January 2007: Retirement Q1

In my September 2006 letter, I explained how I was taking an early retirement from Colgate-Palmolive. I wrote about the Voluntary Early Retirement Program which basically was, paraphrasing the Godfather, an offer I couldn’t refuse.

But, as I wrote back in September, I could not simply retire due to a combination of age, taxes and, most importantly, finances. So, I had to look for another job. I did so and was quite fortunate to find a very good and challenging position as VP of Supply Chain, for Sanford Brands NA. This letter is about my first few months in that position. Probably, I will use jargon and phrases many will not know. I will try to explain or provide web references to help.

In my last two months at Colgate, I had my digital camera with me most all of the time. I took photos of people that I worked with be they acquaintance or close friend, from CEO down to the fellow that delivered the mail on our floor. Actually, I did not take the photos. I had photos taken of me and the various people. I printed two copies of the photos. I put one copy into a photo book to remember my days at Colgate and the people I worked with. The second copy I gave to the person with whom I took the photo. I included a short note and provided my e-mail address. Here is a photo with my friend Angel De La Puente, Director of Customer Service and Logistics for Colgate-Palmolive Mexico.

Needless to say, people did exactly what I wanted them to do… they have been staying in touch. But, I have been most delinquent in responding to their e-mails mainly because of having started this new job. It has needless to say been quite busy, the busiest I have ever been. I was starting to feel guilty for not keeping in touch. People are probably thinking, “Gee whiz, he seemed so friendly and personable. Then he leaves and no word.”

It took me until Christmas to realize that I could use my letter format to communicate with one and all. This is one of the reasons I began this letter. So, I set out to pen a special edition of the letter and send to my Colgate friends. I was making good progress on it too. This month has just flown by. We bought and moved into our new home, business demands took off like a rocket too after the first of the year. So, now at the end of January, I decided to write one letter, make it my monthly letter, and bring everyone up to speed on my career move. Here is the update. It is in the point of view of being written to Colgate folks, so I will try to easy on the acronyms.
Letter to my friends at Colgate: For those of you that do not know, I write a page every morning. I have been doing this since June 25, 2002, the day I turned 49. In February 2004, I started picking a theme during the month, editing the daily entries on that theme, and sending an e-letter out to friends and family. I have been doing that every month since

I have meant to write or call each of you since I left Colgate. My last day there was September 30, 2006. It was hectic last few days enjoying the city, saying bye to my New York based friends and colleagues. My first and only week of retirement went very quickly. The weather was great. I took some nice bike rides and did all kinds of house things, getting the house ready to sell. It was not very relaxing. Note that my wife will take exception to my claiming that I “did all kinds of house things, getting the house ready to sell.” It is a matter of perception and I am sure her perception is much closer to reality! The bottom line is that first week and only week of “retirement” was not about sitting around leisurely reading that book I have been meaning to get to.

On that next Friday, October 7th, I packed like half of my clothes, some books, a few instruments, and a bicycle onto my 4Runner and drove eleven hours from my Connecticut home to Detroit. I left the rolling hills of New England for the flatlands of the Midwest. I stopped in Detroit for three reasons. It was a good place to break up a long trip. I had a nice visit with my parents and family there. Lastly, I got the chance to go to the University of Michigan vs. Michigan State University Football Game in Ann Arbor.

During that drive to Detroit, I made several phone calls to friends and family. I talked with Boris Magidenko at about the same time we would have been having breakfast together, which we did whenever both of us were in New York. In the afternoon, I got a phone call from my dotted line Office Group leader at Sanford. He called to brief me on a few things regarding my new position. The most important thing he told me was a good news bad news kind of thing. The good news was that a new Distribution Center (DC) Manager began on Monday, October 3. Cool, one less thing for me to worry about. The bad news was that this new hire had up and quit on Thursday of that same week. Sheesh… what was I getting myself into? What was I driving toward?

Sunday, I left Detroit in the morning and drove three hours to St. Mary’s College in South Bend, Indiana where my daughter Armené is a senior preparing to become an elementary school teacher. We had a nice visit and had some lunch.

