When Juliet Vinagreti met Jack
Daulphine for
the very first time, she was as drunk as a skunk. They were casual
colleagues but they had never had a formal conversation
until the evening when Juliet was roaring drunk, Jack was late
for
the evening party and circumstances collided. And these circumstances,
which Juliet had blamed for her current state, had
established that it was the end of the second day (of five) and Juliet
had endured enough anguish and decided to knock back a few drinks to
dull the pain of sitting in a room for two straight days with three
more to go.
Juliet, Jack and approximately fifty co-workers had just begun a long
and demanding re-certification course demanded by their company's
largest customer. The large customer, currently under indictment by
both the Canadian and U.S. governments, had forced almost every manager
to go through an expensive and mind-numbing internal quality training
seminar. The training, while straight-forward at first blush, was
developed internally and was full of internal exception handling and
sacred cows. By mid-morning of day one, the fifty plus managers had
already abandoned their provided legal pads and binders of material,
and just hoped to hang on for the five day course without spearing
their eyes out with the convenient cheap pen which was provided by the
hotel and replacing the now-speared eyes with the even cheaper hard
candy sitting in the little bowls, also provided by the hotel. The
course was facilitated by the company's training entourage and
consisted of a rote, slide by slide reading of the material. The
speakers ranged from an audio spectrum, starting with congested
monotone and moving to high-pitched ignorance. The group had been told
to give their complete attention to the presenters and tasks such as
Internet surfing and Blackberry™ usage was discouraged but within two
hours, laptops were up and the distinct sound of keyboard clicks
blissfully mixed in with the speaker's dull and full text reading of
each PowerPoint™ slide. They were the fifth of fifteen groups to
undergo this training and it had appeared the curriculum was not
becoming more elegant for the presenters with four complete sessions
already under their collective belts but rather falling into a
galvanized death march accompanied by a cadence of synapse destroying
words spoken by a confederacy of dunces in bright blazers.
The company was not concerned with content retention or
enlightenment; all they needed was credible proof of
attendance by
all managers. Senior management felt it was necessary to cancel
vacations,
long-scheduled client appointments and other prior commitments in order
to achieve complete participation shown by attendance manifests. "The
only thing that matters," said the main presenter, "is that precision
is not
important, but the effort must be directionally correct." This comment
hung out over the large room of professionals; the comment was without
hyperbole or company jargon as it lay in the middle of the
room like a big turd. A few folks made eye contact with each other and
put their heads back down; they would keep the discussion going via
non-company sponsored chat applications because this was not the room
to provide
honest or documented feedback. The brutal truth was that no one cared
about wisdom or learning; class attendance was the collectively
understood as the ultimate and only goal. When dealing with
compliance issues, the opportunity to freelance a presentation is not
an option because the burden is on the company to present the legally
approved content with no filter whatsoever. Or in other words, it was
going to be a long,
long week.
The first day ended a few moments earlier than expected and
the attendees showed obvious appreciation. Much like a scheduled
beating which was concluded a few wallops earlier than
initially
estimated, the victims were grateful of their collective lot and
gathered up their treasures and made it out the door as soon as
possible. The last piece of theater was the packing away of the large
company binder. These
days, thanks to printing costs and the rise of electronic documents,
expensive and heavy binders were viewed as a thing of the past. Today,
a URL would be given out and the folks would be expected to follow
along via an Internet browser. The complicated binder, with many
chapter inserts and full color pictures, let everyone know that the
costs were not a concern, nor was the quality because many new pages
were handed out over the week with instructions "to remove page 213 and
replace it with pages 213a through 213c." Since the room was secure,
the option of leaving the material in the room caused the sound of
fifty binders hitting the breakout tables with a coordinated sound of
percussive relief. with the only looming issue was how to travel back
with this awkwardly heavy binder which will never be opened again.
It was also communicated to the group that no demonstration of
proficiency would be a part of the presentation and no tests would be
offered or completed. The organizers' goal was to show people sat in
front of them and the idea of proving or documenting their collective
understanding was not a priority. "To get important closure," said some
generic presenter in the middle of day two, "is to show that you had
attended the presentation, we assume you are harvesting the important
points by yourself." The presenter then lowered his little toady head
began to read verbatim the next page as his audio-visual counterpart
cum wingman advanced to the next screen, one painful PowerPoint™slide
at a time. Each time the slide would appear, the crowd would either
sigh if it was word intensive or inhale excitedly if it consisted of
only a few words or a large clumsy and childish graphic. Every hour of
so, the presenter would use the word closure and the crowd would
collectively perk up with the hope that some closure would actually
occur but each
time, they were disappointed. The main presenter said several times,
""Closure is a word which means many things to many people but in this
presentation, it means we need to keep moving." After the fifth time,
it was burned into the collective memory of the group and continued to
cause mental havoc each time the word "closure" was used. The only
remaining discretion for the group was to quickly scan the slide count
as the next presenter prepared to move into slide show mode but that
died quickly when slide counts were shown to be the several hundred
which further broke whatever spirit remaining.
