EOCAWKI: Driven by What I Drive

Speaking from the perspective of a 62-year-old male human being, I have come over the years to believe that many boys and young men fall into one of two categories during their formative years: they are car guys or they are girl guys.  This is not to say that car guys don't like girls or girl guys don't like cars.  Rather, my contention is that their primary attention is devoted to the study and pursuit of their central object of interest.  So, a girl guy is interested primarily in attracting girls and if a nice car is a means to that end, so much the better. A car guy lusts after great cars first, with the understanding that it could help him attract a girl.  In any case, I believe that these tendencies tend to level out and become virtually dormant when a man reaches his late teens or early twenties and real responsibilities begin to take hold.  But they tend to reawaken when he hits mid-life by which point many have married and settled down with a family.

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For car guys, this re-awakening is not a big issue. They simply look for another car, often with the patient forbearance of a supportive spouse.  For girl guys at this stage of life, however, the implications can be more disruptive as spousal support and forbearance are not as likely to be offered.

I have long been a car guy.  In junior high and high school, I would walk down to the car dealerships on Kings Highway in Brooklyn, press my nose up against the glass and get lost in that lovely sheet metal, dreaming of the day I would be behind the wheel on my own.  To this day, I like to drive and enjoy beautiful and interesting car designs. I still visit car dealerships just to browse. (I'm sure the sales staffs love to see me coming.) My wonderful wife Roni has put up with more than 30 cars during our 37 years together (see list below), a testament to her support and patience.

However, in all that time, I have never been able to develop more than a basic understanding of automobile mechanics.  I have a rudimentary idea of how internal combustion engines work, how the power is transferred to the drive wheels through the transmission, how brakes stop the car and all that.  But if it came to actually repairing something, I would be just as lost today as I was when I had my nose pressed against the dealership windows.  Considering this, it occurred to me that even if you are passionate about something, you might not ever be able to understand what makes it tick.
Come to think of it, girl guys might well be thinking the same thing.

Mattera Motor Vehicles*
1966 Volkswagen Beetle, green
1973 Volkswagen Beetle, light blue
1975 Datsun B210
1971 Dodge Van, red
1981 Plymouth Reliant Wagon, dark blue
1981 Subaru Wagon, blue
1975 Subaru Sedan, white 
1986 Plymouth Voyager Minivan, silver
1975 Volkswagen Beetle, tan
1989 Eagle Summit, blue
1992 Plymouth Grand Voyager, green
1991 Mazda Miata, blue
1995 Volkswagen Jetta, green
1979 MG Midget, red
1989 Subaru XT, silver
1998 Saturn SL, white
2000 Mazda MPV, green
2001 Saturn SL1, green
1993 Infiniti J30, green
1993 Saturn SL2, silver
2000 Volkswagen Cabrio, green
2003 Chrysler PT Cruiser, blue
1999 Isuzu Hombre, green
2003 Kawasaki Vulcan 500 Ltd
2007 Mazda5
2006 Ford Ranger
2006 Hyundai Accent
2010 Hyundai Sonata
1988 Jeep Comanche
2012 Fiat 500**
2013 Honda Fit
2007 Dodge Grand Caravan **
2016 VW Golf**
* In roughly the order they were purchased
** Currently in the fleet

EOCAWKI: Food-Based Decision Making Worked for Me

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I have a confession to make.  I really like food.  Food is important to me. I like eating it and I like cooking it. Good food makes me happy. Bad food really bothers me. And as it turns out, food has influenced my attitudes and informed my decision-making throughout my life in ways that weren’t always obvious even to me.

I believe strongly in food-based decision making.

I realize now that as a child, I was able to sit patiently through Mass on Sunday morning no matter how long and boring the homily was because my mind was focused on the delicious Sunday meal that Nonna, my grandmother, was preparing at home.  I was anticipating the luscious aroma of the sauce that would wrap around  me like a loving hug when we got home. I was imagining the taste and texture of the perfect meatballs and braciole that simmered in the sauce, the pasta that would be covered by it and the crispy Italian bread that I would dip in it. And I knew that Nonna had probably set aside a couple of fried meatballs as a pre-dinner treat for my sister and me. With those delights waiting for us at home, an hour in a pew seemed like a small price to pay.

