don’t know.

I immediately take out my phone and call my co-worker and rock, Jerry, and ask him the question… “You know, lots of people live in places other than Pennsylvania, why don’t we?” Jerry laughed, told me to “…work hard so you can justify the fun you’re gonna have.” I did.

I love my hometown, Warren PA. I have grown roots here, my children have flourished here, and my wife and I have made lifelong friends. I LOVE my job and the people I work with – I will work here for as long as they will have me (or until someone offers me a little more money) but…the winters… the winters in northwest Pennsylvania suck. Winter in northwest Pennsylvania is the reason why not many people live in northwest Pennsylvania. I can’t explain it any better than that.

Winters don’t suck in Fort Lauderdale.

The sun shines every day. Everybody owns a yacht. Everybody has a tan. Everybody is rich. Everybody is pretty. All the women can afford all kinds of clothing, but they choose not to wear very much.

When I walked into an office during my first sales call, the first thing someone said to me was, “You’re not from around here are you?”

“No. Is it that obvious?” I reply through a slight laugh.

“Yeah, pretty much. I have never seen a person as white as you. Your face looks like the belly of a flounder.”

“Thanks for noticing. Yes, I’m from Pennsylvania.” The confident prospecting salesman that I am is shrinking before this man’s eyes, the “flounder” comment was not meant to be complimentary. “We don’t have your sunshine up there. We have real winters and cloudy summers.” I continue.

“Man, no lie. Dude…you are so pale! The good thing is that your women stay better looking longer than they do down here. When they get in their mid fifties they get a little bit leathery down here…and your summers are probably a little more tolerable.”

We discuss the differences in weather patterns; my snow and rain and clouds, his occasional summer thunderstorm and “that time when it got down in the 50s.” He studies me and listens to my tales of cold temperatures as if I’m from Sweden…or Jupiter. It’s like he’s never met a person who came from the other side of the Mason-Dixon Line. I don’t think we discussed a single business point; no matter how hard I tried to steer the conversation to one of my company’s amazing products, we ended up talking about how white I was, or how cool his boat was. My alabaster skin and I left the premises not selling anything, and really disliking this dude.

My pale skin is the only thing that sucks in Fort Lauderdale.

So for three days, I make my calls, discuss the weather, punch a fistful of new contacts into my Blackberry; and after each day of toil, I hit the streets to find out if the nights in Lauderdale are as great as the days.

The winter nights in Fort Lauderdale don’t suck either.

The dining is awesome, the stores are cool and eclectic, and if I haven’t already mentioned it, the weather is amazing! The NFL teams suck in Florida, but everything else is so great, nobody cares…THAT’S HOW GREAT IT IS! Can you imagine? People up here throw bricks into their TV screens if the Steelers win by less than 10 points.

To add to this southern charm and rapture, (as if I need to) my host hotel was right on the beach, and it also hosted a large group of European tourists. These particular Europeans had a very liberal philosophy with regard to public nudity and swimming in the ocean, or the hotel pools. I’ll just leave that there and make no further comment.

Needless to say, it took an unprecedented display of personal discipline and moral strength to haul my Large, pale ass out of my room on Friday morning at 5:30 AM to go back to the sub-freezing temperatures of my beloved hometown. But there’s good news, I get to come back.

I have to mention a restaurant, G & B Oyster Bar on Sea Breeze Blvd. In the 15 plus years that I have been a traveling sales dude, I can’t remember when I have gone to a restaurant twice in the same week. No matter how much I love a place, I always want to see what else is out there. G & B busted that strategy to pieces.

The bartending team of Randy & Ryan took such good care of me on Tuesday night, I was forced to return on Thursday. Drifter Pale Ale and the very best bowl of clam chowder on this earth had a little bit to do with it too, but these dudes were great. The food is as good as any oyster bar I have ever been to, and the open air atmosphere inspires a friendly, laid back experience. Everybody sitting in your general vicinity becomes your friend.

Ryan is in his early twenties, and going through a breakup with a girlfriend of almost 5 years. It’s a good news bad news deal…he really misses his French Bulldog, because the Ex has custody until his living arrangements get a little more settled.  On the other hand, he will be a single male bartender at a bar right on the freakin beach, for spring break in Lauderdale for the first time in his young life. I think Ryan is going to be OK. Randy is pretty much the same dude with a different haircut – these young men have a lot to look forward to, and they’re good guys too.

I’m sitting at this bar, staring at all the pretty ladies, watching these two have a blast making drinks and pouring nicely crafted beers, and I’m reminded of the line in the movie Hot Shots when Lloyd Bridges’ character addresses the pilots for the first time “…I look out there on all you wonderful guys and I say to myself ‘What I wouldn’t give to be 20 years younger… and a woman.’”

…and living in Fort Lauderdale.

Thanks for reading.

The Large Man

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