Alakazam!
[The writings about which I write are, for the most part, fiction. The things I write about the writings may be based on real events and people, but I sometimes exaggerate and flat out make stuff up to the point where I must needs tell you not to believe anything you read here. If I only wrote the humdrum reality, I would have to issue a different kind of disclaimer, such as Not Responsible for Reader Falling Asleep and Cracking Forehead on Desktop. Boing!]
[In case you are new here, any terminal Boing! you see represents me springing rapidly skyward after my editorial aside, rather than seeming to lurk over your shoulder. I realized that it might be mistaken for the sound a forehead would make upon contact with a desktop, but it’s not that at all. I don’t generally do sound effects. Boing!]
This is the first of many posts that will involve written things from long ago. There are several tranches (as they say in the world of collateralized debt obligations) of such works, with some dating as far back as my middle school years. I have not dug through the paper archives in well over 30 years so I’m not sure what’s in there.
But I do have digital copies of things I published online around 20 years ago, either on my own website or as submissions to a satirical website called The Daily Probe. I will not be sharing things in the order in which they were first written (why start that now?) so I think it best to start with a cute little story about a cute little critter.
From my old website, revoltingdevelopment dot com. Click here to see the story.
I wrote it and I published it on my own website, so naturally I have no complaints about the title or the editing. The website no longer exists (I still own the domain but I took the site down after a few years with no updates—well before I got into my recent spate of blogging). The linked document refers to “RevDev, Inc.,” which was a corporation I thought I might set up but I never did.
It is fun to look at things you wrote a long time ago and notice how your style has matured in the interim. That is, it would be fun to do that if your style had in fact matured. I was 38 when I wrote Nice Ned, and I’m 60 now. I think my style and tone have both stayed pretty much the same. In fact, if I do find the middle school works, and for sure when I share some things written for my high school yearbook, you may be alarmed to discover that my style was pretty well set by age 14 (possibly earlier, but I will only claim what I can prove with written evidence).
Why would it be alarming to have the same writing style in old age as in adolescence? I guess it’s not necessarily a bad thing if that style is good. I used to marvel at people I heard on the radio who could spout verbal comedy on any subject. I would wonder when they had the time to write that AND to then perform it on the air. Eventually I came to understand that such people actually have a particular mindset, and they perceive events and then express them in a certain way, more or less automatically. It’s not that they don’t have to work at producing the content, but they don’t have to work at thinking the way they think. Likewise, I work very hard at writing, in the sense that I sit down and apply myself to the task. But the task is organizing my thoughts and deciding how to express them. I do not have to work at thinking the way I think. Maybe it is fine and not alarming that my way of thinking (though certainly not my fund of knowledge) has stayed very much the same throughout my life.
Of course, most of my written output in the 15 years before and the 21 years since writing Nice Ned consisted of comments in business programs, technical designs, and corporate emails, none of which encourage expressing your unique mindset. In fact, business managers and consumers of such writings tend to discourage both wordiness and humor, along with any other evidence of personality, if not by edict then by other means, such as replying as though being charged by the letter a la a Western Union telegram, “Didn’t rd ur essay; can just tell 2 facts? thx.”
Honestly, while I did and do understand the wish for brevity in corporate communications, over the years I saw many examples of people carrying terseness to such an extreme that I couldn’t understand them.
One guy (I’ll call him Guy), a mainframe systems programmer, would often reply with 2 letters, or 50% more (3) if he was feeling chatty. And so you would have email exchanges like this:
Me: Hi Guy, I don’t have update access to this library. Can you give me temporary access or else put my entries into it?
Guy: o
Me: Did that mean “o i see ur prob and i will help”? If so, which option did you choose for helping me? Or did piranhas eat your fingers as you desperately tried to key more letters in reply? Should I scramble a rescue team?
Guy: k
Me: The team is on its way. Meanwhile, should I combine that “k” with the “o” to make “ok”? And again, does it mean “i see ur prob and i will help in 1 of 2 ways,” or does it mean “ok i’m glad you don’t have updt access now leave me alone”? Or have the piranhas almost pulled you under, and “k” was the only key you could reach? Or does it mean “ko”? Is an angry boxer pummeling you like a speed bag with his gloved fists, and are you on the verge of unconsciousness? Godspeed, Guy! It was nice knowing you!
