THE DRILL SERGEANT ANGEL

3/8/06 THE DRILL SERGEANT ANGEL

Howard Putnam, former CEO of Southwest Airlines, is a master at using stories from his life to bring home points. You can even sign up for his free-by-email leaderhsip series (just email me, and I'll get you set up.) One his stories reminded me of a lesson I'd learned at my first job out of college. I'd been there for a few months, and was adjusting to the frenetic pace and high pressure of the corporate environment. I was in a new city, a new state, and only had a couple friends. A couple weeks before Thanksgiving, I was driving to church when an 80 year old man veered into my lane for a head-on collision, totaling my car, and breaking my knee-cap. This added injury to insult, as I'd just spent the entirety of my meager savings buying a new transmission for my car. Because of my knee-cap, I couldn't drive a car, and my family couldn't make the 6 or 7 hour drive from Indiana to pick me up because of work commitments.

So there I was, faced with spending the four day Thanksgiving weekend just sitting in my studio apartment- no car, no friends, no family, no money, and most importantly, no turkey- when my angel came in an unlikely form. Have you ever seen the Disney movie Monsters, Inc? Do you remember the nasally voiced, tough as nails, frightening head secretary? I'm sure she was based on our head assistant Barb, complete with reading glasses and chain. When you met her, you were automatically afraid of her just a little bit. She grilled me so hard, re-writing contracts, re-filing, retyping, reprinting everything. She was the drill sergeant for the Navy Seals of paperwork, and she worked me to death. I would have sworn she didn't like me much at all, and was secretly taking pleasure at my exhaustion. But one afternoon, the week before Thanksgiving, she came up to me and handed me a round-trip plane ticket to Indianapolis. "Here. I've already paid for it, so you can't say no." It was so shocked, I think I just mumbled, "Thank you", and stared at the ticket. I later found out that she liked me, and was working me hard so I wouldn't get fired for messing something up. I'm not naturally an organized, detail-oriented person, but Barb trained me so well that I ended up training others. We became good friends, and I always respected her. It helps to think that when you're talking to people who may appear to be surly to realize that under that tough exterior, there could lie a heart of gold.