Purely and simply, it was luck, when I encountered, just briefly, someone who did not at all look like a corporate-sort of person… that’s when I was just starting out in my career.
His hair was pretty long, as I recall — this was back in the late, swinging ’60s of the cultural revolution — and his attire wasn’t at all corporate. But there he was, a staffer in the telephone company’s PR department, where I’d just been hired to write articles in an employee publication.
And I’m thinking, this guy’s some kind of hippy, and he’s working here?
And a colleague, in the department, explained what a talented writer the guy was, and that because of his hairstyle and attire, and such, he was being kept below senior management’s radar. Imagine that! A stealthy corporate employee.
Just encountering him was really something! What’s that they say about osmosis? Maybe, just starting out in my work, through some kind of osmosis, I’d gain something, in those brief moments. Or, at other times, if he happened to stop by at the office, again.
But, he really liked music, and went on to write for Rolling Stone magazine, and he became a senior editor.
And several years later, I went on to the financial firm I was with during much of my career, and encountered someone in the corporate PR department, there, who reminded me of the phone company staffer. But with one big difference.
My financial firm colleague was in the thick of things, and had been working on some of the most difficult, challenging PR issues of that time, when the cultural revolution was still underway, and big business was the enemy. He was very much above the radar, working closely with senior management.
Paraphrasing a lyric in Bob Dylan’s music, maybe the times they were a-changin’ in some ways?
He did dress more corporate, than the phone firm guy, but he was hippyish, in a way, in the way he talked, and thought about things. And he read constantly, and could regale just about everyone with his understanding of topics and issues.
What a cool colleague he was!
From him, over a number of years — and from that brief encounter with the phone company PR guy — I learned about taking things seriously, but not too seriously.
Which brings me to here and now, and the Daily Post, where — as I’m writing about serious, concerning things — I can be serious, without being overly serious.
And that’s cool… very cool!
Harvey Radin is former senior vice president in charge of corporate communications and media relations, Bank of America Western Region. He makes his home in Redwood City, CA.