I wish my own father of blessed memory were here to help me write columns tonight. I can just imagine his responses to some of the ones I’m working on now:
“Son, everyone has to work with someone like that. I could tell you about this one guy in Chicago … but life’s too short. Do your job and ignore him.”
“That seems reasonable to me, but I’m not your wife. Take her out to her favorite restaurant and give her a nice bottle of perfume and ask her.”
“Oh, sure, you’re within your RIGHTS to do that. But no one will ever invite you back for a drink after the game, and if there’s ever a disputed call, they won’t resolve it in your favor.”
“Lady, he’s just a little kid. In six months he won’t even remember this.”
“This you consider a problem at work? This is no problem. This is just work.”
“If everyone knows perfectly well that you’re lying, it isn’t lying anymore. Then it’s just being polite.”
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June 21, 2009
Things I learned from my dad:
The best is the enemy of the good.
Know when to cut your losses.
Sometimes you have to get further from the goal to get closer.
Anything that you can balance on your upper lip can be a mustache.
(All verbatim except the last one.)
June 21, 2009
As my dad told me decades ago, when I was having a rough time at work:
“Don’t let them steal the joy from your day. They’re not paying you enough for that. They couldn’t pay you enough for that.”
And years before that,
“Keep the faith. And if it all goes to hell, call your dad.”
I don’t have any of his exact quotes on this, but he also taught me to take care of tools.
June 21, 2009
You don’t need a bunch of friends. You need one good friend who will get on airplane and come to you, no questions asked, if you need them. Everything else is just extra.
(This was not particularly helpful during those hellacious middle school years but I’ve grown to appreciate it since.)
June 22, 2009
If you learned something, it was a good day.
If you can solve a problem by spending money, and you have the money, it’s not much of a problem.
June 22, 2009
He’s not full of pithy quotes, but my dad is the Mount Everest of patience. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him complain seriously about *anything*. Ever. Watching him be patient is about the best advice he’s ever given me. He’s also really forgiving of himself when he doesn’t get something right, so I guess you could say he’s patient with himself too.
He’s proof that total, utter, undeniable dorks make excellent human beings.
June 22, 2009
We got a nice story in a letter we got after my father died.
A lady (whom we had never heard of) told about a time she met him at a critic’s convention in Montreal; her luggage had been held up at the border, and she didn’t have the nice outfit she had planned to wear to the fancy dinner. Dad so distracted her with charming chat that she forgot to worry about being under-dressed.
Wasn’t it nice of her to remember that thirty-odd years later, and share it with us!
I can’t quote any advice of his, but he was quite a gallant man.
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