Guy was actually really helpful once you got his full attention, but getting there was rough, due simply to the clash of communication styles. And given my preference for complete sentences and his for one-letter replies, my attempts to engage him in writing inevitably made me seem even more loquacious because I had to write so much to re-ask the same questions, or to ask him his meaning. In a perversely inverse relationship, the more I sought to approach clarity, the more Guy’s communications shrank toward an infinitesimal point. It was enough to make you say, “Fate, why have you cursed me with this opaque fellow as the conduit for getting difficult things done on the big computer?” Or, as Guy might say it if in a bloviating mood, “arg.”
Another guy (not Guy, though, so I’ll cal him Dude [although he is not to be mistaken for a guy [not Guy] who was actually nicknamed “Dude” at my workplace]) was an inveterate jokester who also kept things short, though not as short as Guy. Dude’s trick was actually doing what you requested, or what you actually needed done but had not stated correctly (which was much appreciated since it could be complicated stuff), but not telling you directly that he had done it, or else he would pretend not to understand you at all. Exchanges with him went like this:
Me: Dude, I need to promote these five jobs up to stage 2 in Endevor, but outside the normal code roll because of these long and convoluted reasons, to wit: blah blah blah and on and on, ad infinitum, many reasons why I should get an end-run around normal procedures.
Dude: Nope.
Me: Dude, I’m leaving for the day in 10 minutes, could you just let me know if you can help me with this? I don’t mind following procedure, but Dudette (name changed) told me to do it this way, through you. So sorry to jump the queue with ad hoc requests.
Dude: We have procedures for a reason.
Me: Much desperation, Dude, don’t leave me hanging. I’m forwarding Dudette’s email authorizing this. Please let me know if you need blah blah blah blah and so on….
(So much for beating rush hour traffic. One hour and four email exchanges later…)
Dude: Just kidding. I did it the first time you asked:-)
Me: arg.
So Dude’s style was much more comprehensible than Guy’s, but 90% of it was false. It was up to his correspondents to figure out which part was true and which was false.
Guy and Dude were of incalculable help to me over the years, but I sweated through every exchange, never knowing for sure what Guy meant and when Dude would quit toying with me and do the thing. I could never understand why colleagues would complain, directly or indirectly, about over-long emails, but I never heard tickety-boo (a Soviet expression I picked up from clients) about cryptic or dishonest communications.
My corporate communication style was to change somewhat over the years, when I had people other than Guy and Dude and their ilk with whom to correspond. This style change was brought about by changes in my duties.
For the first half of my career in IT, I was primarily technical and so my correspondence was devoted to technical topics. Then, for the last 15 or so years of my career I provided very close customer support for a client bank in the USSR (country changed to protect corporate secrets). I supported technical, business, and managerial staff. It was quite a switch from my old technical role, but I ended up enjoying the interaction with the very nice kilt-wearing lads and lassies at the client bank in Scot…scow. Moscow, I say. And after some overly-technical emails and documents with which I confused them at first, I managed to make my writing style, in a phrase I first overheard in a men’s room at American Software in 1989, “more chic and less geek.”
I heard that phrase used by some higher-ups in the 7th floor restroom. I worked on the 2nd floor, but I enjoyed the 7th floor executive restroom because the stall nearest the side of the building featured an old-style window you could actually open to let in fresh air, plus there was a wide selection of newspapers available there (on a nice wooden rack like you see in the library, not on the floor as you usually found discarded newspapers in other restrooms—these executives were quite polished). Also, while I wasn’t plugged into any cliques or gossip networks, it was fun to hear executives speaking openly there, unaware that a technical grunt was sitting quietly in the window stall. The chic/geek comment, for instance, was in reference to a product manager who, according to the fellows at the sinks, had unknowingly reached a career plateau (at least at that company) because of his wardrobe and manners. He was the geek; his impending replacement—the subject of a hush-hush talent search by HR—would be more chic.
I really wasn’t supposed to be in that restroom but I figured that the stall door provided privacy and anonymity, and I always managed to scamper, geek-like, between the elevators and that glorious restroom unobserved by all the chic folks up there.
