Intersecting orbits with John Glenn

glennOn February 20, 1962 I was in second grade at P.S. 186 in the New York City borough of Queens. Our teacher, a bubbly little delight with curly, dark brown hair, Mrs. Kantor, rolled in a TV set and we watched John Glenn become the first American in space orbit.

Once he touched down, our assignment was to write a “composition” relating our feelings about Glenn’s accomplishment.

I was already astounded by the pioneering sub-orbital flights of Alan Shepard and Virgil “Gus” Grissom, but this one rocked my world and touched my 10-year old heart. Instead of simply a summary of the event, my composition turned out to be a letter to Col. John Glenn. I told him how brave he was and how scary it must have been hurtling back down to Earth in a little capsule that had a suspect heat shield, leading TV commentators to wonder if after everything Glenn had gone through, he’d be burned to a crisp on his way back home. I told him how proud the country was of him and that I hoped, one day, to do something in my life as significant as he had just done.
That day stayed with me as I watched Glenn cruise down New York’s “Canyon of Heroes” in Manhattan during a celebratory ticker tape parade. I rooted for him during his down and up and down and up political career and hoped his bid for the Presidency would be successful.
Fast-forward to June 14, 1990. I was the CNN Detroit Bureau Chief and correspondent. There had been a terrible rainstorm causing a massive mudslide in a little Ohio River hamlet called Shadyside. 26 people died. My crew and I were quickly dispatched to cover the story. We hadn’t been on the ground more than 30 minutes when a couple of familiar looking figures arrived. I don’t often become starstruck since reporters often come in contact with celebrities. But I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of awe at my first site of  Sen. John Glenn . Along with fellow Ohio Senator Howard Metzenbaum, he had arrived to survey the scene and give comfort to the citizens of this devastated little burg.

They both came up to our camera and agreed to a short interview. As February 20, 1962 came roaring into my brain, I was suddenly shaking hands with the man to whom I’d written that letter, but never sent, all those years ago. I was looking into the eyes of a genuine hero and he was looking at me. Given the tragic situation that triggered this encounter, it was no time for small talk or any sort of personal discourse. I asked my questions related to the story, which he answered directly and respectfully.  I detected a glistening in his eyes that had moments ago teared up on hearing of the extent of the loss of life and structural damage to the town. What struck me was that unlike some other politicians I had interviewed over the years, the only reference to “I” in his comments related to his profound concern for his constituents and the promise to get whatever emergency services and funding they needed.
The interview probably lasted less than two minutes, but to have shaken the hand of my hero, spoken to him, well, in that short moment, a part of my life had come full orbit.

Holiday Turf War

side-by-side-the-menorah-and-the-christmas-tree-640x426It happens every few years. Christmas and Hanukkah occur at the same time leaving families like mine with the vexing issue of how much surface space to grant each holiday’s symbols.

At first blush, the Christmas tree has a built-in advantage being taller and broader than a menorah, unless, of course, one installs a traditional candelabra that’s roughly the size of street lamp. Such a flaming behemoth is possible, but if it’s anything like the street lamps in our community, there’s no chance they’d stay lit for 8 crazy night, or even a long weekend.

Christmas seems to require a lot of hanging stuff. There are ornaments and tinsel on the tree, wreaths on the front door and smaller ones on the walls. I’m guess one of the Three Wisemen worked for the power company, because who else would gin up a scheme to bump up their Christian customers‘ bills by finding a reason for them to burn up megawatts by hanging a billion little lights on one’s dwelling and tree.

At one time, as a Member of the Tribe, I took umbrage that Hanukkah was totally overshadowed by Christmas. As my Protestant wife constantly reminds me, “you keep telling me Hanukkah is a relatively minor holiday, so stick a latke in it and relax.” Well, that’s totally true, but my riposte reminds her how the world goes bananas with over the top decorations, songs, sales, commercials and fruitcakes over a holiday celebrating the birth of a person in December that actually occurred in the summer. Apparently, this is done because who ever dreamed of a sunny Christmas? Indeed, celebrating Christmas when its triggering event really happened, would screw up a songbook full of odes to winter and snow and sleigh bells. Besides, Santa would have to change his mode of transportation to a Ski-doo, putting innocent reindeer out of work, in favor of a pod of grinning porpoises.

Hanukkah? It happens the same time every year on the Hebrew calendar on the days the defeat of the Maccabees and the miracle of one night’s worth of oil lasting 8 really happened. But since that calendar is based on the orbit of the moon around the Earth, the months are only 29 days and you add an entire month during leap years, so that’s why it seems to jump around our Gregorian calendars.

