Eric likes to do two things in the world. First, he likes to work hard all day long and into the night. And second, he likes to get up at 2 A.M. to fix his bugs because he didn’t give himself time to rest and think during the day, or on weekends, or vacations. The boy is driven.
Back in the mid-90’s Tektronix had sent me to England for a
project. I didn't much care for it. Most
people were snooty, contemptuous, and decidedly unfriendly. And lazy, did I mention lazy? At 5 o’clock sharp you’d be run over if you dawdled
in the front doorway. At 5:05 I’d have
to lift my feet as the cleaning lady would vacuum under my desk.
One day I overheard a conference call with two guys sitting
behind me, Collin and Mike. Eric was on
the other end of the line talking about a project he was leading that was
behind schedule.
“We’re going to have to come in on Saturday and finish this
off”, he said.
Collin and Mike looked at each other, they hadn’t heard clearly,
“That’s Saturday”, they replied.
“Right”, Eric countered, and continued talking.
“But that’s Saturday”, it was obvious Eric hadn’t heard
them.
I was enjoying their torture immensely. They weren’t angry that Eric was asking them
to work on Saturday, it was simply not in their concept of reality.
Eric didn’t win that battle as there never was any
battle. It’s like he showed up to the
battle armored and astride his war horse, and was greeted with an empty field.
Anyway, a few months later Eric came over for some meetings.
Business travel really isn’t very romantic, you beat your body up, get your
sleep all screwed up, and then spend a tiresome week in a gray windowless room discussing
business processes. You rarely get to
see anything of a country unless you try.
And Eric always needed to work.
Gary, Eric’s boss, called me up and told me that Eric had
been to England multiple times and had never seen anything because he valued
work so highly. He knew I’d been going
around on weekends looking at stuff as I sent back a series of my ‘Adventures
in England’ e-mails to people back home.
Gary told me my assignment was to kidnap Eric and ensure he saw London. Gary knew Eric wouldn’t
go willingly so I was to steal his plane ticket and not give it back to him
until he’d seen some things. Gary knew
Eric wouldn’t do it if he was simply ordered to.
I of course was thrilled with this assignment and quickly
conspired with Haley, the secretary, to have her come in and request Eric’s
ticket to ensure everything was in order.
Then I created an agenda and it was delivered along with a ransom letter
to Eric informing him that he needed to see London and get pictures as proof or
his ticket home to his loving wife Tracy would not be returned. This was the agenda:
1) Feed the pigeons at Trafalgar Square (you can’t do that anymore)
2) See 10 Downing Street
3) Find out from a Beefeater at the Tower of London what the
moat was used for (His response: The crapper)
4) Eat Lunch at the ‘Hung, Drawn, and Quartered’ pub across
from The Tower
5) Get his picture taken with a Queen’s Guardsman
6) See Big Ben
7) See Westminster Abbey
8) See Piccadilly Circus
He had a set of questions to answer and photographs to take
to prove he had completed his mission.
Eric whined like a little girl.
“I don’t have time for this!”
“I’ve got work to do!”
“C’monnnn you guys, I’m serious!”
But he was assured his ticket home was in jeapardy. Reluctantly he went. This week while cleaning my desk I found these
pictures from Eric’s Big Day Out. I got $10 that says he never went back. Enjoy.
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