Memories have a funny way of creeping into your life. It’s the most unexpected of things that stick. Little things, unplanned, unpredictable. People who you barely know, events you could barely conceive. Maybe it’s exactly that which makes it so memorable. Who, after all, ever talks about expecting the expected?
Enter Graham. Graham was one year my junior in high school, eyes prematurely sunken with a wooden expression – a frame draped in a t-shirt and jeans. A guy trying to get by, pretty much like most of us. We took Yearbook together – he did the layout for one of the sections. I don’t remember which, I don’t really remember too much about him. But of all things and all memories from that year, it was his that stood out.
I never took my high school yearbook class all too seriously. I don’t know that anyone does. It was my senior year, an elective for a subject I had not even the slightest interest in. I suppose if I had embraced opportunity, I would have at least taken on the responsibility to do some layout and learn something. But, oh so cleverly, I ducked all of that by being the business manager, freeing me of even that opportunity. I tagged the receipts, took the money, and spent the remaining 40 minutes of each hour buried in my headphones each class. It was the perfect retreat.
And that’s how it went, pretty much for the whole year through. It was me, my walkman, and my own special brand of soul, rock, and ballads. Graham always picked on me, because I contributed so little. I never took it personally. In fact, I was amused – at least someone called me out for what I was. Me being the laziest man in the world. But when the shit hits the fan, let me tell you, it hits it hard. And, man, did it fly.
Business teaches you all sorts of ways for things to get screwed up. You wouldn’t think that taking a receipt, marking it in a log, and storing all those slips in an envelope would leave much opportunity for error. I certainly didn’t. But you discover all sorts of little things. Maybe misreading a capital I for a lowercase l. Maybe forgetting about a second R in a person’s name, or letting a receipt drop here or disappear there. Or maybe just having the right song come along at the wrong time, so you weren’t quite paying enough attention to whether it was a credit card, check, or cash you were accepting. Little things. And then there were everyone else’s mistakes. The printing company misprinting this. The delivery person dropping that. All the people who never submitted their forms. The parents too busy to attend to them, but also too busy to remember they didn’t.
And so it came, like the troops storming the beaches of Normandy. D-Day: The Yearbook Edition. Of course, for the rest of the staff, the release of the yearbook is a day of celebration. The time to see all of your hard word realized. But for the business manager, it is death incarnate. A blistering, never-ending parade of tirades and complaints. One person cussing you out after the next, until you are mentally beaten and battered. And all before third period even started.
So there I was, in the Yearbook Shit Storm of 1989, overwhelmed and under-prepared, fielding a steady beat of complaints syncopated by the occasional threat. And there was Graham. In the same room, watching me. He looked sad. A little embarrassed. And this, I will never forget. It was the simplest of things. In the midst of it all, in one of the few lucid moments from that morning, he simply told me in the sincerest way possible, “I am so sorry for everything I ever said. I am so sorry.”
It didn’t solve anything. It didn’t fix my problems. But, in a way, it did. To know another person simply acknowledged me – let my errors go, saw the misery I was in, and cared enough to actually feel for me and see me trying my best was enough. It was enough to get me through it, enough to forget about the pain. It made me feel whole on a day that felt like rock bottom.
There is no good business that is not a personal business. There are no complaints that don’t sting. There are good weeks and bad. But the good never offsets the bad, and in the hardest of times, it is truly hard. So many of us go it alone. Or even with the support of others, there are few who truly understand how bad it can feel. I wish Graham were there. Standing by to simply let you know that you’re OK for being who you are. But there isn’t. There’s you. There’s your client. And a stillness created in the space between the two of you when things go awry.
But in it all, there is this bit of comfort, this small anchor to reboot your day. Because if Graham was there for me once, he is always there for all of us again. It is not just to see someone cares for you. That there are people on your side. There are, and people do. It is to know that what you do, in service of others, in service of yourself – that these are the things of courage and nobility. To go at it even when you’re alone. To try your best to do right by everyone. To care for something enough that you bare your self and spare your dreams. In doing this, you give something valuable. That thought might not make your problems go away. But don’t lose heart. I know what you go through. I know what you do. And so too do many others.
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