Monday, October 4, 2010

Who Were Those Guys? - First Job by JV

My first permanent job in the paper industry was with a very unique company in Florida. I say unique, because they didn't have to answer to a board of directors. They also had some "traditions" which probably lived on longer than they should have. One of those traditions was you couldn't drive your car to the airport if you were on company business. You had to schedule a company chauffeur to pick you up in a limo.

On one return trip, I was with the head of environmental services - and - in those days - every trip went through Atlanta. The joke was, even if you were going to heaven, you still had to stop in Atlanta. Our flight from Atlanta was on Southern Airways. They're slogan was, "Everyone gets treated like first class" - because they had no first class on their flights. So, it was really like "no class" instead of first class.

Anyway, the head of environmental services and myself were seated beside a gentleman who was obviously well connected. We knew this because he made a point of talking about himself the whole trip. He also was dressed for the part - while we were dressed in leisure suits (or equivalent paper mill supervisor fare).

We landed at a small airport and walked to the terminal (in those days they would bring stairs up to the plane and you would walk outside). Just as our luggage arrived, so did the chauffeur. We pointed out our bags and he proceeded to pick them up. I watched the face of our new friend - and you could see the wheels spinning in his head.

He finally couldn't take it any longer and came up and said, "Now, who did you guys say you were?" We gave him our names, and nothing more, except to ask if our chauffeur could drop him any place. He declined, but watched us all the way to the limo. I've often wondered who he thought he had met.

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