[Not a roadtrip story either. I’ve got to get out more.]
I’ll pretend that it’s karma – good karma. Just humor me, okay?
A few days ago, I’d made a vaguely unpopular executive decision and asked my team to go against their better judgment to indulge me. They’re a great team – they said they trusted me (okay, they’re a gullible team, too).
The decision meant a mess more work for Alison, and it meant Stephanie having to learn to deal with an entirely new content management system, but they didn’t complain. I think it was more than trust; they know me well enough to know that, if they go along cheerfully and I turn out to be wrong, my sense of guilt will earn them enough frequent flyer miles to last them well into the next project. But since they know this, and they know that I know that they know, clearly I can not choose the… no, wait, that’s a different movie.
Anyhow, I decided to get a jump on the guilt thing, just in case I was wrong, and promised a stash of high quality dark chocolates to the team for our next meeting.
Fast forward to this week, fifteen minutes before the meeting. The scene: my desk, as I’m checking off my action items from last week:
pablo: “Let’s see, I’ve cleaned up all the links, uploaded the new content, sent out the announcements, and the new system is working great. Looks like I didn’t have to promise to bring in the…. oh crap. The chocolate.”
(pablo gnashes teeth, scours file cabinets, ponders raiding upstairs cookie jar for freebie chocolate; realizes that it will be recognized as freebie, destroying his credibility as team leader. Is interrupted by a knock on the open door, indicating a visitor)
rebecca: “Hi Pablo – is this a bad time? I just wanted to drop off some homemade dark chocolate truffles to thank you for taking me flying last weekend. The square ones are mint, and the triangles are raspberry. They’re fresh, so they need to be eaten right away. Don’t stash them somewhere for a special occasion – I recommend you find some friends and polish them off right now.”
David Pablo Cohn 