This hospital thing stinks and I’m not in the mood to write a column. But, alas, I am a slave to “showing up”. It was Woody Allen who said, “Eighty percent of success is just showing up”. Woody Allen also said, “The mafia takes in more than $40.0 billion annually and spends very little on office supplies”. I have changed that to read, “and spends nothing on printing”.
I’ve shown up for 264 columns and I’m not stopping now. It takes way more than a damn heart block to stop the Maňana Man. I had never heard of a “heart block” before. It’s different than a heart blockage. My heart’s electrical system was not performing. The top part of your heart sends electric signals to the bottom part to pump blood throughout your body. If there’s a short circuit, your body, including your brain, doesn’t get enough oxygenated blood.
Can you beat that? For the past several years I’ve been writing these columns with too little oxygen for my brain. I’ll bet you never noticed.
The electrical problem has been fixed with a pacemaker installed by a surgeon in my left shoulder. I’m also betting you have already noticed that I’m writing like Hemingway.
Don’t send flowers and cards. I’ll be released long before you read this column.
I have written columns on the beach, in various hotel rooms, various poolside verandas but this is my first hospital room.
I was enjoying my visit until they wheeled in a roommate named Maynard.
Maynard immediately began talking, not necessarily to me but anyone who would listen and respond. If a nurse or doctor came in to see me, Maynard would begin talking by commenting on something that was said to me. As soon as he had seized the platform with a firm grip on the microphone, Maynard felt empowered to digress into one of his many, many life anecdotes.
Maynard claimed to have been a personal body guard and photographer to President Ronald Reagan. He had the night off that evening in Washington when the President was shot. He had been the top rated tank commander in Viet Nam.
Not just a tank commander, but the best in all of Viet Nam.
Maynard had also been a Navy Seal and an explosives expert. He claimed to have the largest firearms collection in Pennsylvania. All of this, of course, had qualified him to be a member of an outlaw motorcycle gang and best friends with both of Pennsylvania’s senators.
I felt so insignificant in Maynard’s presence. He is only sixty and I am sixty-six and could think of nothing over the span of my lifetime that even remotely compared to his bountiful accomplishments.
My wife, Attila the Nun, dropped by to visit me and Maynard overheard us talking about the printing industry. Maynard promptly reported that he had founded a printing company in Detroit that printed all the automobile catalogs.
I suggested to trapped hospital staff that they start moving toward the door as soon as they finished taking Maynard’s blood pressure or temperature. Otherwise, they might never escape his ceaseless rhetoric. As it got worse, I suggested that staff members either sedate him or move him to another room.
My strategy evolved into pretending to sleep or to walking the halls. Maynard had fallen due dizziness, broken some fingers and toes and couldn’t follow me. If I heard him snoring when I passed our room, it was okay to slip quietly into my bed.
The walking and the feigned sleep gave me time to think using my new oxygenated blood and, boy, did I have some great ideas - profound thoughts that I can weave into these columns over the next few years. I say few years because this pacemaker sales rep came by and told me that mine is supposed to last four to six years depending on usage.
So what is all about?
It’s not about Woody Allen.
It’s not about my pacemaker.
It’s about aberrant behavior that seeks approval.
It’s about abnormal needs to one-up others.
It’s about the sick practice of finishing the sentences that belong to others.
It’s about the rude practice of interrupting others.
It’s about fictionalized self-aggrandizement.
You don’t have to be sixty to be guilty. I hear it all the time and you would think if I had to go the hospital that I could escape it there. But, nooo, I get Maynard.
These behaviors seem to be getting worse in America.
Top performing print salespeople are modest unassuming people. They listen and they don’t interrupt.
If your sales are slowing or weak, back off and check yourself against the sentences beginning with one about seeking approval and self-absorption. Listen to how print buyers and co-workers are reacting to you. Are they annoyed, or pretending to sleep or walking away down the hall?
Maynard just awoke. I’ve got to shut down this laptop and roll over. And you need to get out there and sell something!