Getting back to the original premise, the holiday that’s celebrated months after the event   it marks gets lots of stuff and is a major contributor to the bottom line of millions of businesses. Hanukkah, is celebrated when it really happened, but gets a candle holder and maybe those cardboard letters that spell out “Happy Hanukkah” you string across a window. Merchants selling said cardboard letters and boxes of candles make a few shekels on the day, as well as delis hawking potato pancakes

We do our best to give each holiday its proper due in our house. There’s no disputing Christmas, regardless of spiritual and commercial timeshift, is more demonstrative. Hanukkah, with its eight flaming sticks of wax, has a potential to be more destructive. Nevertheless, it make perfect sense for our menorah to live peacefully next to a Christmas symbol that, in another language, could very well be a landsman…you know..Tannenbaum. Nooooo?

Our internal self-help book

imaslcA few weeks ago I gave a presentation to a room full of Millennial MBA students who are aspiring management accountants. The subject was how to communicate across the generations in the workplace. My best advice was to work harder on creating a cogent message that anyone could understand, rather than drive yourself crazy wondering how to convey the same thought to a Baby Boomer, Generation Xer or Millennial. After all, if you’ve constructed a clear, simple communication that’s well focused, even a pony should understand.

What made me sad was a question I received asking what book would I recommend that could assist a young person in the workplace better communicate. A book? I abhor self-help books. Oh, they may offer some useful hints but as someone once said “there’s no manual for living life.” I believe that. I smiled at the young man and told him “you already have the book. Everyone has it. It’s in two volumes–your heart and your head.” Working in concert your heart and brain process a person’s personality, social cues, truthfulness, motives, attitude, aptitude, openness, aggressiveness or timidity. That process works both over time where you have had experiences with that person or have observed their behaviors, and in nanoseconds during a particular interaction. Using both “volumes” of your personal self-help book you can make informed decisions about how to approach or respond to another human being. I especially love the “chapter” on common sense.

By the time I finished my unexpected response, the student took a deep breath of relief, as did others in the audience of about 200. My questioner then smiled with a new air of confidence as he thanked me.

So much has been written about the self-absorption Millennials may display, but in their defense they were victimized by so-called helicopter parents who did everything but go to the toilet for them, although I’m sure one such parent may be working on a tandem toilet adapter they could use. They were not encouraged to leave the nest quickly after college and had little need to think for themselves.

In my presentation I urged managers and supervisors to counteract this learned neediness by simply treating young employees the same as more seasoned staff. Those who are mature and talented enough will snap out of their stupor and become valuable team members. Those who do not have the capacity to get beyond their hovering parents will fade.

But in the end, regardless of age or experience, if we all effectively refer to our internal two-volume self-help “book,” relying on our heart and head to guide us, or risk finding ourselves on the shelf.

 

Why I Ditched Facebook

no-facebook-meIt didn’t hurt a bit. With a couple of clicks I deleted my Facebook account after roughly 6 years. I had a good time using it. It was a platform to crack some jokes, comment on the news, tell some personal stories, support my friends during tough times and promote my work. In the end, though, it was also a place to waste time and open myself up to, at times, unwanted contact.

I didn’t spend big chunks of time on the site, but I did expend a lot of mental energy dreaming up posts that I thought (sometimes foolishly) that would be entertaining, put a smile on some folks’ faces, be a little controversial, or heartfelt. Sometimes posts would come to me in a flash, other times I blew 10, 15, 30 minutes scouring news and other websites for Facebook post fodder.

This isn’t what I intended when I opened my account. I thought it would just be a fun way to keep up with my friends and maybe reconnect with those with whom I lost touch. The problem began when I started receiving very favorable comments about some of my posts. Gradually I started accumulated followers and was expected to be somewhat entertaining. People would tag me so as to bait me into coming up with a funny comment. Some suggested I go into standup comedy. I appreciated, very much, the kind words but then I placed pressure on myself to come up with something witty or emotional or meaningful or inspiring or, ofttimes, idiotic, at least once a day. It became work. I didn’t need more work.

Of course the election brought out the worst in people. Shallow, narrow-minded people who can’t take a  joke or poke a little fun at themselves or who threaten to unfriend you if you don’t believe every moronic thing coming out of their keyboards. Who needs that?