Then I drove another two hours to Lake Forest, Illinois, the town we are planning to live in. I went there to look at a house that, though out of the price range, was a possibility in this soft market. Then I went to my in-laws for dinner, as they live in this town for 40+ years. You can understand why moving to Chicago is a good thing and why we are buying a home in Lake Forest.

After dinner I drove south for thirty some miles to Oak Brook where I checked into the Oak Brook Residence Inn where I have been living since October 8th. I had a one bedroom apartment with a living room and kitchenette. It is quite comfortable. First, the relocation company wanted to put me in an apartment. I checked and it was the same size as the Residence Inn rooms. After a short negotiation, the Residence Inn came out $20 a day cheaper. The Residence Inn also provided a free breakfast buffet and cleaned the room and made the bed daily. For me, choosing the Residence Inn over an apartment was a no-brainer.

The next day, October 9, 2006, I began my new job at Sanford Brands, a division of Newell-Rubbermaid. Immediately, the challenges of a new company and a new job displaced almost all sad feelings I was on the verge of having. I was feeling a little bad in leaving Colgate, leaving New York, and especially leaving all the good friends and colleagues I had at Colgate both in New York and in Latin America.

From the first day, well from the second day, I liked to use the phrase, “It is like drinking water from a fire hose” whenever anyone asked me how it was going. It was exactly that. There were so many people to get to know and things to learn. Among the many new people were three fellows. Daren is a colleague who runs manufacturing. Darryl reports to me, heading up Customer Service. Dean is also a direct report. He is in charge of materials management i.e. inventory. Dean, Daren, Darryl, three D names for three guys. I used every permutation of these names when speaking to and e-mailing these guys. It was ridiculous and I was laughing at myself… senile old retired guy!

I realized by the end of the first week of two kind of major things no one bothered to mention in the interview process. First, there five job openings in Logistics, which we call Distribution and Transportation. The Director position was open for five months. The previous director was moved to the SAP team. He was kind of doing both his new and old job. But you know SAP, it consumed 90% of his time. The Manager of Transportation, reporting to the Director retired and that job was open three months. The Warehouse Manager of one of the two DCs was fired five months. The Outbound Managers positions of both DCs were open, one for over a year and the other for six months. This was a Grand Canyon of job openings in one area. To top it off, on my third day the Imports Manager (i.e. Cross Border Sourcing) also resigned. I joked and asked him if it was something that I had said. Six key positions were open. Even my position was open for over a year.

I mentioned above that the warehouse manager was fired. Why fired? Well, in May and June of this year, the warehouse screeched to a grinding halt, glutted with inventory, and unable to ship. Someone over ordered a new imported product by an astronomical number. There was a key decision, in the same time frame, to close another warehouse and consolidate into this one. Both of these issues led to the proverbial ten pounds of coffee and a five pound can. Before anyone knew it, there were four, count them four overflow warehouses. It took an absurd number of VPs and Directors pitching in to limp through the month. December was to be another peak month and we did not want a repeat of mid-year.

On top of these two major items, we were slated to go-live with SAP R/3 and APO on February 1, 2007. Not only this, the problem warehouse I mentioned above was supposed to go-live with SAP WMS on that same date. My preliminary assessment was that the as-is processes were no where near ready nor was the business process re-engineering.
So, what happened in my first quarter? I focused, first, on filling those jobs. My goal was to have them all filled by the end of the year. I failed. January 3, 2007 was the first day on the job for the last position. OK not really a failure.

The first position filled was for the DC that melted down in June. Almost everyone believed that this facility would also falter in December. This became my #2 priority. We found a real solid warehouse man for this position, practically the perfect guy for this position. He began on November 2 and began prepping the facility for the year end volume peak. I worked to set up and implement a process to get better adherence of sales to the sales plan, improve the visibility of pending orders to the DC, and had daily meetings with Sales/Marketing and the DC to ensure everything was in sync and getting done e.g. carrier and equipment availability. We had a spectacular year end there with impressive improvements in cost and service. We had record shipping days and delivered a record shipping month in terms of sales volume.

