The 3 Story Rule

When deciding whether or not to leave a place you work, one factor to consider is 'do I have three good stories from this place before I leave.'

I teach people how to become counselors in the field of addiction and how to do clinical supervision.  Often times I get people who are burnt out; ready to start another career, or are just very unhappy in the jobs they have currently.  My advice has always been steadfast:  don’t leave your job until you have at least three good stories.  If you don’t have three good stories, you haven’t been there long enough and need to give it more time.  Of course this doesn’t apply for those who are in abusive situations.  In an abusive situation, I hopefully give people good advice for them to figure out if they need to move on within an organization.  However, I find this ‘three story’ piece of advice a humorous, anecdotal way of measuring how long you’ve been there and if you’re ready to leave or not.  It usually takes a person months or years to get at least three good stories from an organization.  I never figured it could take less than a week.

 

DAY 1 – All Tied Up

 

It was my first day on the job, I started working my dream job; Executive Director.  I was the boss finally, and coming from a string of jobs in which I really couldn’t stand my boss, I was determined to be a good boss and make a good impression.  The organization was a small, outpatient drug/alcohol treatment facility located in suburbia.  This company was a staple in the county, and recently had been rocked by administrative mismanagement.  It was rocked so hard financially, that it was questionable whether the organization could survive.  However, the Board of Directors weathered the storm, and started the process of repairing the organization’s reputation and fiscal operations.  The first order of business was hiring a new Executive Director; somebody who could take this place and turn it around.  This person needed to possess many qualities in order for the board to hire him or her.  These qualities included a rock solid reputation; impeccable management skills; confidence; good people skills; and knowledgeable of most operations of the substance abuse field.  This person needed to come in and show the staff that they were in charge, capable, and bring a sense of stability to an organization that was in constant crisis.  There had to be a wealth of knowledge and they had to exude confidence, for this was an organization submerged in both fiscal and personnel related drama and it needed a strong captain that could steer it out of that abyss and back into productivity.  All those thoughts swirled in my head as I stood, a*s in the air, and my face three inches from the oncoming blades of the paper shredder. 

            I had just started my new job, and was setting up my office with all my accoutrements:  my 3-D Matrix II movie poster; autographed Braveheart poster; white water rafting photos and poster sized drawings of my two favorite rivers, the Gauley and the Chattooga; framed memorabilia of my favorite band, Rush; framed licenses and degrees; a brown, Spanish era matted wall hanging that I stole from a restaurant I worked at 20 years ago as a reminder of my propensity to do misdeeds during my years under the influence; and other assorted knick-knacks that I had collected from previous employments.  These knick-knacks were the physical reminders of the other jobs; sentimental objects.  It took me a number of hours to take that room which would become my longstanding office and make it my own.  I had to move things around, set things up and remove things I felt didn’t belong.  One such thing was an extra computer desk. 

 

I was hours into my office restoration when I wheeled out the portable computer desk and rolled it into an office that was being used part-time by a secretary.  As I tried to find space for this portable desk, I knew I would have to move some things around in order to make it fit.  One thing that I had to move in order to make the desk fit was a medium sized, black paper shredder.  I went to pick up the shredder to move when I first realized the awful truth … my tie had become caught in the shredder.  Shredders shred, it’s what they do best; and as they shred, they make the thing being shredded smaller and smaller until poof it’s gone!  This wasn’t your average home shredder, it was an office shredder that touted it could shred CD’s, so my tie really no issue for it.  It probably took me 0.32 seconds to realize I was caught, and then the rest of my time was spent trying to get un-caught. 

 

I tried pulling away, it pulled me towards it … 1.5 seconds have elapsed.  I tried lifting the shredder; a child’s solution really as that did nothing but allow me to stand upright as the shredder came closer to my face; looking like some grotesquely oversized electric razor … 3.7 seconds have slipped away.

