Mentors

I hope you have had a mentor or two or twelve. If you are lucky enough to have had one, I hope you have returned the favor.

As you know, I am blessed with all kinds of role models. Parents, in-laws, Exes, Children, and most certainly friends. I get great satisfaction in learning from them all. I will never understand people who think they know it all. There are certain situations where I am sure that I am the smartest person in the room but yet, I'm still learning.

I've had lots of bosses. Weird and quirky ones, demented ones, professionally-driven ones, etc. I've been a boss and I'm pretty sure these same adjectives would've been used to describe me.

And then there was Syd ...

I can't describe his laugh. I worked for him about 12 years. My office was always around the corner and far away from his but I could hear it and it made me laugh. Plus, I knew he was headed my way. In the early days, everyone smoked. We used to sit at his conference table and calculate budgets or write business plans. When we moved into the new bank building (non-smoking,) we took a lot of walks.

The memories might bore you so I will only share a few:

An extremely bumpy flight (on Christmas Eve) with Syd. We were the only two people on the bank plane. We were facing each other and all 6'3" of him was flailing. He said to me, "This isn't really the way I planned to die."

A meeting with idiotic people where he stood up and announced, "I don't know what the @#**** you people are thinking. He left the room. I followed and we stood in the supply closet and laughed our a**** off.

For a while, he had the most bizarre assistant ever (inherited) and he would completely lose it. She bought him pink notepads and used to rearrange things in his office. Then she would deny it and you could hear him in Canada ... "Yes, you did!"

When the gossip chain let us know that the husband (my husband) was divorcing and I went into Syd's office and said, "Who would date him? He doesn't have a great track record." He reminded me of this when he received our wedding announcement.

When I realized that he was the only one who could show me the ropes while also making me feel smart and talented. He never hesitated to tell me, "You could've done it a little differently," but I always felt like I was learning.

He is retired now and I hope he is having the time of his life. His wife has an incredible sense of humor so I'm sure they laugh a lot. We get to see them a couple of times a year but it's not enough for me. I miss the days of him whipping around the corner and asking, "Want to go for a walk?"