In my formative years Election Day was a time when I didn’t as much anticipate the outcome of the vote as I did the tasty English muffin pizzas that were our family’s traditional evening snack while watching the returns come in.

While working as a pharmacy delivery boy during my college years, (I referred to myself as a pharmaceutical distribution engineer), I could get through long, rainy delivery runs on cold dismal days if I knew that my friends and I were going out for a nice meal later.  The shrimp and salad bar and New York strip at Beefsteak Charley’s was incentive enough.

Nonna in her natural habitat in the early 60s.

When I graduated and started working as a reporter, I would volunteer to cover corporate events where I knew the food was likely to be good.  I still recall one legislative reception in Albany where I swear the shrimp were as big as my hand and the roast beef on the carving board called to me every bit as seductively as the Sirens of Greek mythology. 

Even more recently food continued to influence my professional choices. When traveling for work, I tried to book flights on Delta because they serve the bigger Biscoff cookies. I looked for connections in Cincinnati because I really like the Gold Star chili restaurant in the airport food court. And I stayed in hotels that housed or were close to good restaurants.

Given the central role that food plays in my life and work it seems odd that one of my favorite food-related work memories involves a vending machine.  Early in my career while still working as a reporter, the newspaper moved its printing operation from the city to a suburban site where food vending machines in a canteen offered the only nearby dining option. Luckily, I didn't have to work there very often. But they did have a wide variety of machines, including some that dispensed hot food in cans, something I had never seen before. The editor of the paper, a gruff guy, was showing me around the new facility. We got the canteen around lunchtime and he observed, “You can get a good meal here,” then mused aloud, “Let’s see.... what do I want? Yodels or Ring Dings?”

It was a tough choice. But given an option, I’d still go for Nonna’s meatballs.

EOCAWKI: 2016 Election Casting. Let's Try Harder.

The Jargon Master Matrix -- Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of 15 Minutes of Fame

Wall Street Journal, August 1, 1996

It’s hard to believe that it’s been more than 20 years since I came out of a mind-numbing meeting and jotted down the “Jargon Master Matrix.”  It wasn’t a new concept even at the time.  (In fact, I once found something quite similar written by a U.S. Army officer in 1914 using WWI-era military jargon!) Still, the words I selected for the JMM were pretty reflective of corporate jargon at the time so the thing got a bit of attention in the national media. The Wall Street Journal even did a “widow” about it. (“Widows” were short, usually amusing items that appeared in the lower left corner on B1.)

The Jargon Master Matrix works like this:  There are three columns, each with 14 rows of words. You pick three numbers at random between one and 14, find the corresponding words in each column and string them together to create a plausible corporate buzzword phrase.  The original 1996 version follows. It holds up pretty well, but it’s definitely time for a refresh with some 21^st Century bull$#i+.  I’ll put it on the list. Meanwhile, if you have any suggestions, send them along.

Choosing the Right Words is as Simple as 1, 2, 3

Business was so simple a decade ago. All we had to carp about back then was foreign competition and government regulation.  In today’s fast-changing world, though, it’s tough to tell your value propositions from your shifting paradigms. But that doesn’t mean you can’t dispense advice like a pro.  Even the most change-resistant troglodyte can sound like a high priced transformation consultant with the new Jargon Master Matrix.

     Unlike succeeding in today’s highly complex and increasing competitive environment, using the Jargon Master Matrix is simple. Just choose three numbers between 1 and 14.  Then, find the words in each column that correspond to those numbers and string them together in an entirely plausible phrase that will impress your colleagues and customers and make you sound like a knowledgeable observer of a dynamic industry.

   For example, say you chose 11, 8 and 7.  That would give you a “value-based process model,” just what every successful company needs as it moves toward the dawn of the 21^st century. The combination of 1,2 and 9 produces, “overarching support centralization,” a must for any firm bent on achieving maximum efficiency.

