The Longest Year Ends

Getting There was Quite a Trip

We were now perking along with the outline and plan we had devised to meet what we thought Rich wanted.

Rich told me that he didn’t want to hear from me until it was completed. So, I again followed his direction and did not contact him, even though he sat no further than 50 feet from me.

That didn’t last long.

Within a week or so he would call me into his office and ask me why he hadn’t heard from me about the progress we were making. At first this threw me and I would fumble for an explanation, not daring to say. “Because you told me not to”.

I spoke with one of his other reports, whom he was quite fond of. She told me how to handle the situation and not get put off by it. I was instructed to let him rant and when done, to proceed with the update. It worked and when I got a call to see Rich, that is just what I did.

Rich and I never were close and I had always had a tough time reading and understanding him. That started when we first met and never improved over time.

When he first was hired as the new company president, he visited all of the managers. At the time, I was the Manager of Project Engineering and was…