Time for some more shameless self promotion.  We’re less than a week away from St Patty’s day so if you’re in the Pittsburgh or Youngstown area you have two chances to celebrate with Carnival of Souls.  We’ll be performing at Lincoln Hall in Foxburg, PA this Saturday night, the 16th, from 7-9 PM.  Just take I-80 east to exit 45, turn right on to Rt 478, drive 1.9 miles, turn right on to Rt 58 and drive 1.9 miles to Foxburg.  It sits right on the Allegheny river, you can’t miss it!  Then, on the 17th, we’ll be at Mogies in Lower Burrell from 7-10 PM.  You’ll need reservations. http://www.mogiesirishpub.com.  See you there!

What I miss most about retiring isn’t the flying or, certainly not, the endless meetings, but the daily talks with people I truly love and respect.  You take those conversations, even if they’re just a passing few words, for granted and when you’re not there every day you realize how much those relationships really mean.  I’ve worked with a lot of folks over the years and some are, shall we say, quirky.  Now when I use the word quirky, I don’t think of it in a bad way.  I would describe those kinds of people as “odd”.  Quirky is endearing and funny, odd is; hide the sharp objects, duck into your office, turn the lights off and be very, very quiet.  I think ya’ll know what I mean.  I’ll tell stories about the quirky but not about the odd.  They might know where I live.

So, for anonymity’s sake, let’s call him Fred.  Fred is my favorite anonymous name since I’ve known very few Freds over the years and, for some reason, it makes me laugh.  Fred is a flight engineer who is very passionate about his job.  He has very high expectations for his own performance and expects nothing less of everyone else and, as a result, is a great instructor and friend.  He’s the kind of person I can always count on to give honest feedback and not be shy about giving his opinion.  Some people don’t like honesty, I’m not one of them.  It’s a rare commodity in a world of political correctness and caring more for feelings than doing the right thing and potentially saving an airplane and crew.  Fred is also a very tiny man.  I’m not just talking about height, I’m talking width and breadth as well.  he can’t weigh more than 100 pounds soaking wet.  I’m surprised they make flight suits that small and I’ve accused him of wearing a new size which I call 32T (toddler).  His size is what makes this story funny.

Years ago we deployed to, I think, Volk Field for an ORI (Operational Readiness Inspection).  I’ve been on so many ORIs the locations all seem to run together and my brain tries to purge the bad memories, so I think it was Volk but it doesn’t really matter.  Anyway, when we arrive, the first thing we always do is stand in line. We stand in line for mobility processing.  We stand in line to be assigned quarters.  We stand in line to get issued linens.  We stand in line to get issued MREs for the week.  The first day of any deployment is pretty much standing and waiting.  So after a day of standing in line, Fred found himself in the last line of the day, the chow hall or, the politically correct name, DFAC (Dining Facility).

Now, to those of us who are a little taller, people look a little different than the way Fred sees them.  It’s something you don’t really think about.  When I’m in line I can see what’s going on ahead.  How long the line is.  How much longer it’s going to be.  Who’s up there ahead of me that I can talk to once we get through the line.  But to Fred, everyone over about 5’10”, just looks like the back of a green flight suit and if you’re over 6’4″ it’s even a lower view of a green flight suit.  So Fred found himself in a very long line, after a very long day, looking at the back of a very large flight suit.  And it occurred to Fred that the very long flight suit in front of him must the his very tall friend Daryl.  So in a moment of, shall we say, whimsy Fred decided that it would be funny to give ole Daryl a wedgie.  To this day he hasn’t been able to explain why he thought wedgies were still funny past about the 5th grade but he thought it would add some levity to a long hard day.  So he reached up,  grabbed the waistband, heaved it high, and let out a Luilliputian laugh.  The line turned to see what the commotion was all about and what they saw was  a very tall African-American,  Higher Headquarters Inspector Colonel with an odd look on his face and his waistband in the hands of a tiny man with an even odder look.  Fred released his grip and, not quite knowing what to say to each other, the odd couple continued to wait in line without a word being spoken.

That night, at the daily inspector outbrief, the team chief made a remark about “the incident” but, at that point, we had no idea what he was talking about but, whatever it was, he thought it was pretty funny.  We passed the ORI in spite of the massive wedgie and, since then, I’ve never turned my back of Fred.

We often assume that everyone’s perspective is the same as ours but our place in an organization can give us a completely different few of the future and the past than those at higher or lower level.  The challenge is to be willing to either modify your opinions by taking into account others perspective or do a better job of communicating yours to get everyone moving in the same direction.