 

Time was running out as my tie wasn’t that long anymore.  Panic now set in as I’ve never known the outcome of putting ones face next to the blades of a shredder but each second I was coming closer to finding out.  I tried to find the off switch on this little satanic machine, but my panic would not allow such an orderly search.  Finally I reached for the plug and ripped it out of wall socket and the beast finally came to rest.

 

So there I was, first day on the job, needing to convince a battered staff that the right person was on the job to save the organization:  my a*s in the air; face three inches from surface of the shredder and on the level of my knees; and a tie that was jammed and not coming out despite my greatest efforts.  The momentary relief that came when the machine turned off was quickly swallowed by the abject horror of my situation.  It was at that moment when all those thoughts about the qualities I was supposed to be possessing flooded and panicked me. 

 

If I was caught by my staff in this state, they would likely either quit or at the very least increase their anxieties about their job stability.  Personally, if I found me there, I’d be like ‘HO-LY S**T what kind of sad f**k did we just hire?’ and then search the newspaper for a new job that night.  I couldn’t call for help and I couldn’t get my tie out.  I had to laugh, but not too loud as it could attract attention.  I needed to figure a way out.  As I scanned the details of the shredder I found a couple of interesting details.  I found the reverse switch, which didn’t help now because I unplugged it and didn’t want to risk plugging it back in.  I also found the warning messages, right by the shredding teeth.  They were cool; my favorite being the picture of a tie with a red circle around it and a line through the red circle. 

 

“No tie eh?” I chuckled quietly to myself, “No s**t.”

 

Fortunately three inches was enough for me to loosen the tie from around my neck and be able to tightly wriggle it off my head.  As soon as I was freed, I looked around, poked my head out of the office, to see if anyone saw me or heard the commotion.  How nobody found out was miraculous to me, but I was left with a shredded tie wedged in this shredder.  I plugged it back in and hit the reverse button, but it was now truly jammed and would not reverse out.  I put my foot on the f****r for leverage and tried to pull it, but it wouldn’t budge.  The shredder was now jammed with my tie and my ability to get out of this without anybody’s knowledge was defeated.

 

I was left with no alternative but to call in my executive assistant who laughed her a*s off, and then gave me one of those ‘I’m sorry hon.’ looks accompanied by the sympathetic pat on the shoulder.  After I re-enacted my encounter with the beast, we worked together to free the tie.  I did my best to make light of it, as I firmly believe if you can’t laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at? 

 

My first day on the job coincided with a board meeting, and I felt the need to explain why I was attending the board meeting in such a casual manner.  They were quite amused with the story.  Why the board didn’t fire me, I don’t know; I’ll have to ask them one day.   Why my executive assistant didn’t quit shortly thereafter I don’t know; I’ll have to ask her one day.  The tie now lies with my other knick-knacks … where sentimental memories are stored.

 

DAY 2 – I see dead … things

 

I think my mindset on Day 2 was that of wanting to exude confidence to my staff.  I wanted to appear knowledgeable and in charge.  I had no idea whether my executive assistant kept Day 1’s story to herself or if she spread the great news to the rest of the staff.  I wasn’t getting wayward looks from others, so I hoped for the best.  I still needed to let my executive assistant Jackie know that I was competent, but I needed to make it look natural; not pressured or forced. 

 

Just the thing I needed fell onto my lap when I entered her office around mid-day.  I had asked her about a question regarding the computer system, and she then went to her office and proceeded to log in.  I watched her type in the login name, of hsharpe.  Knowing her last name wasn’t Sharpe, I asked whose login name she was using.

 

“Henry Sharpe” she replied.

 

The name did not ring a bell so I asked “Who is Henry Sharpe?”

 

“Oh he used to work here, he was a beloved employee; everyone knew and respected him.”

 

“So he resigned?” I asked.

 

“No, he’s dead.”

 

“He’s dead?”

 

“Yes …”

 

“You’re logging in as a dead man?”

 

“Uhm … yes.”

 

“Why?” 