It felt very good to come in, take over an operation, and make some things happen in short order. It felt even better to finally run my own show. After so many years of not getting it at one company, I began to believe that perhaps I was not capable. No, no. In fact, I was more than ready and capable to take on this kind of responsibility.

It was a great quarter… but this is business, and very much like Colgate, that quarter is over and done. The question is “what can you do for me now.” With a full staff and a warehouse that is a problem no longer, I have some ideas.

December 2006: Grannie

This month the choice of topic was quite easy. I decided to write about my maternal Grandmother: Azniv Merian. We have always called her Grannie. We are not really sure of her exact date of birth. We celebrate it on January 1st. January 1, 1907 is the date she gave to US authorities when immigrated here from what she always refers to as “the old country.” So, we are celebrating her 100th birthday.

Actually we never really celebrated her birthday. It is not because we did not want to but more because she did not want to. Grannie really does not enjoy being the center of attention or having any kind of fuss made about her. She would do anything for her children, grandchildren or great-grandchildren but she would react by saying “No, no, no tank you. Notink for me” to getting downright cantankerous whenever given a gift.

It is her way still. We are planning a 100th birthday party and we are all laughing and wondering if she will even attend. Even though it will only be family; that could be up to 40-50 people. Grannie’s hearing is bad and in crowded rooms, she cannot hear what anyone is saying. She quickly feels shut out and gets fustrated. But we will do something as our Grannie is turning 100, we just have to be flexible in our planning.

Grannie was born in Yeghiki a small village in what the Armenians referred to as the Kharpert Province. It is in the environs of Elazig in modern day Turkey. There are essentially no Armenians, or very few that know they have an Armenian heritage, living there today. She was born in the waning years of the Ottoman Empire and was a victim of want the Armenians call Genocide and what the Turks simply call World War I.

Grannie would never say she was from Turkey. She would mostly refer to, as described above, “the old country” or officially say she was from Armenia. When she was entering the United States, there was no Armenia and the officials wanted to put Turkey as country of origin, she refused to admit she was from Turkey.

Grannie was born Azniv Frankian. She was the youngest child Boghos and Elmas (Terzian) Frankian. She had four elder siblings. Her sisters were Khatoun, and Nazeli. Her brothers were Levon and Samuel and they all lived in Yeghiki with their grandparents Sarkis and Nonig (Baghdegian) Frankian as was the custom of the day.”

Her childhood was harsh even before the tragic events of 1915. Her grandfather seemed well off, per Grannie’s recollection, he had vineyards and the family was into shoemaking. Her father was not family oriented. He was only interested in philandering and getting himself to America. As a result, the Frankians snubbed Elmas and her children after Boghos left them to go to America on his own. There was never enough to eat and Elmas worked hard to just keep her family intact and fed. If that was not hard enough, 1915 and the massacres and deportations further disrupted the family.

Her sister Khatoun and Grannie made it to the US settling in and around Detroit. Grannie did live with her father for awhile in Keego Harbor, MI, but soon she took her Grandfather’s point of view and divorced herself from him. She would always say that “He was durty rat.” Her brother Levon escaped the Turks and is rumored to have gone to Armenia proper and we never heard anything more about him. Her sister Nazeli succumbed to some kind of cancer in Cuba en route to the US. Her brother Samuel stayed in Aleppo, Syria. I knew both Khatoun, since she lived close by, and Samuel, because he came to visit in the early 1960s.

Grannie married Levon Merian in a marriage arranged by her father. They settled in Detroit and had three children, their son Azad (Ozzie), my mother Manoushag (Violet) and my aunt Soseh (Suzanne). Azad had four children, Sandy, Leo, Ralph and Chris. My parents had four children of which I was the oldest and three daughters, Nancy named for Nazeli, Laura, and Ani. Soseh had two children Paula and Stepan. She also has fifteen great-grandchildren.

I would write more about her life but my aunt Suzie just finished a book about Grannie’s life and self-published it for the family in honor of her centennial. I have an e-draft of the book and would be happy to share it with anyone… once I get my Aunt’s permission.

