I wish I had my game on this morning.
Awhile ago, with a different publisher, I traveled with our VP of manufacturing to the Ann Arbor, Michigan, area to evaluate potential book printers. That region is filled with lots of firms specializing in short- and medium-sized runs. The shops varied from the casual, grass-roots-style, mom-and-pop place to the slicker, suit-and-tie kind of place. Our last visit was to a large, prestigious printing company right in Ann Arbor and they had a Power Point show ready for us, and a bunch of executives in suits around the conference table. I was resistant and pictured my staff working better with the Birkenstock-clad CSRs back at another place. But one young guy gave us a pretty impassioned presentation and I've always been a sucker for good-looking charts and graphs and P&Ls, so I listened attentively. When the meeting ended all the executives jumped up and heartily shook our hands, except the young guy, who stayed back behind the tabletop podium. The executives and our VP moved out into the hallway, sounding a lot like the suits at an annual campaign fundraiser. The young guy finally got up and came around to shake my hand. I happened to look down and saw that he was wearing one black tassled slip-on on his left foot, one brown penny loafer on his right. When I looked up he had a Mona Lisa grin on his face. Could be his Monday morning mishap (he had said, sheepishly, "I got dressed in the dark") won him our contract.
3 comments:
Great little tale. I wonder if his bosses ever knew how valuable an "other" could be around their place.
On an unrelated note, you mentioned Paul Gruchow on my blog a couple months back. Did you see this?
Yes, I did! That's the book I wish I had published (and, in fact, had just proposed putting together a similar book a month or so ago). I'm looking forward to reading it.
And I'm saving a lunch hour to read some of your newest posts. . . .
That sure would have been a fun project to work on. I've accumulated a stack of books to read taller than usual, so I'm not sure when I'll get around to reading it. Hopefully sometime this winter. :) Hope you'll share your thoughts if you do get a chance to read it first.
Cheers.
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