Shift of Fortune

“Fortune is not on the side of the faint-hearted.”
Sophocles (c.496 B.C.–406 B.C.)

A cold rain falls as I stand on the runway waiting to board a small regional jet back home. The sound of a 737 is deafening as it slowly creeps by in the darkness like a coal black leviathan. The flat expanse of the tarmac is glistening blue, green and red of the runway lights reflecting off the wet asphalt creating a surreal wonderland. The cool rain is a welcome relief from the hours spent in the stale overcrowded cramped terminal. Closing my eyes I tilt me head back allowing the rain to caress my forehead. It has been the only moment in the past two days where I have been able to relax and take a deep breath of the cool moist air. The scent of fall is in the air as the white dome of the capitol peers from behind the Washington Memorial in the distance. Where as the summer gone? In a brief flash the summer has left without even saying goodbye. Waiting begins all over again until summer returns an eternity from now.

Scanning the darkened figures standing in the rain I look for a familiar face but secretly not really wanting to find anyone I would be required to carry on a discussion with. The angry sullen faces in the gentle rain are upset with the two hour delay from gate 35. My old nemesis gate 35 has not disappointed me with its brutal ritual of chaos and routine bone numbing apathy, but I have conditioned my mind to ignore the tempting opportunity to struggle with its domination of the angry souls within its grasp. Silently I watch an overweight 30 year old with a shave bald head dressed completely in black like an Italian grandmother in mourning. It is oblivious that he is extremely proud of the carefully crafted persona he projects, but to me he appears to be a self-absorbed egocentric nobody. He is pacing back and forth screaming, shaking his fist, pointing at some invisible person he is talking to at the end of his cell phone which is the newest piece of technology available to only to those that find it important to change phones every couple of months. A large black electronic cockroach with a small red light hangs from his ear allowing him to fling both of his pudgy limbs in this public rant he is engaged in. There is little visual evidence to inform you that he not totally stark raving mad talking to the demons tormenting his soul. Watching his circular movements he reminds me of the insane street people in New York I remember as a child. I shake my head thinking that of all the places in the world this “tool” could be going, it just happens to be on my flight.

About the time I decided that I’ve wasted enough energy watching this idiot, I hear him argue with him imaginary friend stating that he has worked to hard for too long and everyone around him wasn’t doing their job. He emphatically closed the accusation with the worn old excuse “it’s not my job and I’m not going to do it myself”. Then he proceeded to asked for the dismissal of his coworkers. What a way to build a team by climbing over the bodies of coworkers to position yourself for a better seat in the cubical farm. There was a time when worked to hard for too long meant twenty years of dedicated service, not a couple months of waltzing in at nine and leaving at five. I’m not sure the world will survive the next generation of self-absorbed egos. The concept of entitlement without real investment is a cancer eating away the foundation of the nation. I’m staring at the pudgy poster boy for the end of the world as we know it. Needing to look away before I succumb to the urge to slap the living crap out of this snot nosed brat, I look at the white dome of the capitol again. Is this really what the founding fathers of this nation were hoping for?

I decide to refocus my attitude on something more positive and begin to reflect on the past two days of meetings and business calls. It has been a long dry spell for securing significant new work for the office for some unexplainable reason. It has eroded my enthusiasm as each failed interview piled on top of each other. Each debriefing providing little insight as to why we were not selected, other than we liked the color of the suit the other team wore or your proposal didn’t have little dividers like the others. I think this is the start of the 30 years olds gaining influence in the decision making process with no understanding of what is of real value in professional relationship.

Business always has a horizon which cannot be seen past, I call it the “cliff”. The cliff is the point past where businesses can no longer project future revenues. The cliff usually resides five to seven months into the future for most of my professional career, but during downturns the cliff slowly creeps closer and closer. At some point where you can begin to see over the edge of the cliff, the abyss of uncertainty becomes evident. Over the years I have come to understand that divine intervention appears to save you from the cliff about the time you are standing on the edge of your desk with a noose around your neck. The repeated salvation allows me to ignore the fear of being eternally stalked by the cliff. About the time I begin to consider what a new career might look like things dramatically change. This recent two day trip was that dramatic change completely reordering the future allowing me to postpone my new career search until sometime in the future.

I was able to arrange three meetings as a result of a recent speaking engagement in the area. The message of the lecture apparently struck an accord with the group, because we immediately received three requests for meetings to discuss proposals. The first meeting was with a county agency which wanted to include our expertise in a series of projects. Going into the meeting I assumed it was two projects which were already designed in which we would provide some construction oversight. We would be added as a specialty consultant under their on-call consultant agreement. As we talked in a small cramped conference room at the end of a dank basement hallway, the magnitude of the project was revealed. It’s not two projects but as many a twenty over the next five years. It’s not just construction oversight, but its full design services with an opportunity to assist on dozens of other projects which fall into our realm of expertise. It is the type of project which a business can forecast staff growth with by providing a predictable revenue stream over the course of five years.