So, I am going to write about my life with Grannie and my personal memories and experiences.

Classic Grannie: When Judy was pregnant with Aram, it must have been late 1980 or early 1981, Grannie called me because she had seen a television show on genetics. She was convinced, after seeing this program, that the baby would be smart because she reasoned that both parents were pretty intelligent. She was fascinated by the program and talked about various physical and personality traits that would be influenced by genetics. It was also, coincidently, the first day that Judy had felt the baby move. I related this news to Grannie. She became even more enthusiastic and asked “Who vas she looking at when she felt da baby kick?” I asked why she asked that. She responded, “Dat is who the baby will look like.” That is vintage Grannie, one foot in the modern world and another firmly planted in “the old country."

When Armené was baptized in 1986, we had the dinner at the Pine Lake Country Club in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. It was a very nice event. A good friend, Vartan Agbabian, performed selections from Aram Khachatuurian’s Album for Children on the piano. I got up to say a few words, to thank everyone for coming and to reflect on the day. I decided to add a little levity by beginning with “Thank you everyone for coming to Armené’s baptism. It is a special day for our family. It is even more special that we are having the dinner here at the beautiful Pine Lake Country Club because there is a long tradition in our family of having baptismal dinners at the Kharpert Country Club.” This comment got a few chuckles. Then Grannie, already losing her hearing, blurted out to my mother loud enough for everyone to hear, “Vat he saying? Vee don’ have no country club in Kharpert!” Everyone cracked up. As it turns out, I was the straight man, Grannie got the laughs.

During the early 1980s, in the time of mini-series that began with Roots, I was sitting at home watching television. Grannie called and simply asked, “Vat you vatching? Shotgun?” She was clairvoyant. I was watching James Clavell’s Shogun. I related this cute story to my friend and drummer in our band, Vaughn Masropian. To this day, he begins every phone call with “Vat you vatching? Shotgun?”

Grannie is well known in the family for her abrupt ending to her phone calls. After she has finished with whatever it was she was calling about, she would simply end the call with “OK, bye” and hang up. It would always catch whoever it was she called by total surprise when this happened. You knew it was coming and yet she was so quick and abrupt, we would always be caught in mid-thought or mid-sentence, left hanging on to the phone, and laughing to our selves. It got to the point that the cousins would simply end calls with “OK, bye.” But only Grannie could and would catch us off guard.

Her other classic phrase is “How stupid you could be.” You never really wanted to hear that one growing up. But, now we say it to each other all the time and laugh.

Grannie was in the hospital in the mid-1990s. She had a rather serious surgery at St. Mary’s Hospital in Livonia. She woke up during her recuperation and saw a nurse and doctor in her room. She told them, “You know I am Armenian, just like Dr. Jack Kevorkian. I bet you don’ let him in dis hospital.” She can be pretty funny.

Grannie also had an incredible green thumb. She loved her bardez or garden. She grew flowers and vegetables. She had quite a bountiful harvest supplying the entire family with cucumbers and tomatoes throughout the summer and into the fall. She had flowers everywhere, inside and outside. She would move her tropical plants indoors in the winter and back out when the weather broke. She would always visit Frank’s Nursery to see what they had, what was new. If something caught her fancy, she might buy it or, more likely, she would snip off a little sprig and pocket it. Upon returning home she would put the cutting in water and nurture the cutting into a new plant: petty larcenist and gardener extraordinaire.

I took to Armenian music influenced in no small part due to Grannie and the tapes her clarinet playing brother Samuel would send us of his band in Aleppo. After I began to playing professionally, I knew Grannie liked that I played but in the grand Armenian tradition would never come right out and say it. Once at a picnic the great John Bilezikjian was visiting from California. I invited him up to play and he really put on a good show. I was standing next to Grannie enjoying the music and she told me, “He is good. Why you don’ play like him?” Ah yes, good old fashioned Armenian encouragement.

