Sputterpub's Blog

     When I was 29 I became a consultant.

I think I’d been practicing for some time, at least since high school, when I had friends instead of boyfriends and counseled them so much my mother called me Dear Abby. But when I was almost 30 I opened my own little business. It was all about retirement plans for other small businesses, and it involved recordkeeping and clerical work too, but much of my time has been spent trying to figure what my clients want, where the mistakes are, and how to get through.

That’s it. Those are the three crucial elements to the job. Put in more words, here’s what I’ve learned.

The first challenge is to determine what the question is. That can take the most time but you can’t move forward effectively without it, and you probably can’t miss once you have it. It’s a bit like being a doctor, where the challenge is usually in the diagnosis because once you have that, you have paths to the cure.

The second element, not always present but often encountered, is to understand how the mistakes got made that probably created the question (malady) in the first place. This part may mean mimicking the client, being the client in a way and trying to follow the path already taken to see where it veered. Imagination is involved, and as the mystery unravels you get ideas for solution.

The third part of the job, the part most often not done, is to implement that solution. The doctor can prescribe the appropriate medicine but if the patient doesn’t take it the illness will persist. I can’t tell you how often I’ve left a good meeting, where useful conclusions were reached and hope for improvement was obtained, only to go nowhere. Participants leave with the best of intentions, but they’re busy people with habits already formed about how they spend their time, and they’re not about to create time for new approaches unless you map the approaches, at least sketchily, for them.

If you’re trying to answer a question, to solve a problem, proceed with a punch list. Then hit those punches. Forget efficiency; aim to be effective.

   When I was 23 I lived and worked in San Francisco, and I commuted on the Muni bus. I rode popular lines at popular times so I didn’t always get a seat. I’ll never forget the rainy Wednesday I boarded a 38 Geary to go home.

I got a little excited as I moved toward the rear of the bus that ride and spotted my favorite seat, the one right behind the rear door, empty.

As soon as I saw the actual sitting-down part, I understood why it was available. The unupholstered bench was covered in rain water, because the window above it, the little one at the very top of the bus wall, was broken. Drat. I took my standing position near it as the bus headed west.

It was obvious that rain had been invading for awhile, there was so much water on the seat. I wondered how the window got broken as we rode.

When the bus neared my stop I made my way to the front. Normally I exited by the rear door – I like the flow when passengers board in front and leave through the back – but that time I decided to speak to the driver.

“Excuse me, ” I said to him as the bus approached the curb, “I’m sure you know that window is broken, but are you aware how much water has gotten in?”

“Window? What window?” was the driver’s response. He stopped the bus, looked at me, looked toward the back. “Where?”

“The one over the seat just behind the rear door,” I answered. “You mean nobody’s told you?”

“Jeesh,” sputtered the driver. “No. You’re the first to mention it. Damn …”

I was amazed. That’s why I’m telling the story now. It just goes to show you: don’t assume that someone before you has spoken up about something. And don’t take anyone’s scoffing when they tell you you’re repeating. Duplication is better than omission.

   When I was 5 years old, my favorite toy was a Ginnette doll. She didn’t look exactly like this picture, and I didn’t know till I searched for the illustration whether her name had one “n” or two, but I remember her well.

She didn’t have “real” hair or moving eyes. She was a pink vinyl baby doll, only about eight inches long. Her infant hair was a curlicue on her forehead, as much a part of her pinkness as her button nose and toes.

She smelled wonderful. I liked to sniff her head almost as much as I enjoy a real baby head now. In fact, I loved the look and smell so much that I couldn’t resist taking her pate in my mouth and biting. Hard. I’d eat her up I loved her so.

A year or two later I was presented with fancier dolls. I remember Madam Alexander’s jointed knees and lifelike tresses. I remember Betsy Wetsy’s working eyes. But I also recall how repulsed I was when they broke. Madam A’s leg guts were horrifying. When Betsy’s eyes had lost all lashes and rolled back partway into her head – well, suffice it to say that my brother Steve had fun terrorizing me with my broken dolls, even to the extent of once tossing crazy-eyed Betsy into my room with me and then trying to hold my door closed so I couldn’t get out.

The fact was, I always knew they were toys. I didn’t appreciate lifelike. I had an imagination for that. Ginnette brought sensory pleasures to me in a way that those robots never could.

Last of all was Barbie. I think I was 9. Barbie was all about clothes and sex. Really. We designed garments for her out of scarves and scraps. We posed her in erotic fantasies. This was before Ken (our Barbies had “patent pending” on their butts). We never needed Ken. Again, imagination was better.

     When I was 34 I think, I had a little breakdown.

It was the holiday season, and I’m sure I was under shopping pressure (I don’t like to shop), and things had not been going well. I was probably arguing with my husband and certainly being harassed by clients, but I was in a bookstore, so I should have been okay.

It happened at the information desk. I was looking for some book and they didn’t have it. While I stood at the counter taking in the latest in pesky bad news, tears welled in my eyes and started down my cheeks. I began to shake a little. It felt like the walls of the room moved in toward me and the air darkened.

And suddenly I was surrounded by bookstore employees. I don’t know where they came from but they circled me like a football huddle or a folk dance, clucking sympathy and murmuring reassurance toward me.

It was amazing. I don’t think they actually touched me, except maybe for a pat on the arm or shoulder, but I felt embraced and borne upward by the concern of those around me.

I left the store without the book I sought but turned inside out, drained, refreshed.

It happened to me a few other times too. You almost can depend on it. If you are sincere and in rare need and you express it without violence to those around you, it’s very possible that you will be supported and heartened by your fellows.

When I was 48 or so, I dropped the grumpiness about Christmas season. It was December and I was falling into annual complaint mode – you know: critical about how soon the commercial decorations went up, how bombarding the ads are, how syrupy the music, how seasonal the charity – when a bus acquaintance asked me if I observe Christmas.

His name was Rex, he was bookish and a bookseller, a reader and a walker, gentle. He leaned toward me, round-eyed, and asked the question politely: “Do you observe Christmas?”

I blurted laughter as I answered. “Oh yes. Literally.”

What I meant and soon explained was that my family didn’t celebrate it, because we were Jewish and not doing Christmas is one of the Jewish American approaches to the holiday, but I’d had a lifetime of invitations to homes where Christmas is celebrated, so I had “observed” it much more than those who observe it. I’d learned the customs of a dozen families, while each of those families really only knew its own.

In case it’s not clear, none of this is about religion; I’m talking about America’s biggest holiday from the perspective of a citizen outsider.

Anyway, that minute with Rex started me thinking. I pondered all the different family customs I’d seen about when to decorate, when to open, what to eat, whether to do it all in an orgy of simultaneous activity or take turns. I ventured into the old critical territory about the commercialism and the false sentiment, I began the slide toward grumpiness, and I felt the gracious moment when the question flipped and let in some light.

I tried to imagine a year without any Christmas. The vision that arose was dreary and monotonous. Because the truth is, the lights and glitz are nice when the nights are long and the weather’s cold. The greenery freshens the inside of an enclosed home. I’m not sure about all the gifts and sweets, and this vision may not work in the southern hemisphere or near the equator, but for all its pressure and busyness, by the time Christmas is over and the trees have been recycled and the presents have been exchanged or used, the sun is definitely on its way back.

Ever since that thought problem, I’ve appreciated Christmas.