A business negotiation is a lot like playing poker, there are times where the expression of surprise places you into an inferior position. It is imperative that you provide the owner the comfort of knowing that the conversation is completely ordinary and what they are proposing is a matter of standard operations. Executives will only hire your services if you can make them believe that you don’t need the work. It’s a subtle game of courtship, being too eager equates to desperation and desperation can be seen as a fatal disease detectable from miles away. The county’s schedule was impossibly constrained and not realistic, but we promised to deliver because there is no other acceptable answer. Anything is possible; no task is too great during the courtship. Over the years I have learned that schedules work themselves into a predictable rhythm that can seldom be hurried. Our job is to coach the client along the way as complexity of the process reveals the true implementation schedule. Leaving the musty office, we were giddy as schoolgirls envisioning the long potential business relationship.

Our next stop was a private foundation which wanted us to manage a 2.5 million dollar project on an existing facility. Our meeting with the executive director secured the commission which again was on an impossible schedule. As we concluded our meeting and were preparing to leave, we were informed of two additional phases of the work which we were in position to secure. Finally in passing the executive director indicated we should expect some calls from two or three local school districts which she had referred them to us. As it turns out she is also a board member of a state committee which advises school districts from around the metropolitan area. She had been so impressed with our work that she had been recommending us to anyone she came in contact with. If we were giddy after ending the first meeting we were outright ecstatic leaving the second meeting. I recall thinking to myself we are on a roll, we could to run the table.

On the way to the third meeting I fielded a phone call which turned out to be a significant university master plan project for an architect we work for on occasion. The world was becoming a blur as I attempted to write down the information I needed to get to the architect by the end of the day. The architect already had the project and was looking for someone to fill out the team. He informed us that they were exploring a very detailed process with the university as a trial for a much larger master plan process scheduled for the following year. Participating in this study would place us in position to maintain a valued role for future work. I no longer got off the phone and we arrived at our third meeting.

Brimming with confidence, we secured our security passes at the front desk and were led to a conference room on the fourth floor. The meeting was to be informal when I suggested we could stop by just to introduce ourselves. I assumed we would answer a couple of questions and head to the airport. As I turned the corner of the conference room I was surprised to find a dozen officials from various departments representing two separate counties waiting to talk to us. After a brief round of introductions which occurred so quickly that I was unable to write down all the names, they all jumped in with questions simultaneously. I tried to organize the responses of the highly divergent topics. The crowd was focused and energetic leading me to believe there was an underlying purpose to the barrage of inquires. It was oblivious by the questions that one county was further advanced in their thinking and had come to develop a consensus.

The manager of the meeting finally decided to structure the dialogue by explaining what they were up to. Each county had two projects each funded and they had never undertaken a project of this nature revealing their in house expertise was limited. They were interested in hiring us to design and manage all four projects. These projects would be considered test projects in each county. It was anticipated that three to five of these projects could be funded for the next five years under this program and if we were successful we could be in position to assist on all of them. Another long term relationship was being forged. Once again I managed not to reveal my surprise at the magnitude of their request. For the fourth time in a row we agreed to an impossible schedule, shook hands and departed for the airport.

How can months of work and travel yield so little and then in the course of a single 48 hours I secure the possibly years of contracts? What have I said differently that struck such an accord with this particular group? Is it pure the circumstance of being in the right place at the right time? I have a hard time isolating the origin of the shift of fortune from the daily chaos of the moment. The months of marketing meetings and strategic planning seem to have little relevance as the tide shifts. I am beginning to realize that the world is bipolar and is run by the pudgy poster boy for the end of the world that stood in front of me getting on the plane. We just opened the door when the need was right and waltzed into a gold mine. However, there is a single underlying fear caged in the back of my mind, the fear that I will at some point I will tell the world what I really think. Until then I will grit my teeth and smile at the bald headed tool sitting in front of me waiting for the cliff to return.

Where Broken Toys Go

There’s a place where disappointment and despair reigns. It is a place where disbelief, sadness and anger is concentrated so intensely that light and joy can not penetrate. This place is Gate 35 at Reagan National Airport in Washington DC. It took a number of consecutive trips before I realized the true nature of Gate 35. It is the place where broken toys go.

Over the past six months I have had the occasion the travel to Washington DC via Reagan National five times. Each one of these trips was a Friday single one day bender, where I would awake at 4:00 am in order to catch the 6:00 am flight to Reagan National. The early morning flight was always uneventful and usually arrived early. The clue I was overlooking was that we would not arrive in Washington at Gate 35. In order to conduct a full day of business in the city I would book the last flight home which was the 7:30 pm flight from Gate 35. Each time the same pattern emerged.