When I took a job at Colgate in New York in 1990, Grannie was living at the St. Sarkis Senior Citizens Towers by our church in Dearborn. When I came back the first time after moving, I made the Sunday visit to the Towers to see Grannie. As I walked through the lobby, all of the other elderly Armenians were more attentive to me then they ever were. They all were asking how I was and sharing stories about their children and grandchildren, who was about to graduate and what kind of careers they had going.. When I got to Grannie’s apartment, I commented on the difference I sensed in the lobby. Grannie said, “Oh, I told dem you were Armenian Iacocca, president of Colgate.” I responded, “But, I am not.” She laughed and said, “But dey don’ know dat.” Very funny.

When she had her own car and was mobile, Grannie would attend most family gatherings. But, upon giving up her car and certainly upon moving into the Manoogian Manor, an Armenian Retirement home in Livonia, MI, she was less apt to come. She would often say yes and then at the last minute change her mind. My son Aram was an undergraduate at Michigan and would miss seeing his great-grandmother at these events. So, my now lawyer son drew up his first contract on a 3x5 card that said, “12/99 I promise to come the next time Aram is here x Agnes Merian”. He actually printed the Agnes Merian under the underline. She signed it Azniv M. in Armenian script and did, in fact, attend the next time Aram was in town. That contract is part of family history and has been posted on my Mother’s refrigerator since it was signed.

As children, we used to pile in Grannie’s 1960s vintage powder blue Ford Falcon. There would be seven or eight of us plus Grannie and my Mother or Aunts. We would go to Williams Lake in Waterford, MI. We would stop in Keego Harbor and visit Aunt Khatoun and then go to the home of Khatoun’s daughter Vee who had lake privileges. It was incredibly crowded in the car and took forever to get there. There were no seat belts in the car and I believe that today it is probably illegal to have that many people in a car. The youngest sat on the laps of the eldest. Anyone passing us had to be amazed by the sight. We looked like third world refugees or migrant workers. We always were happy to be together and felt like we were on a real adventure. We did this two or three times a summer over a four or five year period. Now and then, we would vary the beach to Kensington State Park or Camp Dearborn. When we did not take Grannie’s car, we would go in Aunt Suzie’s VW Bug. This was even more cramped and comical as we were packed in there like circus clowns. But, Grannie took us on these outings and we had a great time.

These are just a few of the moments and memories that stand out in my mind. Each grandchild has their own memories and special moments. Grannie has a distinct and unique relationship with each of us.

Family Cooking Legend: Grannie could never do enough for her grandchildren. She would have us stay over simply as part of her routine. She would feed us well. Every meal was a feast, except maybe for the occasional liverwurst sandwich. I wonder if the great and rich food and more than plentiful quantities had anything to do with my life long weight issues. It has been well theorized that many Armenian mothers and grandmothers of Grannie’s generation overcompensated with food having experienced the horrors and starvation of the 1915 Genocide. This psychology of genocide survival is a topic for another letter. I realize that I cannot attribute any blame to Grannie for my weight issues. I have cousins and siblings who were subjected to the same largess but maintained much slimmer physiques. They just didn’t eat. They never ate even when Grannie uttered her famous “Eat or I shove it down your troat!” While others ignored her and continued on moving their food around their plates, I ate with gusto. I loved to eat and my Grannie could put it out the food, delicious and buttery, in great abundance.

Grannie was not big on garnish and presentation. She was big on quanitites and taste. Her suboreg, ghatah, pilaf, kebab, kheymah, turkey and chicken… unbelieveable. Her heriseh, a dish of oatmeal, shredded chicken, and butter seemingly in equal proportions, is unmatched in my memory.

She even had her own oatmeal cookie recipe. These savory cookies were a rich mix of coconut, walnuts, raisins, and chocolate chips were like mini-haystacks of joy. She would make hundreds for major holidays. Every grandchild, even those who would eat nothing else, would enjoy these cookies. She made so many we were eating them over the next few weeks. They were called oatmeal cookies, but in truth the oatmeal was only there to hold the other ingredients together. Every time she made them, the recipe would differ slightly depending on what ingredients she had in which proportions. For all of us, Grannie’s cookies were Oatmeal Cookies. When we were given any “plain” store bought oatmeal cookies we would scoff, “these aren’t oatmeal cookies.” As Grannie is no longer able to cook the way she used to, my mother has taken over the making the oatmeal cookies. Over time and considerable input from the family, she has mastered the formula and makes a pretty darn good oatmeal cookie these days.

