Wednesday Weblog for June 12, 2024 | |
“The best way to help your consumers with your business is to treat your employees right so they give better customer service, empower them so they can provide faster solutions, and to treat your vendors and partners fairly and with respect so they can continually provide the best product and services to their ability. - Strong by Kailin Gow” | |
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This week I am completing a 2-week trip to Nashville and Cincinnati, so I thought it would be a good idea to republish this story that appeared more than 2 1/2 years ago. In Nashville for the Country Music Association annual bash, and in Cincinnati for a great client. Still a long time to be living out of a hotel, or should I say six hotels by the time the trip is complete. Six hotels and way more than 2,500 driving miles.
Easy to justify repeating this story, especially because someone recently asked me about my college experience.
Today's story was 25 years in the making and there is story within a story, about Charmin. Of course.
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Many people have heard this story, and most have been surprised that it took me 25 years to graduate from the University of Massachusetts. You can look it up. I entered in the fall of 1969 and my diploma is dated 1994. The math is easy to calculate, and the story is easy to tell.
I was originally in the Class of 1973 but dropped out for a semester in my first senior year for financial reasons and needed a full year to catch up. My second ‘senior year.’
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I had moved off campus and gone into business with three other guys, a business that didn’t do that well and found us living in the Amherst Motel, a two-room hotel ‘apartment’ (exaggeration) with a living room-kitchen and a large room with four beds. Not bedrooms, but beds.
I could give you a lot of reasons for my marginal progress as a student, but the bottom line was, I didn’t apply myself enough to get the job done. In fact, my last year, my soon to be wife helped me with my tuition, and also would occasionally leave a bag of groceries by our front door, usually just in the nick of time.
When I returned to school after a semester off, I busted my butt and ended up raising my GPA and making the Dean’s List those last two semesters, but…
The ‘but’ was that in my Consumer Behavior class, you know Marketing 401 or something, the graduate assistant teaching the class gave me an “Incomplete,” for reasons still unknown. No problem, you say, just handle it.
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In those days, and maybe still today, you went through a Graduation Ceremony, your diploma was mailed you afterwards, once all the grades were in.
· As luck would have it, the aforementioned teacher disappeared and could not be found. (Pre-internet, remember).
· As better luck would have it, I already had a job by the time I was notified that I wouldn’t be getting that piece of paper.
· As even better luck would have it, I was newly married, had other priorities, and a different piece of paper.
So, I did what anyone would do if their teacher disappeared, and then moved away, and they got married: not a damn thing. I didn’t do anything. I just let it ride.
It nagged at me at little bit, for sure. I have always been a ‘finisher’ and this was a (secret) black mark on my life. I had attended college for five years, was in debt (I paid $49.86 per month for seven years because tuition was less than $300 per semester) and had no degree to prove it.
Just so you don’t think less of me, I never lied about it. My resume always stated: ‘Attended University of Massachusetts 1969-1974.’ Was it my problem if hiring managers jumped to conclusions?
Quite frankly, it was the knowledge gained and the experience of college and living in a fraternity and playing on the soccer team that facilitated my career, not a piece of paper.
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After a few years, we moved to California, even further from Amherst, and even further from resolving. I moved up the ladder, without the piece of paper. Then, after a few more years, we moved to Memphis, still working up the ladder without the piece of paper.
Sometime in the winter of 1994, the nagging thought in the back of my brain got to me, and I decided to look into what it would take to get the piece of paper that wasn’t hanging on my wall. I made some calls.
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First, I checked with the University of Memphis and learned that they had a summer course in Consumer Behavior for three credit hours. I needed four but felt I could work something out. Then I called the Marketing Department at UMass. I’ll never forget what the person on the phone said: “Mr. Doherty, we didn’t have computerized records when you were here, so we’ll have to look in the basement for your file. Can you call back in a couple of weeks?’ No problem.
At this point I wasn’t sure if any, or all, of my previous college work would count, or if it had expired. In the hope that things would go my way, I registered for the 7:00 am Summer Session class in Memphis and dutifully called back the Marketing Department at the business school in two weeks.
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I’ll never forget what the same person I had spoken to the first time on the phone said: “Mr. Doherty, were you in Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity?’ Shocked, I meekly answered in the affirmative. She said: “The Dean would like to speak with you.” Totally freaked out, and not sure what was happening or why, anticipating bad news, like I had to do all four years over again, the Dean got on the phone and said: “Ed, this is Eric. You’re going to do the work.”
As you can imagine, I was confused for a minute and then it dawned on me. The voice was familiar. Then I realized that Eric, the Dean, was a fraternity brother and past president of Phi Sigma Kappa back in the day. He grilled me on why it took me so long and why now. He then repeated the message that I had to do the work.
His message was: “We’ll work with you to get your degree, but we’re not just giving it to you, you have to do the work and attend the classes and get a passing grade.”
Deal, Eric. It’s a deal.
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So, a few weeks later I started the class and of course I was the oldest student in the room. I was approved for the three credits and an independent study credit in Marketing (I had to prepare a Marketing Plan for the company I was working for). I was pursuing something called a ‘Degree in Absentia.’ And of course, I had just started a job with that company that required some national travel. So of course, I did a lot of homework on a plane.
Of course, it took me a while to figure out how to get an A in the course.
· Of course, at the beginning, I took copious notes and read all the material. Got a C on the first exam.
· Then, due to travel, I read less of the book and spent more time on the notes. Got a B on the second exam. Hmm.
· After that, I didn’t open the book. Instead, I memorized the notes every week and aced every other test, including the final. Teacher notes are important. I ended up with four credits with an A, and a degree. (FYI, I still have the textbook and have referred to it more since the class than in the class).
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There was one incident in the class that is hard to forget. It has to do with Charmin Ultrasoft and me. The teacher was talking about the difference between ‘commodity items’ and ‘differentiated’ items and said that toilet paper was a commodity. I raised my hand to disagree. The twenty-somethings in the class knew they were in for a treat, and they got it. I debated with the professor for a few minutes that I’m very sure everyone enjoyed.
The next day, I got to the classroom early so I could arrange to have waiting on the teacher’s desk a roll of Charmin Ultrasoft, not an apple. No message, no comment.
Of course, when the rest of the class filed in there were giggles galore (what a cute phrase that is: giggles galore). The teacher looked at the toilet paper, looked at me and didn’t say a word. The following day, at the start of the class she said something like: “Toilet paper is not a commodity product, thank you Mr. Doherty.”
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One day in the Winter of 2010, after we'd moved back to Massachusetts, I was performing my duties as Advisor to the fraternity and, on the way back to the house from the administration building, I decided to stop in the new wing of the business school to see how it came out. As I was wandering around the lobby, this guy is walking down the stairs and says: “Can I help you?” I said “No, I helped to pay for this with a donation, so I wanted to see what it looked like.” | |
He said to me: “Me, too.” I turned and saw his face and simply said to him: “Hi Eric.” It was the Marketing Dean and fraternity brother I had met 40 years before, and who, 15 years before, had supervised my degree in absentia.
We went next door and had a coffee and covered the decades since we’d both lived in the house. As we were leaving the last words I said to him were: “Eric, I want you to know that I really did do the work.” He said: “Of course.”
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Surprise Photo at the End | |
Joe's Positive Post of the Week | |
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Ed Doherty
774-479-8831
www.ambroselanden.com
ed-doherty@outlook.com
Forgive any typos please.
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