Hurry Up and Wait

The key to a successful rate of return in placing any type of cold calls is to throw the script in the trash. Know the content, but just hold a calm, confident conversation with the person on the other end of the line. Repeat approximately one hundred and seventy times over the course of three days, acting each time as if it was still really all that interesting any more.

Key word. Acting. My theatre skills have come in handy, as has my experience in phone banks. The difference is I'm all alone. My buddies and colleagues from the campaign days are hundreds if not thousands of miles away. (Still, in the back of my mind, I hear Gaffney reciting Ray Leotta's lines from Goodfellas.)

"We're having an informal meet and greet next Tuesday afternoon, here at the Tullahoma office. We're going to be discussing what goals we hope to achieve over the next year and beyond, and I'd love to hear any thoughts or suggestions you might have. I hope to get some of your input. I hope you can participate and I very much look forward to meeting you."

As I begin to hack my way through the spreadsheet of names and contact information for those who have been involved in the past, I wish I could say I'm surprised at the inaccuracy of the information contained therein. The list was created within the past several months, using data that was accumulated over the past couple of years. Needless to say, times have changed. The economy has driven people out of town. Phone lines have been disconnected. Email accounts have been closed because the providers have been acquired by other companies. Nobody has been maintaining this data.

Nevertheless, I expect a reasonable turnout of perhaps ten people in total; maybe more. Those who have answered in the affirmative represent a rather diverse group. They are come from all three of my assigned counties. They have different skills and backgrounds that can be useful in disasters. There are veterans as well as newcomers. Everybody has something to learn and everybody has something to contribute.

The real treat is that the PR director in Murphreesboro has shown support for my idea that this meeting should be open to the media. (This decision was just made during a phone conversation I had while writing this post.) She has agreed to polish the release which I took the liberty of drafting, and to send it to her contacts with the local newspapers.

Initiative. Decision. Action. Progress.

The events that took place in the near thirty minutes prior to sitting down and writing this is a story that is straight out of small town life. I sat on the edge of a table, in our front room, staring out of a side window at the roughly two and a half acre field next to the Red Cross office. There was a man walking quickly across the grass, moving his arm like a windshield wiper, parallel to the ground. I watched out the window with Chuck, our most senior volunteer:

(Start)

Me: What's he got there, a metal detector?

Chuck: Sometimes people have picnics or they hold events out there. People think they'll find something. Jewelry, something like that

Me: Well I doubt he'll find anything moving that fast.

Chuck: Nah. He's an amateur, sweeping that metal detector like he would his mother's porch broom.

Me: He's not even walking in a straight line. How the hell's he gonna know where he's been? He'll waste his time walkin' over the same ground over and over again. He's just wandering.

Chuck: Wait! He stopped!

Me: He's turning up the volume on the detector.

Chuck: Maybe he's found something! He's bending down... Think he's got somethin' there? What do you think it might be?

Me: Fifty fifty, wood screw or earring backing.

Chuck: Good guesses. Now he's got his pocket knife out and he's diggin'... He's diggin'... He's diggin'.

Me: He's gettin' up now. He didn't find anything.

Chuck: Did you see that? He just put something in his pocket!

Me: What do you think it was?

Chuck: I don't know. Who really gives a damn.

(End)

Norman Rockwell, eat your heart out.