Grannie made her own yoghurt until she was too old to do so. She did not use any wimpy skim milk either. It was whole milk all the way (all the whey?). I believe she would have used raw milk if it was readily available. Her madzoon, the Armenian word, was always tasty, thick and creamy. In later years, it had a little sweetness to it. I recall asking her how she made it so thick, creamy and all of late a touch sweet. She told me, matter of factly, “I put Cremora in it.” I laughed. Here she was again with a foot in the new world and the other in “the old country.” She made her own madzoon in the ancient style but then started using Cremora, a chemical marvel of modern food chemistry, to thicken it up. That’s Grannie.

Whenever we were sick and bedridden as children, riddled with the flu, strep or whatever, Grannie would show up with bags of juice. She would mix orange and pineapple juice and make us drink and drink until we were urinating as much as we were drinking. She washed out the germs and we would be better and back at school probably a few days later than if we were simply left on our own. She took the bed rest and drink plenty of fluids adage quite seriously and it definitely worked.

The Serious Grannie: Grannie is fiercely Armenian. She wanted everyone to know and revel in our culture. She wanted, actually expected, everyone to marry an Armenian. She was none to subtle in this point of view. If you didn’t marry an Armenian, it was simple; she would not go to your wedding. Upon having a child, all was forgiven and you were back in the fold. It sounds dated but it is true. When my sister Ani married Jeff, Grannie attended the wedding. I suggest she was softening up a bit. Her response was obvious and just as dated, “She’s a gurl. She don’ have much choice who asks to marry her.” She put the onus on the grand-sons. A couple of my cousins never had the same relationship with her after she did not attend their weddings. In this case, she had both feet firmly in “the old country.”

Grannie believes strongly in the power of dreams to foretell the future. As she believed it to be an exclusively female gift, she would only discuss this with her grand-daughters. I only know of this because my sister Nancy would tell me.

While Grannie was fiercely Armenian and Armenian life in the United States revolved around the church, you would not find her attending services very much. She has told me several times, “How could God let such a ting happen to da Armenians?” She would not elaborate but it is like the stories of devout Jews in concentration camps putting God on trial. Grannie would definitely be a prosecutor in such a trial.

Sadly, four years ago, my sister Laura passed away from a brain aneurysm. Her sudden passing at the age of 46 was a real blow to Grannie. They were very close and it was incredibly more sad to how this effected Grannie who had to see a grandchild taken from her after everything she saw and experienced in her childhood. They had a wonderful relationship. The shared many viewpoints. Laura was the only one of us who could actually go to Manoogian Manor and get Grannie and bring her to an event. Grannie responded to Laura differently than the rest of us. They just kept getting closer and closer from my perspective.

The most famous Armenian to come from Yeghiki was Sahag II Khabayan the Catholicos (Pope) of the Cilician See based in the ancient city of Sis. He was Catholicos during the dark years of 1915 and responsible for relocating the See to its current location in Antelias outside of Beirut, Lebanon. To read more about this remarkable son of Yeghiki, please read the on-line book at www.armenianprelacy.org/seminarybook.pdf. I did not know of Catholicos Sahag growing up. Other Yeghiketsis I know in Hartford, actually recall having portraits of this great leader in the homes. I asked Grannie if she knew of this famous son, she basically classified him with all things religious.

The last of a Breed: This is by far the longest e-letter I have written. Once I started, I could not stop. There are so many stories and memories.

Grannie is but a few remaining survivors of her generation, the last generation to have been born in Western Armenia. She survived Genocide and worked her way here to build a life and raise a family.

I knew a lot of people in that generation. They provided a link to and a glimpse of life in that “old country.” The link now is mostly in my memory. For me, Grannie’s contributions are the largest part of that memory.

