- May 29, 2015
- 3,794
- 113
In my past career, I had to clean up a PR fiasco when an engineer and operations director thought it would be a good idea to build an electric substation (to feed an expansion project for a marijuana growing operation) in the middle of a small town neighborhood. By "in the middle" I literally mean in what used to be a front yard (house burned down, neighbor bought the lot and sold it to the company). Fixing this involved lots of meeting with customers in their homes, having sandwiches and lemonade with little old ladies, etc.
The first time I met with one of the community advocates, she and her husband were very hospitable. They were ferocious Cub fans (I'm a Cardinals fan, but we bonded over baseball). At one point, her husband said, "You must get sick of having to meet with people and having them just yell and be mad at you?" I told him, "Before this, I worked in the call center. People from all over could call the 800 number and yell at me and be mad."
He asked, "Do you get to go home to peace and quiet then?"
I said, "A wife and four kids. You know how that can go."
He laughed and asked, "Well, what do you do to get away from all that and relax?"
"Umpire."
The laughter didn't stop for five minutes.