 

This was a simple question with no real simple answer.  The issue was this company was failing on all fronts; no upkeep was occurring anywhere, even with the computers.  Nobody knew how to add users to the Windows Server, and so they logged on as the dead and fired, the laid off and the resigned.  Nobody had their own identity.  After hearing this sorrowful tale, I told Jackie that her solution was at hand.  I have been taught by a guru of multiple computer systems, my friend Shaun.  He was a windows and UNIX guru, and taught me enough to be dangerous.  I pretended I could be a systems admin, which I still pretend, but my knowledge is limited to file sharing, adding users, setting up securities and some network and internet knowledge.  This task was firmly in my knowledgebase, and so I told Jackie that she would no longer have to use the dead to log on, and could have her own network identity.

 

“Where’s the network server?”

 

“It’s located in your office.”

 

“It is?  I’ve seen an 8 year old gateway workstation in my office … NO, that’s the server?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“O.K. lets get you on the network.”

 

I proceeded to turn on the old, barely functioning monitor, broke out the dusty keyboard, and logged in to add Jackie as a user.  As soon as she gave me the administrative password, I typed it in.  I logged on, went to computer management and went to add her as a user when we both heard:

 

‘CRACK’

 

“What was that?” she asked. 

 

“I don’t know, I barely work here,” I replied half jokingly.

 

But the crack coincided with the operating system shutting down.  At first it froze, but then about 15 seconds later it just went black.  The computer going black coincided with Jackie asking me “You smell smoke?”

 

“Yep.”  Upon investigation the server was in flames.  I guess Henry Sharpe wasn’t too keen on being deleted from the system, or the computer was suicidal, waiting for the right time to self destruct.  The flames were fairly significant and I had to rush to unplug everything and run the computer outside to extinguish the flames.

 

Worse than causing a small fire was the aftermath.  It seems this little ragtag organization didn’t understand the basics of IT; the ‘server’ was just an old workstation, no tape backups, no mirrored raid drives, nothing.  The computer froze and then self-destructed as if it were in a mission impossible episode.  All information was lost, even when I later sent the hard drive out to a company for possible data restoration.  Years of progress notes, funding raising information, memos and contact lists went poof.  My executive assistant Jackie was pissed.  All her information gone and in her mind I’m sure she thought ‘dopey the tie shredder’ caused it.  She held back as best as she could but you could see the disdain and anger in her face.  Curse you Henry the dead dude!

 

Day 3 – Machines are running smooth, now throttle down on the choke.

 

It took some doing, but my wife convinced me to go to work on day three.  I figured somebody somewhere was trying to tell me something.  It was obvious to me that the machines did not want me there.  I went to work understanding that before I could continue working to help make the organization fiscally sound, before I could make the staff feel at ease and secure, I had to make peace with the equipment. 

 

I got to work and immediately set off to have secret meetings with all electronic devices in the office.  I went to each major piece of equipment and gave them a message of peace and potential prosperity; that even though I was a white man, I had no ill intentions to destroy or otherwise make things worse off for them.  Where there were machines within view of other employees, such as the copier, I stood over the piece of equipment, rubbing it with my hand.  Because people would have called 911, I did not dare speak out loud, but instead attempted telepathic communication with it.  My final cleansing ritual consisted of going back to my office, shutting my door and trying to become one with the great appliance spirits.  I tried to make it so my brain’s electrical impulses transcended my body and transmitted to the greater electronic collective.

 

Laugh at me if you must, but it worked.  I still get the random computer workstation problems, but what organization doesn’t.  The machine world still communicates to me through the security system.  This system goes off randomly; late at night, and I then get a call from the alarm company that the police have been dispatched.  I know it’s really the machines telling me they are watching, and warning me that they have the power to invoke the authorities if need be.

 

I had no incidents on that third day.  I went home satisfied that my techniques, as out of the box they may have been, worked. I was satisfied that whatever caused the disturbance had moved on, went into the light, whatever … I was just glad to not have the building collapse on me.  Then on my way home came the phone call.

 

“Alex!” decried my frantic executive assistant Jackie.

 

“What’s the problem?!”