My son stated that if one of the great-grandchildren were to marry and have a child soon, we might be able to get a five generational photo. That would be pretty cool.

Thanks for reading this long winded labor of love and my birthday gift to Grannie.

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Grannie passed away in June 2007.

The photo was from November 2005.

November 2006: The War

For months, I have wanted to write about the war in Iraq. I have written about it often in my daily writing, but never felt comfortable sharing the thoughts in this letter. Finally with the recent US elections and the increasing in violence there, it seemed like the time.

Writing about such a topic is not so easy for me. First, it is a rather complicated. Weighing all the issues and drawing an intelligent conclusion is tedious work. It is easier to take the biased assumption route. Biased assumptions can lead to easy viewpoints e.g. the war is good, the war is bad, the US has no business in the Middle East, the US is a pawn of Israel and doing their dirty work, Islam is evil, Christianity is evil. The war makes easy sense or non-sense when one takes one of these extreme assumptions.

Obviously, I decided to write about the war. I decided to do it in the following way. I broke it up into sub-topics that struck me this month. I will comment and share my thoughts and confusions.

US Elections: The war in Iraq has not been going well for many months. This is not only my perspective but a message that the media has bombarded everyone with. The voting populace of the United States was convinced us of this view as evidenced by the Democrats taking back both the House and Senate. This was a definite switch from 2004 where the re-election of George Bush and gains in both houses by the Republicans was viewed as a mandate and firm support of the war.

Is it that the populace is frivolous, easily swayed or perhaps even naïve? That is all I heard in 2004 by staunch Democrats in New York who were shocked by the results of that election. They could not understand how all the states not on a coast voted Republican. I cannot say I heard the same thing about this election. There is a quiet acceptance from the populace that the war is, in fact, not going well.

This was confirmed by the alacrity with which Donald Rumsfeld was replaced as Secretary of Defense. I was surprised at how quickly this happened… after the election. Clearly, the administration also believed it was time for a change. Either that or they were cutting their losses and Rumsfeld was the fall guy. It is not clear why they did not make the change earlier and campaign on a revised strategy for the war. Probably, the Democrats would have had a field day campaigning against an admittedly failed strategy. On the other hand, maybe the Republicans did not actually believe they would lose their majority in Congress. Some Republicans who knew they were in tight House or Senate races were actually looking for just this kind of change before the election. It did not come and most of them did not win.

From the beginning of the war, there was criticism of Rumsfeld’s strategy. The military complained that they did not have enough troops. We proved we had enough force to topple the regime, but certainly not enough to “win the peace” and create a smooth regime change.

Enemy of my Enemy: Speaking of Donald Rumsfeld, his “relationship” with Saddam Hussein goes back to 1984. At that time, during the Iran-Iraq war, Ronald Reagan dispatched Rumsfeld to Iraq to begin the process of resuming diplomatic relations. For the life of me, I cannot remember why diplomatic relations were suspended. Maybe it had to something to do with their building a nuclear reactor and Israel bombing it.

At that time, the US viewed that Iran was the greater enemy and it was in the best interest of the US to have Iraq win the war. The US helped Iraq with intelligence and satellite surveillance. We sold Iraq Huey helicopters and other arms. At the same time relations were being normalized, Hussein used chemical weapons on the Iranians. I guess if they were used on Iranians, they were not considered WMDs.

Rumsfeld went back to Baghdad again in 1984 and met with Tariq Aziz. Twenty years later, he was leading a war against Iraq and both Hussein and Aziz were enemies. Yet, he learned his lesson. No envoys were dispatched to Tehran.

I hope Rumsfeld writes a book. I would love to get his perspective on his unique relationship with Iraq. Will he continue to justify his actions and strategy? Or will he question himself and regret some of his decisions like Robert McNamara?