At the hotel bar, the crowd grew larger each night as a
majority of their work faux assignments were getting done during the
day's presentation. People began to realize commiserating with their
colleagues was the only appropriate use of their off time and the bar
became denser and denser with familiar faces, all sharing the same
topics of work, the seminar and work. But tonight, Tuesday, the
option of not going to the bar had been obliterated by the sheer,
collective boredom-based frustration of collective brain pain. Juliet
was drinking steadily and was concentrating on her drink experience and
didn't notice Jack until his voice broke her own concentration and she
turned away from her same sex companion to see where the noise
originated.
"I would like a bourbon, please" said Jack. His voice was
unwavering but calm and courteous with a distinct priority put on the
words 'bourbon' and 'please.' The bartender nodded and began pouring.
He had
recognized on the first night this was not a crowd seeking a lot of
non-drinking related chit-chat; he had evolved into an efficient
drink-dispensing machine because no one wanted to talk...they
wanted to drink. The faster and heavier he poured his drinks, the more
significant were the tips so he switched into ninja bartender mode to
great success. While the bar was being comped through a variety of
drink tickets, tips
came to him if he did his job the way they wanted it to be done:
quickly.
Juliet looked over and smiled out of common courtesy. They had
somewhat recognized each other from the training and actually had a few
eye to eye connections during the day. It was not flirtatious but more
a
desire to check whether or not each other was crazy. He returned her
glance, smiled shook her hand and said, "Closure is a word which means
many things to many people but it all honesty, it means someone has to
stop talking." They both laughed but the comment was not formally
directed at her but it appeared he needed to verbalize the thought
immediately and her ears were the closest ones to fill with his
opinion. Juliet was polite, nodded and smiled waiting for the next line
but it didn't come right away. Jack was in the same state of the
others: mentally exhausted and suffering a non-physical manifestation
of bleeding ears. Just as she was going to respond with something
witty, a loud commotion occurred nearby which forced her to look around
and when her head swiveled back, he was gone. She didn't know if he had
just been engaged in a full-on debate about some important subject and
needed a drink or whether he had enough of the stupid seminar and the
banal speakers and had to say something to someone. She didn't know
that Jack Daulphine shared the same dislike of excessive talking but
his disappearing act was an interruption to her normal instinct of
personal over analysis.
Jack did not disappear because of Julia; while he enjoyed general
banter, he chafed at people who wanted to act intelligent but had no
depth or confidence and he was obligated to return to one of those
conversations. These people would quickly shift any allegiances
depending on some current trend; drop names of authors which they
pretended they read (they didn't), hung around bookstores giving the
impression that they were well-read (they weren't), went to restaurants
and acted as if they had been eating this newly publicized cuisine for
years to be perceived as gourmands (they had not achieved that title)
but desperately wanted to thought of as confident and together. But in
reality, were neurotic and shallow, frightened little animals not
wishing to be discovered as dilettantes. He empathized with others when
they compared failed relationships and he cautioned, when asked, many
of their approaches as they dealt with people but he was rarely asked.
Some people need to get a trickle of communication and get used to it
firs but in this crowd, relationships were based on an individual to
over-communicate and 'active listen' their colleagues and co-workers
into submission. Jack knew those kind of full-on communication
interactions will leave one exhausted and unwilling to bring it to the
next level in fear of some fire hose-level of communication coming
unseen around the corner. He never implied this is/was/will be a
preferred style, just an internal FYI from someone who finally had
recovered from a relationship which didn't stop emitting communication
until months after it was over.
Juliet was very similar but in a far prettier package. Juliet
was almost too pretty to be a middle-manager as her beauty actually got
in the way of most of her relationships, both personal and business.
Most
people could not filter out her beauty and it made for long days when
their constant qualifying statements and downward glances made general
conversations long and winding. She had never experienced overt
harassment and she never had a boss that gave her the creeps in
thought, word or deed. She was always comfortable in work surroundings
but she had no idea how her beauty intimidated her colleagues; she was
easily the prettiest woman anyone had seen in a year but people,
through years of harassment training had successfully pushed those
observations so deep within their psyches that any confirmation of her
beauty would be smothered by the many stratas of political correctness
and quiet envy. What added to her beauty was the almost complete
internal unawareness of how striking she was to the common person. She
felt that she was pleasant looking and made an effort to look
presentable but the combination of stunning physical qualities, her
engaging personality and the unawareness of the combination made her a
rare combination of physical perfection all wrapped up in a cool fusion
of class.