 

“I just got a call from the job, there’s an incident at work?!”

 

“Did the copier attack somebody?”  It was an honest guess and a likely probability given the first two days I had there.

 

“No, Morning Dewdrops is choking on something and nobody in the office is able to help her.  They’ve called 911 but she can’t breathe.”

 

‘Morning Dewdrops’ is a woman born with the name Mary Wienreb.  She is, or was, unsure really, a Jewish woman in her 60’s.  She told me that late in life she found out that she was of Indian decent, specifically the Algonquian Indians.  That all seemed fine with me until I started hearing what others were saying.  Interesting thing people; get on their bad side, for whatever reason and they’ll dig up, or make up, the best crap about you.  S**t that will make even the most pristine among us look like a crack w***e.

 

The running story I received was that this discovery late in life occurred when her great, great grandmother came to her in a peyote induced hallucination.  Grandma apparently told her she’s not a Jew after all; she was in fact an Algonquian Indian whose direct lineage could be traced to the family of Pocahontas.  They stated she had this epiphany when doing a vision quest in Arizona.  I’m sure that’s not the story she actually told others, but the 7^th revision of it that spread and changed, depending on the recipients like or dislike of her.  The story concluded that people reacted so negatively to the world’s first known full blooded Jew descended from Pocahontas that she quickly moved to change her name legally to Morning Dewdrops.  She was said to not even acknowledge her birth name if you called her by it, but I never tempted such fate to her in person.  While I never asked Morning about these theories, nor fully believed them myself, some staff did.  This was most likely due to the fact that Morning Dewdrops had a unique personality, and that uniqueness rubbed others the wrong way.  This led to a plethora of pet names for her including ‘Mountain Dewdrops’, ‘Ms. Gumdrops’, ‘Morning Deer-droppings’, ‘Morning Sickness’, and ‘Morning Breath’.  After this day, Chokahontas was added.

 

By the time I got off the phone with Jackie, who was at home, and got through to somebody at work, the crisis had ended.  The sordid details were relayed to me and it turned out the incident was quite serious and nearly life threatening.  Nobody on site knew how to do CPR, even though state regulations required staff to be trained in CPR.  My clinical director was onsite, making him the person in charge at the time.  The position of clinical director usually consists of a veteran, licensed professional in charge of all the clinicians.  He was a licensed psychologist, who also happened to weigh 450 pounds.  This is not an exaggeration.  Many of my staff complained when I had first gotten there that he had broken many of the swivel chairs, and more than one staff came to me stating they would not allow him to sit in their chair.    He stated he knew CPR but when he tried it on Morning Dewdrops he physically could not get his arms around her to perform the Heimlich maneuver.  Breaking company chairs did nothing to his desire to lose weight as did this failed attempt to save his supervisee.

 

As Morning’s color started to change to blue, panic set in on the scene.  Drastic measures started being considered.  My clinical psychologist, Dr. Bombay, gave serious consideration to an emergency tracheotomy.  He actually started the preparation for this ‘procedure’ by attempting to take the ink and writing part out of a ball point pen.  It was at this point, witnessing the potential carnage that was about to ensue, that Morning took matters into her own hands, literally.  She put her fists, one in front of the other, against her diaphragm, and then ran full speed into the wall.  This actually worked and dislodged the piece of bagel and lox that was choking her … bagel and lox that I’m sure was prepared in the traditional style of Algonquian Indians of course.  She saved her own life.  I later hung up the phone with the mixed reactions of extreme relief, gratitude that Morning Dewdrops was safe, and a stinging desire to drink heavily.

 

Day 4 – You’ve got to be shitting me … again?

 

Day four consisted of critical incident review, victim consoling, and processing of this critical event to understand what was done wrong and what needs to change organizationally.  I had to fight both of the following immediate and persistent thoughts: 1) what needed to change was me finding a new job; and 2) what needed to change was me firing everyone and starting over.  The end result was that problems were solved, policies were enacted and training was setup.  The remainder of the day went by situation free.  Before I left, I visited with the machines and thanked them for their cooperation yesterday.  Then I went home.

