Thanks for posting this...good advice.
Jim
'67 TR-4A
'68 GT6
'73 Spit6
http://www.geocities.com/britishiron2000
Mark Hooper <mhooper@digiscreen.ca> wrote:
It's amazing how the big events in life are heralded by the small ones.
I drove my TR6 to the office today since the weather is nice, but the rest of
the week promises to be wet. "Better drive it", I thought, "since you never
know when you'll get the next nice day and the summer season is starting to
close in." Nice ride in and glad of the decision.
I just got a call. A young friend and colleague from past days has died
suddenly in his sleep, at 31 years old. He was a young computer technician when
I hired him for a technical section some years ago. He took a while to get
going, but then started to bloom. Always dressed very smartly because he seemed
to know that to go places you have to look like you're ready. When the
directors and managers were struggling with equipment installation failures, he
wrote the manual for the other techs to use in assembly.
A year and a half ago, having left the company, he started a computer network
and service business. I gave a little advice from time to time for which he was
excessively grateful. His business has been doing very well and growing by
leaps with 9 employees already, because he was such a friendly and modest but
go-getting fellow that you wanted to give him your business if you possibly
could. At our last lunch only a few weeks back, he was so full of plans and
hopes for the future and doing so well, having started from a modest beginning,
I was sure one day I would be saying "I knew him when...". I've still got all
his latest marketing plans and ideas on my desk. He was the key to it. His
employees are distraught. It just breaks your heart.
I recall some of the snobbish attitudes that the degreed engineers and managers
had toward him at the start. They didn't warm to this technician in a suit with
a slight stutter. They surely didn't seem to accept the concept if the student
isn't learning, you sometimes have to look at the teacher. Recently, I've taken
a few moments of vicarious pleasure recounting his success to old "admirers".
More importantly, for such a "lowly" guy, he sure seems to have made friends.
I've been getting calls from Atlanta to Toronto and all over Montreal from his
friends and colleagues to tell me the sad news. I know that life doesn't come
with any promises, but this just doesn't seem fair.
So next time you hear that it might rain tomorrow, drive your Triumph today.
You never know.
Mark
1972 TR6
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