Jack had disappeared to finish a dangling conversation with a co-worker
but had every intention of returning to the back as soon as possible to
have an extended conversation with the beautiful woman with a great
sense of
humor. He had used that line several times that night and she was the
only responded with an understanding laugh; his use of satire was a
personal choice and not many people appreciated satire wrapped in
sarcasm. The brief intellectual momentum glimmered before disappearing
thanks to Jack's social obligation and he wanted it back. Jack has
always attracted confident types who bludgeoned him with conversation
dripping in recency and keyword searches and that illusion of
intelligence was painful to endure. Jack's energy attracted many
individuals who felt they were outstanding communicators and ground him
down with aggressive paraphrasing and painful active listening; they
wanted to communicate him to death and if it wasn't for his ability to
elegantly end the wrong relationship before it got out hand, they would
have succeeded. He just wanted people to shut up once in awhile.
On a parallel path, Juliet had to deflect the artificially confident
alpha males which were drawn to the bright light of her beauty; they
didn't often take 'no' for an answer because they equated her beauty to
their own perception of their style. In a similar world to Jack, Juliet
had to patiently dispose of a litany of extremely handsome and
successful men because they lacked natural intelligence and oozed a
flawed confidence based on their proximity to her beauty. She knew she
was attractive (but not as good looking as she really was) but never
used it to her advantage. She never could forgive people who used her
own beauty as their accessory of success and intelligence and many of
her potential boyfriends couldn't get past her beauty and made numerous
attempts to become her equal. The fatal flaw with their cloying
selfishness was their own desire to supplement their existing
personality with a never-ending diatribe of never ending definitions
and conversational yammering acting as the defense of their
own harmless limitations. She just wanted people to shut up once in
awhile.
Jack returned with his drink half-full, intending to strike up
more of a conversation with Juliet but he didn't know her name or how
he would broach the subject. Again, Juliet had her focus on her drink
and did
not see Jack sit down next to her. She had almost three days of her
life stolen for no reason and combining that reality with the
non-glamor component of travel made for a fairly sound and pointed
mood. The only thing that perked her up was the mini-banter with the
good-looking guy who had left as fast as he arrived. She was tired of
being a grown-up, tired of being an accountant and tired of things in
her life that made no sense - which was most things. The bar was facing
the main gathering area so there was many things to observe; the
general mingling, the entrances and exits and the room suddenly got
brighter when she heard his voice again.
"Now, where were we?"
Juliet had no idea but was smiling broadly when she turned towards him.
As Jack saw her again, he was a bit disappointed with his lame intro
line but as he looked at her, it was all he had. At that moment, he had
nothing except a grinning facial expression and a desire to do anything
other than read PowerPoints. He figured he would come in honest and see
what happened.
"I kept singing 'I'm So Tired' by the Beatles today. As the slides kept
coming, I continued singing the song to myself."
"Did your neighbors hear you?"
"At times, when I had allowed my internal dialogue a few moments of
volume, I think someone may have caught a few syllables."
"Do you know all the words?"
"I didn't when I started but I do now. I have downloaded the
lyrics, translated them into numerous languages and have replaced words
in the lyrics with others to see if they make me laugh."
"Any winners?"
"No, but there is some potential. It gives me things to do."
"Ah, the little things."
Jack paused. She was beautiful and seemed to be enjoying his
company but it was apparent that she was already drunk. She wasn't
embarrassing in her responses but there was a
slight glassiness to her eyes and she appeared to be more relaxed that
most people. He wanted to pursue the conversation further but knew that
he wanted to see her sober and equally engaged with him before he would
attempt any type of formal flirtation.
"I wish I had thought of mind-singing something from the White Album,"
said Juliet.
Jack was impressed. She knew where the song originated and
appeared to get his joke. He had always been funny and refused to dumb
down any of his jokes or monologues to get more people to laugh.
"Feel free, there are plenty of choices."
"I might just do that. However, I need to stop drinking before I do
something stupid, say something stupid or demonstrate some likely
stupid behavior."
Jack didn't argue or re-assure her that she was a long way
from legal limits; he nodded and gave her the impression that he
generally agreed with her strategy. He was very interested in
talking to her
further but wanted it to be sober, over breakfast and with time on his
hands. This was no bullet point chit chat, this had to be real.
Juliet excused herself but did decide leave him with a forearm
squeeze. As she carefully stood up from the stool, she made appropriate
and direct eye contact and said, "It was nice talking to you. Have a
good evening."
Jack, on his best behavior as well, said, "You as well. I also enjoying
talking to you."
Not satisfied with the current state of the discussion, Juliet
grabbed his forearm and squeezed with impressive compression and
concluded the night with a pleasant, "You as well." The forearm squeeze
got Jack's attention; it was nice and strong and for the first time in
almost three days, he hoped he got the right message.