The sad part is I love to write and  I  do love to entertain. I’ll be doing here on this blog for now on. I hope you’ll check in every now and then and find something worth the detour.  I can also be reached via Linkedin at https://www.linkedin.com/in/egarsten and Twitter @EdGarsten. Thanks very much. Ed

 

The Castro/Khrushchev Costume Party

fidelWhen we were kids in the 60’s we probably didn’t understand what a bad guy Fidel Castro was, although we knew he wasn’t our friend. Sometimes guys would dress up as him for Halloween, complete with military style ball cap, olive drab jacket, fake beard and bubblegum cigar.

nikitaThen again, kids would sometimes imitate Nikita Khrushchev’s tantrum at the U.N. by donning bald wigs and rapping their shoes on their desks to get attention. Even though we were subjected to air raid drills and were taught where to find the nearest fallout shelter in case the Commies came after us, we tended to believe we were invincible and guys like Castro and Khrushchev were simply faraway villains that made for scary talk and useful Halloween costumes. castroconvertibleWhen Castro Convertible sofa beds started advertising we were really screwed up, thinking the Cuban despot had found a way to make a buck via our guest or living rooms. They’re still selling Castro Convertibles, but now it’s their unintended namesake who’s taking the big sleep…finally.

No, thank YOU!

thanksNot as popular as New Years resolutions but more popular than anything on the CW Network, there are the annual lists of “what I’m thankful for” on the day those eating a nice slab of prime rib are thankful they’re not stuck with turkey.

Since this year marked a big change for me as I retired from fulltime corporate servitude  to a part-time return to news, I find the more I think about it, the more reason I have to give thanks.

A brief list:

*Now semi-retired, I was able to push the shopping cart for my wife, which is part chivalrous, but more about sneaking stuff into the cart like craft beers and Cap’n Crunch.

*I’m thankful that at my age the only way you grow is either shorter, fatter or slower, thereby reducing all expectations by others that I can reach things, become a vegetarian or hurry.

*I’m grateful my daughter and BF’s dog weighs only 4 pounds making it light enough to fetch itself.

*I’m thankful that each time I attempt to shop at the new Aldi grocery store that opened up nearby I have a quarter with which to ransom a shopping cart.

*I’m sarcastically thankful Donald Trump won the election because it was obvious all along he did NOT want to win the election and now the turd is stuck being miserable doing the job he didn’t want and doesn’t pay nearly what he’s currently making and that annoying checks and balances thing in the Federal government will frustrate the hell out of him to the point where he tries, in vain, to sell the Capital to the Chinese.
*I’m thankful I’m healthy enough to continue playing hockey, kayak, ski and able to explain to Millennials you don’t get a participation trophy just for living. Life, itself, is the reward.

*Thanks to the Detroit Pistons for deciding to become the DETROIT Pistons, moving back into the city. Now all four major league teams are a couple of blocks from each other…not only a great perk for fans, but saving precious steps for scalpers.

*Since retiring from Corporate America at the end of July and returning to journalism part-time, I’m happily covering the news again, enjoy my new team, have attended only one meeting, witnessed no turf wars, was not told why I couldn’t do something that made complete sense, could ask any question of an executive I desired and did not have to complete nonsensical and totally irrelevant “goals” to document my accomplishments with the main goal of snagging a bonus decided upon by totally subjective opinions of an evaluator with no knowledge of my work.

*Mostly, I’m thankful for my family, a beer store I can walk to, and the Amazon Fire Stick that lets me watch stuff I’m not entitled to.

I wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving!

When Power Points Hit the Deck

badpowerpointCould there be anything more mind-numbing than a long-winded speech or presentation punctuated with an endless Power Point deck where every slide contains every word the speaker just spoke? Oh, I use ’em, but try to make each slide a photo or some sort of graphic that supports what I’m saying, rather than parrot my patter. But sometimes fate steps in and has some mercy on your audience, pulling the plug on the Power Points…and then it’s time to tap dance.

It just happened to me this past Friday when I was presenting to a group of accounting students at a big conference here in Detroit. The subject was “communicating across the generations in the workplace.” The organizers sent me a template for my deck and I dutifully prepared some slides, most of which were silly photos. About 3 slides into my talk the computer died…and I couldn’t have been happier. Screw the slides! No longer tied to the cadence of the deck I could say anything I damned pleased in any order I wanted and the students seemed to relax, warming to the subject matter. I could use words and phrases and anecdotes to paint much better pictures than I could construct on Power Point. The only downside was they had nothing to look at but lil’ ol’ me. The computer was eventually repaired..it wasn’t plugged in..so I pushed the slides ahead but I really didn’t use them until the last one because it contained a funny photo that provided the punchline for the whole thing.