While it may seem that, by drifting into a reverie of that restroom visit of yesteryear, I have wandered far afield from Nice Ned the Squirrel, I did label that story a fable, which, as you may know, is defined as a short story, typically with animals as characters, conveying a moral. A moral for whom? Other animals? No; the moral is intended for humans who read or hear the fable. And so what moral does Nice Ned convey? Several, actually. One moral is that you may find nuggets by rummaging around in places where you don’t belong.
To make the connection more clear, just as Ned found an acorn by sticking his hand up a turtle’s nether regions, I found a nugget of wisdom by daring to enter a forbidden (culturally if not officially) restroom. I didn’t know the manager of whom they spoke, so his fate was not the nugget. The nugget was the thing about being more chic and less geek. This was in the early, exclusively technical phase of my career, and I had no management aspirations; but I did tuck that nugget into my metaphorical cheeks for future nourishment. This simile is getting gross, but fables involving animals don’t generally lead to pretty, hygienic conclusions.
Where were we? Oh yes: my switch to a support role for the Soviet bank resulted in the gradual transformation of my writing style. More chic, less geek.
By changing my style to suit my more business-oriented audience in the highlands of Moscow, I was proud to think of myself as a chameleon, able to converse in writing with both a technical audience and with mid-level business folk, and occasionally even with senior management. Yep, I was quite the communicator.
But then, about ten years into this transformation, my boss let slip a bit of information that brought me crashing back down to earth, my chameleon skin turned into harlequin’s rags.
It was my fault, really. I was teasing my boss about his hair style. I know that sounds either a) like schoolyard stuff; or b) girlish; but there was history behind this guy’s hair style. Many years before, in the 1990’s, he had showed up at work one Monday with his hair in a brush cut—high and tight, with the top bristles jelled to attention. I didn’t even know him back then, but I soon learned that this surprising haircut had earned him the nickname “Greaser.”
About 15 years later I reported to the guy, and we were waiting for others to join a conference call so we were joking around, teasing each other in a manly fashion. He took some jab or other at me, and I jabbed back and ended my riposte with the word, “Greaser,” uttered in a snide tone. He laughed and came back with something else, and ended his reply with an equally snide, “Noser.”
I said, “Noser? What’s that?”
Greaser said, “That’s you, Jones.”
I said, “No it isn’t. I’ve never heard it.”
And Greaser said, I kid you not, “Oh, I guess we just call you that behind your back.”
Well, now, this was getting serious. I said, “WE?!? WHO’S WE??!!”
Greaser said, “The whole team.”
I said, “The whole team?”
Greaser said, “The guys, at least.” Which I understood. There was something of a locker room mentality among the guys at that company.
I was about to ask for more information, but Greaser was on a roll and he continued without prompting, “Oh yeah, and all the guys in Scot-dammit-Moscow, USSR.”
I said, “WHAT?!? The client calls me Noser? Those haggis-eating Brigadoon-sounding Commies! Noser! What does it mean, anyway?”
Greaser, not the least bit apologetic (as I judged from his cruel laughter) said, “It’s short for brown-noser, of course. You know, ‘Noser.” Only then did I detect the initial apostrophe in my nom professionnel.
I won’t subject you to further dramatic re-enactments. The summary is that the writing style of which I was so proud, and which I thought covered all the necessary bases both business-wise and etiquette-wise—which, I thought, made me vastly more chic and concomitantly less geek—came across as unctuous, pedantic, and tedious. It branded me a brown-noser. And, to my utter chagrin, I couldn’t change it at that late stage. I thought I had reduced my business writing to a neat kernel from which any audience would gain complete understanding. Short of switching to Guy’s and Dude’s telegraphic (and borderline telepathic) styles, I couldn’t imagine how I would change it. Write like Beverly Cleary, perhaps, for a fourth grade audience? I didn’t understand.
The only thing that was completely understood (by everyone but me) was that I was a ‘noser!
