A Mini-me for Me
This is a story about my prized possession, but you have to have a little perseverance. After my last day at work, after I sent my supervisor the message, “I’m done. I can’t do this anymore,” in the middle of a presidential press conference I was covering. After the company’s doctor confirmed I have Parkinson’s Disease and had to retire on disability after 17 years at Bloomberg News, after all the paperwork was completed, the newsroom held a little ceremony for me.
You know, cupcakes at the conference table and a party at a bar in the National Press Club later. We are to gather at 4 pm at the table and I’m supposed to speak. I prepare carefully because I want it to be funny so that I’m the only one trying not to cry.
Now to understand this you have to understand that throughout my time there I was known for coming up with a few, OK, a lot of ideas to improve things, some worked but some didn’t in spectacular fashion, regardless I was thought of as an idea guy. Yes, I’m getting to the good part about the possession, just hang in there. So I prepare a speech with some props, and I’m going to say “Before I leave, I want to give a few more ideas.’”
And then I would unfurl a memo that stretched from the floor almost to the ceiling. And after the laughter died down I would say, “I know what you’re thinking.” “You’re thinking that’s a good start but where’s the details for immediately implementing those ideas?” And I’d say “yes, the 12 boxes of supporting documents are being unloaded from my car in the loading dock.”
And everyone would laugh and think there’s no one broken here at all.
But it didn’t happen that way, because I described my speech to my supervisor the day before and he said that I shouldn’t do it and it would be embarrassing. So I didn’t. Instead, a guy I worked with said he was going to read some of the “instructional” memos I sent him and I was worried he would read the one I sent him that said in its entirety “I’m glad I don’t live in your tiny brain.”
But he’s a good guy and skipped that one. But the group didn’t really understand why the ones he read were funny and blah, blah, blah we’re at the party and my wife and kids are there and I have a few drinks. Then my friend Cary, who looks like a kind but befuddled college professor, but is more like a lifeguard who keeps pulling you unconscious and limp from the waves, always cheerful, as if saving you was nothing for him, maybe even sort of fun.
Cary presents me with — and I’m not a possession guy, I once broke up with a woman because she seemed so fascinated by shopping and acquiring stuff — and because she caught me on a date with someone else, but that’s why I was on the date.
Anyway, I didn’t have stuff I cared about until the amazing Cary handed me a bobble head version of me sitting at a tiny desk with a Bloomberg terminal on it and the four screens filled with data including one that says 29,219, which is the number of stories I edited there. He had to send away for a doll that looks like me and there are books on the tiny desk and a waste basket on the floor and the doll looks happy, not broken at all. And who does that? And I hope you have an amazing, lifesaving Cary in your life. Even if this time it was because of Cary that I began to sputter and blink.|
And then my supervisor said I had to hand over my company ID and credit card.