But by far, my most harrowing experience came in 2006 when I was asked by my company, DaimlerChrysler, at the time, to give a major talk about our social media initiatives. Oh..it was in Germany, at a Germany PR conference, in which me and a Dutch guy were the only ones presenting in English. The Dutch guy said he was presenting in English only as a courtesy to me, which I appreciated. I flew into Stuttgart on the company plane, which was nice, and later that day, drove the 90 minutes up the Autobahn to Wiesbaden, the site of the conference. I was already quite jet lagged, but the moderator of the conference, a short, mischievous, professor from Switzerland named Markus, insisted on taking us to a late dinner and cocktails until 3 a.m.  Too bad I had to get up at 6 a.m. for the conference.

Four hours into the conference I was half asleep and it was finally my turn. My presentation contained 62 slides. Things started well enough and then I heard a noise. The screen went up into the ceiling, the lights went out and the mic went dead. Markus, the bastard, smiled, looked at me and said, “if I was you, I’d keep talking.” Which I did, without benefit of slides, text or microphone, for 20 minutes. The audience seemed sympathetic and nodded a lot. Since the content of my talk included some very radical strategies, one German gentleman representing an automotive supplier piped up, “you are one  impertinent bastard! I wish I was you!” I got through the hour-long talk totally winging it and when I was done, received a nice round of applause even though many in the audience probably had no idea what I was saying. Maybe they were just glad I was done. I know I was, and honestly, quite grateful, my Power Points took a powder letting me just be me, and proving once and for all, when your slides take their leave, there’s no reason to hit the deck.

 

When 2+2=BS

statisticsOne of the best books I ever read was a slim little paperback thing published in 1954 titled “How to Lie With Statistics,” by Darrell Huff. It was required reading in my “Ethics in Journalism” course at the University of Arizona when I attended grad school there in 1978.

I bring this book to your attention because it should also be required reading for anyone who takes any stock in the myriad of public opinion polls tossed in our faces during this dreadful political season.

Huff warns us, “The secret language of statistics, so appealing in a fact-minded culture, is employed to sensationalize, inflate, confuse, and oversimplify,”

Indeed. If you don’t already know this, polls are not the same as elections. News organizations buy polls to give them something to report, regardless of their accuracy. Polls are also useful for earning publicity for the purchasing news organization because every time the poll is cited in another news organization’s story, the purchasing network, station or publication’s name is mentioned…like the CNN/Wall Street Journal Poll, or the Mad Magazine/Hustler Poll. I made that one up. Doesn’t matter if the polls reflect reality. They can always tout the “margin for error,” to explain away the fact the poll’s results could be full of crap.

Political candidates buy polls to convince voters they’re winning. Corporations purchase polls to prove the world can’t live without their products or services.

It’s all in the wording of the questions. Sure, there can be the simple choice of candidate listed. But then the questions become even more leading. Say, “If Donald Trump wasn’t a misogynistic, lying creep, how much more likely would you be to vote for him?” Or. “How much does the fact that Hillary Clinton may very well be indicted affect your decision whether or not to vote for her?”

A company touting, say, its new miracle product  might ask consumers identified as ex-felons, “Agree or disagree that your personal well-being would be enhanced with a product that could completely dissolve the serial number from a weapon used in a crime.”

Huff covers that possibility with the declaration “there is terror in numbers.”

You may recall the polls appeared to predict Mitt Romney unseating Barack Obama from the White House four years ago, only to be handily disproven when actual votes were counted. The polls showed that because those cited were “internal polls” taken for Romney, and paid for by Romney’s organization. Gotta keep the customer satisfied, until poor Mitt let his polls blind him into deciding not to write a concession speech “just in case.” Unfortunately for him, the real poll, known as the election, didn’t square with his self-serving survey and Mitt had to concede to the fact he was unprepared to cogently concede.

This is why I completely disregard any sort of poll plastered on the screen or on the page, no matter the subject. I learned long ago, courtesy Darrell Huff’s 144 pages of truth, the margin for error, is the poll itself.

 

 

 

 

 

(Not so) Brilliant Disguise

badcostumeLet me get this on the table right away. I’m a complete failure at masquerading.