That nickname was so patently unfair. Why, I resented having a nickname at all, derogatory or otherwise. I thought about confronting my teammates—the guys, anyway—for daring to disrespect me and to laugh at me in that way. It would be in a meeting, or perhaps in a sternly-worded email addressed to select members of the group. To Greaser, of course, him and his slimy, spiky hair. And to Bojangles (guy took one dance class with his wife, was tagged for life). And to Grim Jim (workaholic guy who went around showing off his incredible time sheets every week). And to Miss Molly (guy who yelled “good golly” when he sneezed). And to The Growin’ Samoan (guy said he had a glandular condition, but we knew not to get between him and any pizza or doughnuts in the break room). And to Pest (he was just a pest). And to Bandit (he wasn’t a dashing rake—poor guy had a withered arm so his nick’ was short for One-Armed Bandit). And to Bandit II (two guys with compromised arms—a statistical rarity but thank goodness for Roman numerals). And to Poochie. And what about Code Talker (Guy) and Dishonest Dan (Dude)? The last two weren’t in our group, but were they part of the cabal that called me ‘Noser?
Well.
You see my dilemma. In complaining about my nickname, I would have to wade through a dense and thorny thicket of nicknames that I had happily used on other people for years, and some of which I may or may not have come up with. But they deserved their nicknames! Couldn’t they see how they appeared to other people? If the shoe fits…
Again: well.
I guess what really hurt was that my nickname had been a secret. Maybe it did fit, but why not let me in on the joke right up front? Maybe I could have changed my ‘noser tendencies before they became ingrained, or maybe I could have at least laughed along with the crowd. Maybe I could have swung things around and earned the nickname that I tried and failed to apply to myself at every place of employment dating back to my first job in a box factory—one that took into account my then very red hair and also the swagger that I might not have managed to display outwardly but which I felt inside and thought that, with just an ounce of encouragement, I could actually pull off.
But no. Every time I met someone new and stuck out my hand and said, “Rooster,” I was met with either a burst of laughter, or the sight of my new acquaintance flinching and looking around as though I had warned him or her of an onrushing barnyard fowl. Over the years, as the red of my hair was displaced first by brown and then by gray, I abandoned any hope of ever earning or even simply claiming that nickname. All outward sign of the rooster faded away, and I didn’t know how to outwardly show my inner rooster in a way that would inspire such a cool nickname.
Nickname assignment, it seems, is based entirely on how others see you, not on how you wish to be seen.
arg.
Greaser was fired a few years later, discarded like so much debris during a corporate downsizing. My ‘noser self was deemed able to function quite well without a direct manager closely watching my work. And the Muscovite client bank was acquired by…hmmm…Ship Insurers ‘R’ Us (name changed) a while later, after being deemed to be on the verge of fiscal collapse. The cruel client staff members who had known of my nickname were variously farmed out to other undesirable posts by the acquiring company, or declared redundant (that’s how they fire you in Moscow), or left to work out their careers on whatever plateau they had reached (no doubt while also being discussed and dismissed in a chic executive washroom somewhere).
I did not commiserate with Greaser or my former clients over their career embarrassment because, you know, I didn’t want to seem like a ‘noser.
And so we come to the other moral of “Nice Ned the Squirrel.” The first moral was about finding nourishing (I didn’t say tasty) nuggets in unexpected places. The second moral is that it is possible to be too nice. In trying to cover all the bases of niceness in any endeavor, be it relations with co-workers or colleagues, or just about anything else, you can be so preoccupied with your own vision of great performance that you don’t realize how others see you.
I wrote Nice Ned ten years after my executive restroom revelation, and a good dozen years before my ‘noser revelation. Neither incident figured in the writing of the fable, so it was not written from a place of excess wisdom. In fact, in 1999 I had only recently set up my own web domain, and I set about writing some things and figuring out how to display them online. Nice Ned was filler, fired off in half an hour to fill space in a website (glad I don’t do that now!) As with many of my posts and newspaper articles, I first imagined a character, then wrote a provisional title, and then let the words flow.
Poor Ned’s dilemma and the outcome were intended for comic effect, but the events do work nicely as a cautionary tale, even if it is too late to save you from tasting the butt-acorn or, as in my case, learning the nickname you have earned.
Now, when I no longer write for a very specific business audience, I do hope that my reanimation of my earliest writing style, preserved in amber all these years, comes across as something a Rooster would write, without too much of that oblivious ‘Noser.
Boing!
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