Manizesto

“Dad!”

And out swept the cool calmness of delicious sleep. My mind swooshed up a corridor toward reality, then forced my eyes open. It was dark. The luscious dreams from early morning sneaked away in the very moment I tried to solidify what they were.

“Dad! I have to pee!” whispered an urgent voice from the doorway.

I squinted pointlessly, “Okay, buddy, go ahead and go.” I could tell my breath was pretty bad.

“Can you help me?”

Could I? Of course, of course. But, we had put a lot of time and hours into helping my 3-year-old do this all on his own. Many scoops of Tide with Lavender scent. Countless frantic runs to the public bathrooms. Strategic planning taking place for every trip.

Spare underwear and pants? Check. Spare socks? (per gravity). Check. Time since last large drink? More than 45 minutes, check. Last try? Just now.

Okay, let’s roll.

So we had taught him how to fish, as the saying goes. We had made sure of this. But in his frantic, pleading, half-conscience moment of need, he waited and maybe expected me to give him a fish again. No. You know how to fish, little one.

“Daddy!” now more urgent than ever. I sighed.

Not one minute later, I felt the dreary envelope of sleep slithering up and around all over again. It had not been worth it, to make him do it alone, or deal with the crying when I said to go do it alone. And it wasn’t right, either. It seemed appropriate that our “rules” about making him go to the bathroom on his own be left open to exception from time to time, like tonight.

There’s nothing that incites fury more than corporate policy and procedure when you’re about to pee your pants in the middle of a dark night alone.

“Please press 8 to…”

“I’m sorry, we need your account number to fulfill that request.”

“If you don’t have your receipt…”

Sometimes you just have to go outside the protocol and help a kid out, even if you have to get out of a cozy bed.

I’ve had a Snickers bar sitting on my desk at work for 8 days now. Shall I eat it now? No, too early for empty calories and the sluggish, sloppy gut I will have right after. How about now? It would be a nice after lunch treat. No, not now. Too soon. I can’t eat all that right now. I’ll have some gum instead. Hmmm, that Snickers is starting to look pretty good. Sort of. But it’s just so big and I’m really that not hungry just now. And I’m almost out the door to head home, eat dinner and go to the gym. Tomorrow then.

And on and on. And on.

The standoff is sort of like that WWI movie with the skinny, scared Italian guy hiding in the trenches, and he’s alone, and everyone around him is dead, and he has to stick his hands in the dead guys pockets to get their ammo and maybe some acqua or booze or whatever. Then when the shooting and gas bombs or whatever they’re called, start up again, he sort of gets antsy and can’t sit there alone because, he’s pretty much going crazy, my friends, and then he can’t take it any more and stands up to start fighting and zip zip zip, three bullets right in the guts and he’s done. All that waiting for, like, nothing. He was going to die anyway, you know?

That shiny happy packaging staring at me from the corner of my eyes every day, sort of wearing me away, flapping it’s little flappy wings to get my attention and crinkling a smile, saying how it will satisfy me-it’s putting me like the Italian. And I feel myself losing it a little.

Try not to do that to your customers, if you can.

[Photo by Ritesh Kapur.]

Pigs look so funny on leashes. And in family pictures. It’s because they are outside their natural element. They are intelligent, yes, of course. And delicious; that goes without saying. But the reason pigs on leashes seem so awkward is they are not good at doing things pets normally do, like playing catch, or rolling over, or learning funny phrases or even for petting.

I can see wanting a pig for a pet if you are training to become a professional mud wrestler or a truffle hunter (or a Sunday dinner), but for anything else, the peg is still square and the hole still round.

And if you’re looking to enrich people, encourage growth and enable amazing stuff in your organization, you’ll only hire a pig if you’re going to allow it to be a pig, even though it might be okay at pretending to be something else. And don’t be surprised when it would rather wallow in the mud to stay cool because pigs like that better than air conditioners.

So if you’re looking at hiring an amazing developer who works best at night, or a customer service rep who prefers pacing while on the phone, be careful you’re not stubbornly jamming a doggie sweater over a wet snout.

[Photo by mark larson].

Car shopping a few weeks ago, I found a particular sport utility wagon that seemed to be “it”. “The One”, as it were. We asked the salesman for the keys. It drove nice, but had this subtle, off-putting odor. It was a musky, droopy kind of dankness that sort of announced its presence when you first opened the door but then let you in so you felt part of it and didn’t think about it at all after a minute. Until you left and came back. Then “Hello!”

I told the car salesman it was a go, except the dankness.

Max-that’s the salesman’s name-fitted and showed dismay, and made it seem like they were caught with their pants down at that dealership. How embarrassing. Don’t know how that little niggle slipped through the cracks. We can’t let a little vex like that get in the way of your dream vehicle now can we? No, we can’t. No. Not at all.

He made like he was fighting for us and went in to talk to the manager to see what could be done to save us from the subtle, sneaky, snarky little smell that had wedged itself-or so it seemed to our lovely salesman-between us and our happiness.

Smiling, he came back out, his Dockers slightly bunched at the pockets from taking long strides to and fro, with a reassuring smile peaking out. He let us in on a secret.

“We can fix it. We can-I’ve talked to to the detailer himself-he can get the smell out. The detailer-His name is Enrique-English is his second language-he said, ‘Max, ‘floor mats.’ As in, that’s what was causing the smell. And he could get it out.”

How could I be sure? Subtle little smells like that can be pretty territorial and might retreat then sneak out again later on, I told Max.

Bring the car back, no strings attached, I was reassured. “Or, clean it first, then if it’s really gone, you’ve sold it,” I proposed.

“I’d love to, I really would, but that’s just not possible. You see, the expert we hire to come and do this, you know, in depth, really serious cleaning, doesn’t work here. We hire him from outside. And we, the dealership that is, have to pay for it…”

And that’s when I stopped listening, because it was a lie, what he was saying. Can not and impossible? Of course they could. But they didn’t want to incur the cost, push the status quo, or ruffle the feathers of the decision-making suits upstairs or the like.

I don’t fully get that. Can’t is never can’t in sales. Won’t is more like it. “Won’t” might be a good enough reason, I’ve no doubt, but let’s hear it like it really is. “Interesting suggestion there Jonathan, but that just doesn’t make good business sense for us. You see, we can probably sell this car to someone else without having to pay that cleanup expense to get that sly stench out of there.”

There. Honesty. Smells better already.