   The Jargon master Matrix is guaranteed to produce credible phrases that even the savviest executives will be loath to admit they don’t understand.

  One word of caution: the Jargon Master Matrix is best suited for use in a business environment.  You wouldn’t want to ruin a romantic moment with an ill-timed 2,4 and 14.

-Tony Mattera, Richmond, VA, 1996

 

There once was a trip quite sublime...

I'm still processing everything we experienced during our recent vacation in England, France and Iceland. But just to touch on some of the highlights, in England, thanks to Alex and Celena, we took a really nice day trip from London to Bournemouth and a lovely hike by the dramatic beach at the wonderfully named Durdle Door. That evening we enjoyed fish and chips at a restaurant patio overlooking the beach while Bournemouth celebrated a military air and sea festival around us.  The Eurostar from London to Avignon was fast and comfortable. (I wish Amtrak worked as well.)  In France, we had a great time with our friends Philippe and Micheline at their vacation home in the village of Gargas at the foot of the Luberon Mountains. Paris once again claimed the top spot on my list of favorite cities. Iceland was a brand new experience.  It is the most otherworldly place I've ever seen and the native language is incomprehensible. Thank goodness everyone speaks perfect English.

There's so much to describe but, mostly to amuse myself, I took a shot at offering some observations on our trip in limerick form.  See what you think.   

Our flat near the Shepherd’s Bush station

Was nearly the ideal location

To explore London’s pride

With an Underground ride

To a pub for some lukewarm libation.

*****

In England the fries are called chips.

With fried cod these we shoved past our lips.

At a great place to stay

Down in Bournemouth one day

Where we watched all the planes and the ships.

Our day trip to Durdle Door wrapped up with a nice fish and chips dinner in Bournemouth where we watched the military air and sea festival unfold around us.

*****

If enchantment and good food you seek

Try the south of France for a week.

When you get down that way

Drink the best vin rosé.

It’s a treat that is simply unique.

Toasting my birthday for the 5th consecutive day with Philippe and Micheline at their home in Gargas

*****

I reach a state of near Zen

When I sit by the banks of the Seine.

In a Paris café

I could spend the whole day.

We should all do that now and again.

Ah, Paris…!

*****

With English and French I can deal.

The words are familiar, I feel.

But in Iceland the prose

Had me curling my toes.

The whole place is completely unreal.

Iceland's volcanic "lunar" landscape.

*****

To Iceland we must go back soon

And chill out in the warm Blue Lagoon

And from there watch the sky

For the Northern Lights high

Perhaps on a dark afternoon.

Reykjavik's Hallgrimskirkja, a white concrete church that dominates the city.  We couldn't really ask anyone for directions because we never knew how to pronounce anything!

 *****

Travel can broaden the mind

But here’s something else that you’ll find.

When you’re taking long trips

It can broaden the hips.

For your souvenir just look behind.

No Parking - Comfort Zone

If I had a dime for every time someone told me that I was in the wrong business, I’d have been able to retire much earlier than I did.  It wasn’t that I wasn’t good at what I did.  In fact, at the risk of boasting, I’ve been told that I was very good at it.  It’s just that I was never entirely comfortable in the world of finance and I think it showed.  Nonetheless, I was able to apply my talent and skills in a way that allowed me to get real satisfaction from my work while earning a nice living.  Still, there were times when I struggled and complained and then someone would tell me the answer was to “move out of my comfort zone.” I hated hearing that.  When someone said it to me, it almost made me want to punch them in the nose because I thought I was already outside of it and what I really wanted was to spend just a little bit time in it.

What I realize now is that the trick isn’t to get outside of your comfort zone. The trick is to expand your comfort zone to encompass the new and unfamiliar. And, in fact, that’s what I was doing, even if I didn’t realize it. As I moved into new, untried areas, I gained new perspectives and developed new skills that made me comfortable later when faced with similar but new circumstances. 

