FEBRUARY 25, 2024 – Whether your career has been bagging groceries, teaching generations of first-graders, pushing paper then its digital equivalent in a government office, playing clarinet for decades in a symphony orchestra, filling prescriptions at the last standing locally-owned pharmacy, restoring thousands to health in an operatory of the cardiology wing of a hospital, or working a dozer at countless construction sites, you’ve got plenty of amusing stories to tell. Work life of any kind has its share of irony and humor, along with its rewards and challenges.
I’ve had my share of laughs on the job—so much in fact, that over the decades much of the fun has formed a large blob in which constituent parts blend together, losing definition. Only by concentrated effort can details be recalled and shared for the amusement of friends.
By way of example, I shall recount a few. Among my favorite are two—quite unrelated to each other—involving . . . chairs.
The first occurred during my fourth year of practicing law. By that juncture I’d acquired self-confidence sufficient to pretend convincingly that I knew what I was doing, at least in a narrow set of contexts. One of these involved a minor row over the phone with an opposing lawyer. I’ve long forgotten what the matter was, let alone the finer points of the specific argument, but each of us was getting louder and more strident as the conversation deteriorated.
After my opponent had made a particular point, I drew a big breath to make a counterpoint. As I did I pushed against my desk. In that moment I experienced a long-standing law of physics, namely, that “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” This immutable rule is especially manifest, I discovered, when applied to an office chair with well-greased casters on a hard plastic floor mat.
The force of my shove against the desk sent me and the chair fast across the mat to the exposed carpeting beyond, upon which lots of papers from an unrelated drafting project had been strewn just before the call. Like a car skidding across an icy Minnesota highway then hitting dry pavement and flipping over, my chair tipped over when its casters left the smooth floor mat and struck the carpet.
The timing of this mishap threatened to undermine the impact of my counterpoint, which I’d just signaled with, “And furthermore . . .” I didn’t dare miss a beat, let alone disclose to my opponent on the phone that I lay flat in a fallen chair, rumpling the papers under foot . . . er, back. How would that image affect the other lawyer’s perception of me and my argument?
Simultaneously with my utterance of “And furthermore,” Tracy my secretary tapped lightly on the frosted glass of my (closed) office door and opened it to deliver a document she’d just finished typing. Though familiar with many of my idiosyncrasies, she was unacquainted with this (new) one—me talking in earnest on the phone while lying on my back in a tipped-over chair. I wondered if she’d relate to the image that right then flashed across my mind: an astronaut on his back waiting out the countdown to blast-off.
Tracy said nothing out loud, but the look on her face said, “What the . . .?!” I was going to write “hell,” except Tracy was very religious, and I couldn’t imagine her even thinking a quasi-expletive. She left on my desk the document she’d typed and stepping backwards, carefully exited my office, closing the door behind her ever so quietly.
After finishing the phone conversation, I regained my equilibrium and returned the chair to its upright position. To her great amusement I explained to Tracy the story behind the scene she’d just observed and reassured her that I was only half as insane as she had assumed.
* * *
My second chair story involved “Lou,” a voluble and well-established appraiser of commercial real estate. Every commercial real estate lawyer in the Twin Cities, it seemed, knew of or had worked with Lou. He was a tall, robust guy and knew his stuff, and he delighted in using his authoritative voice to tell you that he knew his stuff. Given his expertise, as well as his physical stature and self-assuredness, he was often called upon as an expert witness.
I remember the time Lou called me soon after I’d first met him—before I was much acquainted with his voice, disembodied as it was over the phone, which wasn’t equipped with caller I.D.
“Eric Nilsson,” I answered.
What Lou said with a voice much louder than necessary was, “Eric . . . Lou.”
What I heard was, “Eric who?” so in response I repeated myself: “Eric Nilsson,” whereupon he repeated himself with “Eric . . . Lou.”
“Eric Nilsson!” I said with puzzlement and slight irritation. Only then did he solve the mystery by saying, “Eric, it’s Lou [Smith].”
I thought this exchange was funny enough to warrant a good laugh, but Lou, being Lou, missed the humor, even when I explained my misperception and barreled ahead with the purpose of his call: to confirm his availability for a multi-party meeting the next day at my firm.
At the appointed time nearly a dozen people appeared in the nicely appointed reception area on my floor of the offices of Oppenheimer Wolff & Donnelly. I showed them into the large conference room separated from the reception space by half a dozen glass panels. Unless the curtains were drawn, the inside of the conference room was fully visible to anyone standing or walking past outside the glass.
As a showcase conference room, it was equipped with a long, wide, sturdy table suitable for international treaty negotiations, and featured enough high-end, high-backed chairs to accommodate a large delegation of visiting business people, lawyers and . . . commercial real estate appraisers.
Lou—again, being Lou—seized the chair at the head of the table. It was just as easily the foot of the table, except it had been chosen by Lou, which in his mind and the mind of everyone in the room who knew Lou, automatically made it the head.
The purpose of the meeting was to hear from the horse’s mouth, what the subject real estate was worth and the how and why of it. After everyone had taken turns at the coffee, tea, and water dispensers, the discussion got underway. Lou was given the lead and he ran with it. As the volume and intensity of his pontification increased, so did the arc of his chair as he rocked backward and forward.
Everyone at the table—except Lou—could see where this was headed. The sole question was when. Just as the probable timing of this exigency overwhelmed my concentration . . . BAM! Lou’s chair tipped over straight backwards. The big man-big chair combination made for a resounding crash, which was loud enough to sound like a large pick-up truck crashing into the 34th floor conference room.
In unison the assemblage around the table burst out laughing. Normally, they were polite and sober folk who projected a reliable façade of public decorum, but they were also well-acquainted with Lou. In his presence they would normally grant him the respect he commanded, despite his arrogance—or perhaps because of it. But in the moment of Lou’s “Rock-a-Bye, Baby!” the group’s true impression of him was exposed.
The receptionist, who’d witnessed Lou’s downfall, rushed in to see if he was okay. Lou was quick to relieve people of any regret for their spontaneous laughter. Lou—again, being Lou—easily regained his composure, returned the chair to its proper position and resumed his exhibition of knowledge, expertise, and command of the room. His seamless recovery was as extraordinary as his “Backward Ho!” chair flip. (Cont.)
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© 2024 by Eric Nilsson
