We Have the Meets.

Lately, as the malaprop spins, my Christmas tree has been lighting up like a switchboard, with calls coming into GeorgeCo., LLC, a Delaware Company like classified documents in a Mar-a-Lago toilet.

My father never actually said this, though he might have had he been sober, and I find myself saying to many of those who call, "As my father never said, 'you don't make any money saying 'no' to assignments.'"

That's all to say, unless someone presents themselves to GeorgeCo. as a humorless, demanding and impatient needledick, I'll usually try to find a way to make things work. 

What I've found along the way is fairly simple but no less profound. Somehow work begets work and nothing gets you more work than having too much work. I've been at a few "hot" agencies during my long holding-company-years, at that was true working for them, too. When you have too much work, you get more work. That usually works out. And you work out a way to do the work while getting more work.

Besides, there is a certain karma and in Robbie Blake's phrase, 'fearful symmetry' in the world. I've seen it over and over again, when you're fundamentally decent to people, good things eventually come to you, most often when you least expect it, and many times, regardless of their circuitousness, from those same people you went the extra mile for. 

For about 40 years, my wife has marveled at my extraordinary 'Kab Karma,' and my ability to find a parking space right in front like I'm a detective in a 1970s-era TV cop show. I can almost always get a cab--at rush-hour in the rain--and I can almost always get a space near the restaurant we're going to, far from the good ol' neighborhood hot-wirer-rascals. I believe it's because I've always talked to cab-drivers about their home countries or how their day's going or the music they're playing on their radio. And I always tip well. 

As they say in the bagel factory, what goes around comes around.

I met an old partner for a quick cuppa coffee this morning at New York's noisiest coffeeplace, a little dust-bunny of a dump underneath the Park Avenue overpass across from Grand Central called Pershing Square. 

As e.e. cummings might have writ, but dint,

we sang our didn't and danced our did
Women and men (both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all,

we sowed our isn't and reaped our same
sun moon stars rain

Women and men(both dong and ding)

summer autumn winter spring

reaped their sowing and went their came

sun moon stars raim

In other words, we talked about jobs, kids, wives,

losses, and mostly

laughed our laughs and cried our sighs

and had our coffees,

phones besides.

Take my nose, please.

When N. asked how my business was going, I answered as II

often answer, like a Sphinx trained with a Borscht Belt sense of 

melancholic humor.

"N," I said. "I run a catering business. Someone needs a

platter for fifty, I'm on it. I bust my ass to get them a platter like

they've never had before. That platter is my bread and butter."

N wasn't aware quite yet I was speaking in metaphor.

"I also run a deli. If someone's in a rush and they just want a

turkey on a hard roll, light mustard and a sour, I've have it in five

minutes. Big or small, it doesn't pay to say no to an order.

"Today, I'm making sandwiches. I'll sell a lot of individual

sandwiches. I also have a couple of giant platters due in about

eleven days. I'll be doing those, too. Maybe not front burner, but

they're marinating."

In other words, you make your money.

You do your work

You try to slay

the inner-jerk

We left our leavings and officed our lives

We wayed our subs and subbed our ways

We breaded our earns and earned our bread,

Winter, summer, autumn, June,

We'll havanutter cuppa soon.

e.e. tannenbaum