 

As I was driving home I received a call.  The caller ID showed it was from work and I hesitated answering the phone.  Jackie’s concerned voice crackled through and this time problem was with Dr. Bombay himself.

 

“What’s wrong?” I dared to ask.

 

“He complained of being lightheaded.  I’m going to escort him out to his car.”

 

“O.K.”

 

“But I’m concerned Alex, what do I do if he faints while I’m walking him to his car.”

 

Jackie is about 5’6” tall and weighs probably 120 pounds soaking wet, so my advice came without hesitation.

 

“You let him fall.”

 

“Alex, that’s mean!”

 

“Jackie, the man is just shy of ¼ a ton; he will hurt you if you try to save him from falling.  This is a very clear cut case of ‘united we stand, divided we fall.’  (Pause and then stated in a dramatic Al Pacino, Godfather II voice) If he falls Jackie … you have to let him go.”

 

I then hung up, or was hung up on, don’t remember actually.  I was close to home, so I settled in but kept my cell phone nearby.  Something old me this wasn’t over.  Five minutes later, she called back.

 

“There’s a situation … it’s bad.”

 

“Of course it is as I’d be surprised if this had been resolved without incident.  What happened?”

 

“Well he was getting in his car, but another car parked rather close to his.  He opened the driver’s side door as far as he could and tried to squeeze in.”

 

“And he couldn’t get in and got stuck right?” I took a stab and guessed the most ridiculous thing I could think of, because it just had to be true.

 

“Yes, how’d you know?  He got stuck, and then he started to struggle and started panicking.  I tried to help him out ---”

 

“---What did I tell you about helping him Jackie!”

 

“STOP, this is serious.  He panicked, hyperventilated and fainted.”

 

“Fainted?”

 

“He’s out cold and he’s wedged in the door opening to his car.”

 

“Call 911 … hmm, maybe call the fire department.  I forget which one has the ‘jaws of life.’”

 

“YOU’RE NOT HELPING!”

 

“Does your cell phone have a camera feature?” 

 

“ALEX, I’m going to hang up.”

 

“I’m just asking?  You’d thank me 3 months from now, trust me.  (Silent pause)  Well forget that then, here’s what you do ---”

 

“WAIT! … He’s moving!”

 

Next I hear rustling sounds and then it appeared her phone was at her side because I hear a distant “You o.k. Dr. Bombay?”  After a few moments of sounds and indecipherable talking she came back on the phone.

 

“He got in the car, he appears to be o.k. and he’s refusing medical assistance.”

 

“That’s not acceptable, demand he stay there until he’s medically cleared.”

 

“He started the car and is backing out, waving me off.”

 

“You’ve got to be shitting me … at the very least tell him to drive direct to the nearest McDonalds and have him perform an emergency chocolate shakeotomy on himself.”

 

(Jackie ignored my latest comment.  This is a trait my wife has perfected) “He’s gone, I’ll talk to you tomorrow Alex.”

 

“God willing, good night.”

 

Day 5 – Assume the fetal position

 

7:15 a.m. – “Alex wake up.”  This is my usual wake up call from my wife.

 

7:30 a.m. – (shaking me as I’m still under the covers) “Hon, wake up, you’re going to be late.”

 

“I’m not going.”

 

“Oh yes you are,” she said in the way that only an irritated Italian woman can.

 

“No … I’m afraid … very afraid.”

 

“You HAVE to go; you can’t call out on your first week.”

 

“Maybe they won’t notice.”

