Lenny's Day

The story I’ve chosen for this week’s blog assignment was told to me by Lenny, a former supervisor from the airport. I won’t say which airport, but I’ve only worked at three of them. Lenny was always very open with me about the office politics at the airport and the hurdles or barriers people placed in your way when you were simply trying to get things done.

In this particular story, Lenny tells me about the time he was trying to procure a transmission for one of the airport maintenance vehicles. He tells me that it would be easiest to just use the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) Ford contract we have in place with a local dealership, but that would eat up dollars we could use towards other important repairs. Instead, he wanted to use our company credit card, as the purchase was under the $3,000 threshold for one-time purchases using the credit card. When Lenny checked with Joan in our Procurement Department about doing this, Lenny was first met with silence on the other end of the phone. Joan didn’t have any idea what to do with Lenny’s request. Naturally, Joan said she would get back to him with an answer. So, a day goes by and Lenny hasn’t heard a word from Joan. Lenny calls Joan to find out if she’s got an answer, but Joan doesn’t answer the phone. So, another day goes by and Lenny tries calling again. Still no answer from Joan. At this point Lenny decides to drive over to the administration building, which is on the other side of the airport and speak face-to-face with Joan about this issue. When Lenny arrives at the Procurement office, he goes to Joan’s desk and starts to ask her about an answer to his question from 3 days ago. Lenny says Joan looked befuddled and told Lenny she didn’t know what he was talking about. Dazed and pretty much confused, Lenny repeats his question to Joan that he asked her 3 days ago. Once again, Lenny is greeted with silence and says Joan didn’t have an answer for him. At this point, Lenny is pretty much ready to blow his top from anger and frustration, but he makes a good decision and leaves the office before he can scream into Joan’s face. The next day, which is now four days since his initial request, Lenny calls Joan’s boss, Sherita, to try and get resolution. Well, guess what? Sherita doesn’t answer her phone either! So, Lenny emails her and Joan with the same question from earlier that week in the hopes one of them would respond. Another day goes by and no answer from either Joan or Sherita and now we’re into the weekend. As Monday rolls around, Lenny decides to drive back to the administration building and confront Sherita about using his credit card to purchase the transmission. Lenny approaches Sherita and again asks his question. Strangely enough, Sherita has an answer for Lenny! But she tells him that yes, he can use his credit card to buy the transmission, but he must purchase it from a qualified disadvantaged business enterprise (DBE) and not a place like AutoZone or another major parts store. Lenny tells Sherita that he doesn’t know which businesses are DBE, but he’s in luck, as she does! Sherita gives Lenny the address of a DBE that she says will take care of him, but it is 20 miles away in a not-so-nice part of the city. At this point, the airport maintenance vehicle has been inoperable for over a week and Lenny decides to play along to see where this goes. Lenny says he drove down to the city and found an old garage shop at the address Sherita gave him. Inside, he found a guy sleeping with his feet up at 9 AM and literally had to wake the guy up. Once the guy wakes up, Lenny tells him what transmission he needs, and the guy disappears into the backroom for 20 minutes. Later, he emerges from the backroom with a transmission in his hand, prints up the receipt and gives it to Lenny. He looks at the receipt and sees that the price was $4,000. Lenny tells the guy that he can get the same transmission from the dealer for about $2,500, but the guy doesn’t budge. Lenny ends up leaving the shop and returns to Sherita’s desk with the news. Now Sherita tells Lenny if the price exceeds the $3,000 credit card limit, he won’t be able to use the card. Lenny returns to his office and calls the OEM Ford dealership and orders the transmission for $3,000.

In the end, Lenny was simply trying to do what was right, which was get the car fixed in a safe and cost-efficient way. He could have saved himself from going through this nightmare of a scenario if he had just bought the transmission from the dealership in the first place, but to his credit, he was not only trying to save the airport money, but also keep his budget in place for future use. In closing, Lenny tells me that this same story happened to him at least 10 more times during his 30-year career at the airport and that THIS story was one of the more timid experiences he had dealing with the Procurement Department.

In my reflection of Lenny’s story, I think about all the other stories he told me while we worked together. Lenny had a way of being very detailed but left enough up to me to fill in the blanks with my own imagination. In this story, the message he was trying to get across was to be prepared for other people’s nonsense, because it will happen. Lenny very effectively prepared me for years of chaos and banging my head against the wall because some people just don’t want to do their jobs. In many ways, Lenny was right on point with his analysis. He didn’t need to elaborate any further, because I had also seen this with my own eyes before coming to work with Lenny and he knew this. As you share your past personal experience or relate your vision of the future, you create a Felt Sense in your audience (Whalen, 2001, p. 15). My gut feeling and reaction to Lenny’s story was congruent and matched wholeheartedly. I believe that gave him the opportunity to strike home his message, because he knew that I knew people weren’t being held accountable and therefore could simply show up to work and collect a paycheck. Lenny was teaching me what not to do and how not to behave. That was the inspirational takeaway for me! The fact is, people learn more from their mistakes than their successes (Denning, 2011, p. 22). He knew that I wanted to come to work and get things done. That isn’t always easy in a unionized environment and it certainly is more difficult when other people just don’t care.

References

Denning, S. (2011). The leader's guide to storytelling: Mastering the art and discipline of business narrative (2nd ed.). San Francisco, Calif: Jossey-Bass.

Whalen, D.J. (2007). The Professional Communications Toolkit. SAGE Publications.