Always on schedule, I would arrive at the airport a little over an hour early to check in and grab dinner. Reagan National is one of the best airports in the nation to eat at. In the concourse are a good sushi bar and the famous Legal Seafood restaurant from Boston. Time usually permits a quality seafood dinner and a couple of cocktails before I head off to Gate 35. As soon as I arrive at gate 35 despair is waiting to greet me. The flight is delayed 45 minutes. The aircraft has had some mechanical issue in Charlotte. I sit down to wait it out. Approaching 45 minutes later the next announcement informs us the repair has taken longer than expected and the plane in now leaving Charlotte. The target departure time is now 9:00 pm.

The entire group in Gate 35 shakes their heads and sighs in disappointment. Approaching 9:00 the next announcement comes. There is now a series of thunderstorms somewhere between Charlotte and Washington and the plane is being held in on the ground Charlotte. You guessed it another 45 minute delay. Sadness covers us like a blanket. People are getting tired and restless when the next announcement starts with a positive statement only to raise hopes that would be later dashed. “The plane from Charlotte is in range of Reagan National, ………but the weather has stacked up other flights and air traffic has placed a flow control on all planes landing………..so the flight from Charlotte is in a holding pattern for…….45 minutes……….departure time is now estimated at 10:30 pm.”

Beaten and battered it appears this last announcement is the last. The plane arrives at Gate 35 and we are loaded in silence resignation. I find my seat and sit back for the two and one half hour flight when another announcement comes. “Sorry for the delay……….We’re in the process of restocking and refueling the aircraft………..as soon as it is complete we will be leaving.” Having broken everyone’s spirit and will, they no longer feel it important to inform you that this in another one hour delay. Eventually the plane pushes off Gate 35 sometime around 11:30 pm more than four hours late. The pilot attempts to salvage the dismal performance with another announcement “Thanks for your patience……We are asking air traffic to reroute us so we can make up some lost time……Sorry but we were not able to completely restock the plane so there is no alcohol.” It crosses my mind that I should have been home almost one hour ago and there is nothing short of traveling faster than the speed of light which would save enough time to make up for this evening. The clock strikes 1:45 am when I get home. I have now been up for almost 22 hours.

Most people do not travel enough to understand the pattern that emerged with Gate 35. Each time I have traveled through Gate 35 the same thing happened. The story would slightly change as different gate agents added their own color commentary and embellishments. Around the third flight, I got it. I would get to Gate 35 and ask about the status of the 11:30 pm flight. The gate agent would reply “Sir we do not have an 11:30 pm departure, our last flight is at 7:30 pm.” I would argue the point with her “You do have an 11:30 pm flight you call it your 7:30 pm flight because no one in their right mind would book the 11:30 pm flight. Since you would be flying an empty plane you just decided to call it a 7:30 flight, past history proves that it is really the 11:30 flight.” At this point I would get one of those sit down and shut up or you will be on the 10:30 am flight tomorrow. At 11:30 pm as the gate agent takes my ticket I would say “My god I need to get my watch fixed its running four hours fast again.”

It took me a while before I could my finger of the exact feeling the passengers of Gate 35 were experiencing. Then I realized that we were all broken toys that could not be taken in the sleigh with Santa on Christmas. What disappointment and despair knowing that you were not going on that incredible journey. We were discarded like broken toys; our heartbreak would show as we resigned ourselves to a wasted life without purpose. I began to study the psychology of despair in the new toys that they were informed that they were broken and would not be traveling with Santa.

I have to admit that the world of broken toys can be ugly and cruel. As one of the oldest broken toys having missed Christmas many times in the past, I would sit with some of the older toys who knew the routine and watch the new toys arrive. Gate 35 established its own hierarchy like a prison yard. We appointmented ourselves as the yard leaders. The new toys would look to the gate agent as the prison guards assuming that good behavior would reduce their sentence, but in reality no one was safe in the prison yard. What did we have to worry about? We knew we were on death row and nothing would same us from this four hour delay.

We would watch each new toy arrive to the check-in desk only to learn their fate. They would hurry to the counter with eager anticipation smiling what they made the gate early. Shoulders erect with innocence, hopeful eyes. Then at the announcement, they would gasp or sigh. The shoulders would slump; the eyes would turn dull, while they skulked into a corner to lick their wounds. We would gain great entertainment value at the misfortune of others. Why not, we owned the yard.

It ended up being really funny watching these people. We would sit at the edge of the seating area so you have to pass us to get to the counter. As a new toy would approach we would whisper to them “the gate agent is in a really bad mood and that one more problem she said she would delay the plane so be careful.” They would look at us like we were crazy. As they stood at the counter we would try not to giggle. Then the announcement came and they would look over at us like we were fortune tellers. We would raise our hands high and shrug, screaming “Oh man what you go and do that for? We told you.” As they walked back to a seat in Gate 35 we would howl.

Just a word of warning next Friday if you’re headed to gate 35 at Reagan National we’ll be waiting for you. It’s a place where disappointment and despair reigns. It is a place where disbelief, sadness and anger is concentrated so deeply that light and joy can not penetrate. You don’t know it yet but this is where broken toys go and you’re one.