Expanding comfort zones didn’t just work on the job.  I loved embarking on new adventures without concern or anxiety thinking, “Let’s see what happens.”  It seemed easy to do that once.  It might be a natural function of age, but it feels much harder to do that now.  There’s a distinct inclination – and I’m fighting it -- to want to stay where I’m comfortable, at home near my family and friends and surrounded by “my stuff.”  I’m resisting it with all my might because I watched my parents’ comfort zone shrink around them until they were unwilling to do anything they hadn’t done before.  In recent years, they went to just three restaurants – Gargiulo’s, Joe’s of Avenue U and, improbably, Roll ‘N Roaster,” (where they’ll “put cheese on anything you please.”) and they wouldn’t try any others. When the NYC subway system switched from tokens to MetroCards my dad stopped going into the city, even though I went with him to the B train station at Brighton Beach to show him how to buy and use one.  He never took the subway again after that. My mom's comfort zone shrunk, first to her house and eventually to her living room where she spent the day and slept the night.

I take their experience as a cautionary lesson. I’m determined to keep pushing the boundaries of my comfort zone and do all I can to keep them from closing in on me.  Any advice or guidance would be welcomed.  In the meantime, Pal O’ Mine Mark Yost tells me they’ve added pizza to the menu at Roll ‘N Roaster.   That’s a change!  I’m not sure I’m entirely comfortable with it, but next time I’m back in Brooklyn, you wanna go for a slice?

"Get a Load of Fatso"

There’s an episode of the “Honeymooners,” called “The Bensonhurst Bomber,” in which Ralph attempts to intimidate a poolroom bully, Harvey, by pretending to knock out an even larger guy, a friend of Norton’s, who would be in on the plan.  To ensure that Ralph recognizes the friend, Norton suggests that he walk up to Ralph and say, “Get a load of fatso.”  In the event, of course, another very large guy gives Ralph the trigger line and Ralph actually decks him for real.   Ralph wonders how the stranger knew to call him “Fatso,” and Norton observes, “Well, if the shoe fits…”

I don’t think I’ve heard anyone use the term “Fatso” in quite a long time.  But when I was growing up in Brooklyn, I heard it a lot, and often directed at me, because I was, in fact, a chubby little kid.  While I didn’t particularly like it, I have to say I never felt the impulse to deck someone who used that term. I really didn’t take offense because I knew instinctively that that was precisely what the person using the term wanted me to do.

There is a tremendous amount of emphasis today on how to avoid offending others, even unintentionally.  That’s not a bad thing. The workplace focus on diversity, inclusion and cultural sensitivity has been tremendously positive, and the  training I experienced during my career was quite often eye-opening. But I wonder if some attention also should be devoted to the other side, i.e., teaching people to withhold from others the power to offend them.  That is a power that so many surrender very easily today. In fact, it sometimes seems to me that a lot of people are walking around looking for a reason to be offended and angry.  (Who said, “It’s hard to stop and smell the flowers when you have chip on your shoulder” Oh, wait.  I think I did.)

I believe we’ve come to this perpetually grumpy state in part because we are now a media-addicted society and the much of the media’s focus is on comments, activities and events that are, let’s face it, intended to be offensive. But I believe that the power to offend us depends entirely on our willingness to allow ourselves to be offended. To withhold that power, we need only remember that “offensive” comments, activities and events reflect only on the individuals responsible for them and not on us or on anyone else.  So, if someone calls someone “Fatso” or uses any other pejorative term, whether it starts with F, C, N or any other letter of the alphabet, intentionally or not, the target of that remark has the option of stopping to consider what harm was actually done and perhaps just letting it slide.  I don’t say it’s easy all the time, but with practice it is entirely possible to live an offense-free life.

The ability to withhold the power to offend was extraordinarily important to me very often during my career when dealing with what others might have considered an affront or insult.  In fact, I think my ability to survive successfully for 40 years in what was for me a very unnatural environment was due in no small part to remembering another childhood adage: “Sticks and stone might break my bones, but names can never hurt me.”  You might be surprised how a distinctly positive response to a slight can actually enhance your standing with those who really matter.  And it’s amazing how stopping the quest for offense can provide a new perspective on others, (even on @$$holes!)