I’ve never been successful at converting myself into something or someone I’m not by way of creative costuming. I guess it started when I was about 5 years old. My mother bought me one of those costumes in a box so I could look appropriately spooky when begging, er, trick or treating. Yes. I was a a devil. The cheap plastic mask’s sharp edges cut into my eyes and lips, so by the time I got home and discovered most of my loot consisted of stupid Mary Janes and Smarties I looked like an extra on the Walking Dead. The costume itself was no better. The only way to put it on was to step into a too-small slit in the back, which I promptly made much bigger by stepping onto the seam and ripping it to the point where my butt was now hanging out in the cold October rain. Yes. It always rained on Halloween in Queens, NYC, NY.

The following years I took the easy way out and simply cut a couple of eye holes and pie hole for my mouth in an old sheet to make myself look like a ghost. Unfortunately, I was so short and the sheet so long, I wasn’t really spooky looking, but did do a an excellent job at masquerading as unfolded laundry. I was not amused when I found several dryer sheets in my trick or treat bag.

For many subsequent Halloweens I stayed home and handed out candy, thus sparing myself the indignity of publicly displaying my pathetic inability to adequately cover my street clothes with scream clothes. It also gave me the opportunity to taunt kids wearing what I thought were loser costumes, with such frothy bon mots as “hope the sex change is successful,” and “you don’t need candy. Here’s a can of Slim Fast.” The upside was I got valuable exercise washing the egg off our windows.

When I was dating my wife, we hitchhiked from college to her home, about 70 miles away, one Halloween. Didn’t matter we were both 20, we decided to dress as bums and hit up her neighbors for some Tootsie Rolls or other junk from which we could get a sugar high. Good plan. Bad execution. A burly guy answered the first door we knocked, looked us up and down and barked “you guys look old enough to work!” as he slammed the door in our faces. Luckily, the drinking age in New York at the time was 18, so we found solace in a six-pack of Genesee Cream Ale.

Fast forward to my mid-twenties when my wife and I were invited to a very hip annual Halloween bash at a co-worker’s house in Tucson, Arizona. Being a perfect couple, neither of us had any idea of how to dress up. In a fit of both desperation and utter stupidity, we decided to come as a pair of milk bottles. Don’t ask. I have no adequate reply. Bourbon may have been involved. We made the costumes out of newspapers painted white with “Milk” written in black on the front. You’re probably wondering why no photos of this? Luckily this was in the later 1970’s and both social media and camera phones didn’t exist. People didn’t exactly walk around with Instamatics everywhere. Oh. We also decked the one wiseguy who did and attempted to snap us.

Duly traumatized by the experience, we swore off any subsequent attempts at Halloween costuming. We never discouraged our kids from doing so and indeed, they were much better at pulling off the annual rite of disguise.

Our kids are now grown so our trick or treating days are long over, leaving us to be the ones to answer the door. I always get a kick out of seeing the faces of sugar solicitors who are obviously beyond what I would consider the valid age for candy bar begging and bark, “you look old enough to work!”

A remote relationship

Every time this commercial for Comcast/Xfinity’s new voice remote comes on we have to watch. Why? Maybe it’s because it’s campy, a little annoying, but who can fault a spot that spoof’s Rick Springfield’s “Jesse’s Girl”?  As it turns out, we upgraded our service the other day, and sure enough it included the voice remote. Oh, it’s a regular remote, but if your fingers or thumbs are too gentle to mash buttons you can hold down the little button with a drawing of a microphone and yell out, “Watch Real Eunuchs of Bombay County!” and the show will magically appear.

Of course, this opened the door to all sorts of mayhem. You can ask the blanket question, “what’s on right now?” A guide will pop up, then it’s up to you to page though hundreds of channels only to realize there’s nothing worthwhile to watch except maybe the Jewish Customs Channel now playing a series called “The Magic Mohel.” Lots of good tips.

Thought I’d challenge the remote’s capabilities by demanding a show featuring politicians that neither grope women nor charge exorbitant fees for telling Wall Street moneymongers what they want to hear. After a moment the message appeared on the screen, “Sorry. That content does not exist.” Some upgrade.

I was really in the mood for a cartoon and verbally requested a classic Bugs Bunny. Deciding it was time to impress me, my TV shot back, “there are only 15,000 Bugs Bunny cartoons. You want one that includes Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, or the one where Bugs and Yosemite Sam get stoned and have a great time repeatedly tripping up Road Runner?” No one likes a smartass TV.

The last straw was when I very politely asked to view an episode of “The Voice” featuring mimes.” Exasperated with my unusual requests the curt, but firm message on the screen made it clear we were no longer on speaking terms. It said something like, “Take your thumbs out of  your ass and start pressing my buttons.” That’s freakin’ Comcastic.