 

“Get Up!” she said it in her ‘god you’re such a p***y’ voice.  My wife is truly her father’s daughter.  My father in law cannot handle emotions that well, and has no time for bitching and whining.  One of his famous stories is when his four year old son fell and scraped his knee, he came running to my father in law, Gaetano.  Gaetano took one look at him and slapped him in the face so hard that he stopped crying.  While my wife’s tactics are much more subdued and feminized, she has what I call her ‘Gaetana’ moments.  For example, I broke three ribs playing softball one day, and it just so happened to be the day before we were to go on a trip to Disney World.  When she first saw me, she scrunched her eyes at me, formed a scowl, and berated me about how I could do such a thing the day before our vacation.  When she was done with me she took me to the doctor.  My children come to me when they’re looking for sympathy 8 out of 10 times.  Calling her ‘Gaetana’ does nothing to alleviate the situation, but it makes me feel good.

 

At the continued non verbal threats thrown my way by ‘Gaetana’, I got my a*s up and went to work.  All was quiet, all went well. 

 

Epilogue

 

The machines continue to rebel from time to time, but in smaller, less dramatic ways.  Their voice, the security alarm, goes off every 3 months or so which is followed by a visit from the local police.

 

Jackie still works with me and, like my wife, has become quite accustomed to my style.  We work together very well and she sometimes refers to me as her work husband because of our accidental propensity to call each other hon, and our oft-time squabbling.  Great, all the trappings of marriage without the benefits, yippee!

 

Morning Dewdrops Wienreb quit 6 months after I came into the organization.  I was making changes and they did not bode well with Morning.  Before she departed, she told me that I was biased against her and she knew why.  It was because my ancestors were scalped by her ancestors.  This was the exact quote she said to me with all sincerity.  I did all I could to maintain my professional composure in that discussion; I did nothing to convince her otherwise … how could you.

 

Dr. Bombay was replaced by a lean mean licensed clinical social worker machine at around 9 months into the job.  It turns out this licensed psychologist was getting a bloated salary to match his body.  I quickly realized; I believe I even made the statement during the interview process with the board of directors that I could get a full time licensed clinical social worker for the same price as my 10 hour a week psychologist was getting me.  He wasn’t happy with my decision and did his best to make me look bad, but it didn’t work.  My board was way too happy with me to believe a word he was saying.  It was quite interesting and a story for another day.  Dr. Bombay died three years after this story took place; I can speculate why.

 

My wife still continues to have her ‘Gaetana’ moments and my kids still come to me first for solace and comfort.  Her tough moments are much less, and the kids come to her more often, which I’m sure has something to do with me teasing her with that nickname. 

 

I continue to work at this organization as of this writing, and my claim to fame is putting together a great team of people who have turned the organization around and increased its reputation not only around the county but throughout the state.  So while I have a score more than three stories from this organization, I haven’t had the urge to leave since I assumed the fetal position.

Reviews

[Alex Lifeson]

Thanks so much for your review and re-review. Yes its non-fiction, I've got the tie right behind me to prove it.

:)

[Raef C. Boylan]

Yeah, I still like it a lot.
Is this all non-fiction, because if it is, I'm glad I'm not the only one who does dopey stuff at work.
The tone is just right throughout the whole piece, and I still think the layout - intro, stories, 'epilogue' - works really well. there's something informal and note-like about it, whilst being flawless enough to be deemed professional.

Great write [still].
I hope you get some more reviews.

[Raef C. Boylan]

I really enjoyed reading this; you are very gifted at projecting your [cynical, I think] sense of humour into your writing. It's cool how this piece turned out to be lengthy, when I figured it was going to be a small article or anecdote, due to how casual the beginning was.
Basically, I don't think anyobe could flaw this really. The introduction is appealing in both tone and content, the stories you share here are amusing and well-written, and you even round off at the end by tying up loose ends - like when a movie is based on a true story. Somehoe, you hone in on your work and are able to know exactly what details are essential to get both your point and your punchline across to the reader.

I think I'll stop this review here and come back later, to put a little perspective on it - when a piece has just made you laugh, it's hard not to be generous and review it through rose-tinted shades.

Overall [at the moment], excellent work. I'm glad I came to check this out.
I agree that no matter how horrible the situation, you should always keep at it until you've extracted a half-funny anecdote from it; it's good that you've made this official here, with the 3 Story Rule.

Thanks for posting this.