Looking back, though, I do recall considering another option as a kid. To avoid being called “Fatso,” there was a place I dreamed of going where my weight would have been significantly less than what it was back in Brooklyn.  “To the moon!”

Strategic Plans

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Strategic plans, we have a few

But still we don’t know what to do.

Define success and set some goals

Perhaps some surveys or some polls.

Start committees, focus groups.

Step up engagement, rally troops!

List our values and our missions.

Anything but make decisions.

Call in McKinsey, summon Booz

They’re both the same. You get to choose.

They’ve been in here a lot before

To show us what our work is for.

We sought their counsel and advice

Of course, it came at quite a price.

We paid them well, we wrote big checks.

And in return, we got big decks.

So many charts and graphs and notes

A ton of data down our throats.

Yet once again it’s still unclear

The path to which we should adhere.

Push ahead, expand, acquire.

And then one day perhaps retire.

In the meantime, take the pay.

Enjoy the good old corporate way.

-Tony Mattera, Richmond, VA 2016

Retirement, I think I Got Something to Say to You

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There's a lyric in Rod Stewart’s 1971 classic “Maggie May” that goes, “It’s late September and I really should be back at school.” When the song first came out, that particular line always triggered a tiny bit of anxiety in me whenever I heard it. I’m pretty sure it was because I was a guy who found comfort in the structure of a schedule and worried about violating some rule or missing something important if I wasn’t in class when I was supposed to be. So, the notion that it was late September and someone wasn’t back in school when they were supposed to be sort of touched a nerve. 

Years passed, of course, and I thought that I had gotten past finding comfort in structure. And I had, to a large extent. But now, in my second week of retirement, I realize that the feeling is still there, lurking in the background and occasionally popping up to let me know. For example, I was out working in the yard last week and had a moment of mild panic -- a feeling that I needed to dial in to a call or perhaps check in with my colleagues to stay in the loop. It subsided pretty quickly when I reminded myself that I don’t have to do that anymore.

I’ve taken pride in never having defined myself by my work. And I really haven’t. But looking back on the last 40 years at work, it’s pretty clear now that if I didn’t rely on my company or my job to define me, I did rely on them to provide a degree of structure that made me comfortable. (By the way, the paycheck and benefits also helped a lot.)

I’m starting to see now that among the challenges of retirement are to become comfortable without the structure of a schedule or to develop the discipline to create my own structure. Or both. This blog is part of how I plan to do that. Though I’ve never been what the job ads call a “self-starter,” I've had some nice inquiries asking if I plan to free-lance or “consult” (whatever that means) so I might do that once I play a little more. I want to become more fit so I’ll plan to devote a certain number of hours to swimming laps and working out. There’s the garden, of course, and cooking. (Let's not forget cooking!)  And finally, there are some courses I’d be interested in taking through our county system or at local community colleges.  So I suppose I could collect my books and get on back to school. 

Greatness means embracing the future with no fear

I see some irony in the Trump campaign's use of the slogan, "Make America Great Again." Let's put aside aside for the moment the fact that America is great and doesn't require its greatness to be restored. The people who are using that slogan are actually calling for a return to an earlier way of life and they live in fear of the change that is reshaping our future.  The irony lies in the fact that our nation's greatness was never founded on fear or a desire to turn back the clock. America's greatness comes from a willingness to embrace change with courage and boldly lead the way into the future. It never came from our wealth but from our intelligence and innovation that allowed us to build wealth. It came from our compassion and our optimism. It came from our willingness to elect leaders who had the foresight to create social safety nets, who had the strength to push for civil rights in the face of strident, entrenched bigotry and who had the guts to tell despots to "tear down this wall." Greatness will never come from electing people who foster fear and want to build walls. Our country's greatness will endure as long as we stay true to ourselves, act with courage, never succumb to fear and embrace the opportunity to shape our future.