On Strategy: The Iraq war unfolded much as I expected. Their army could not and would not face the US in the open battlefield. It would have been no contest based on several technical superiorities of the US forces in terms of, air support, armor, and surveillance to name just three. The Iraqis did what they had to do, the only strategy available to them; melt into the background and go guerilla. The bet was that they would mire the US down in a long tedious, urban action, war of attrition. They were betting the long steady flow of body bags would turn the US people against the war, much like Vietnam.

On Sunday, November 26, 2006th, the press was buzzing with a somber statistic. The Iraq War, as of this day, equaled the number of days the United States spent fighting World War II: 1,347 days.

One cannot compare the two wars. WWII, and to a lesser extent, Korea, were classic wars of armies fighting armies. Each army had the clear objectives. The objective was to destroy the opposing army’s ability to fight any further. The goal was moving the Forward Line of Troops (FLOT) until the opposition gave up or their country was conquered and the populace demoralized to fight any further.

In World War II, the Allies fought on several fronts and moved the FLOT towards Rome, Berlin and Tokyo. The allies were successful and the enemy governments sued for peace or effected regime change and the new government sued for peace.

This was not the case in Vietnam and it is not the case in the current Iraq War. It was the case in Desert Storm, the first Gulf War. In that first war, there was a clear military objective which was to take back the territory Saddam Hussein had taken from Kuwait and annexed. Regime change, of a sort, has been accomplished. Yet, we are in a quagmire. There was a FLOT but it only lasted a few days.

These thoughts are not really my own. I first read them in a military critique of the Vietnam War, On Strategy by Harry G. Summers. Summers retired from the Army and wrote this book analyzing the war from the perspective of von Clauswitz’s principles of war. He argued that the US was unsuccessful in Vietnam because we fought the war on the terms of the North Vietnamese Army. It was a guerilla war. Summers emphatically pointed out that there were no Viet Cong or insurgents they were mostly definitely North Vietnamese regulars fighting a guerilla war, the only kind of war they could hope to win. The US had won every classic battle in Vietnam. The US lost because we did not establish a FLOT and drive to a military objective. That objective should have been to drive to Hanoi and force the government to abdicate or sue for peace.

The US Army was designed and trained to fight the kind of war just outlined. The mission in Vietnam was different. It was a police action. It was a guerrilla war. The Army was spread out and diffused by this North Vietnamese strategy.

Bush the elder and Colin Powell understood this in Desert Storm, the first Gulf War. That is why they stopped at the Iraqi border. They did not “finish the job” and drive on to Baghdad and topple Hussein. They understood the risks and the commitment of manpower over a long time period. The strategy of Rumsfeld and George W took this risk; they took this risk with an undermanned force and a poor plan for what to do post regime change. I believe this is why Colin Powell resigned or was let go by this administration.

Different than Vietnam: There are major differences between Iraq and Vietnam. First, there was a draft in during the Vietnam war. All of the troops in Iraq voluntarily joined the Armed Forces including the Reserves and the National Guard. While these troops might not want to be in Iraq, the consequence was easier to accept because they volunteered for service. In Vietnam, a large majority of the forces were drafted and many were not happy about that.
Congressman Charles B. Rangel D-NY pops up in the news every now and again, as he did this month, by advocating, again, the establishment of a universal draft. By universal he means a draft without all the deferments built into the Vietnam era draft such as the college deferment that tended to favor those that could afford college. Rangel claims that while we have an all volunteer force, the troop make up is skewed to the lower economic tiers, people with less education, less options and less money. Rangel is not a supporter of the war. Beyond establishing an equitable representation of the population in the Armed Forces, he is also betting that the opposition to the war would get much more intense with the establishment of a draft. I think he is right. If a universal draft were established, the war would end in a hurry.
Secondly, contrary to Vietnam, there is a much greater support of the troops in Iraq. Whatever debate there is about the war, be it tactics or politics, it is done independently of supporting the troops. In Vietnam, the support of the troops varied. Soldiers returned home to protests against the war and against the troops. Some of these protesters called them baby killers and such. It was quite an ugly time. This is just not the case in Iraq.

My friend Tom is a reader of this letter. His son had joined the Marines before 9/11. After 9/11, his son was deployed to Afghanistan. Tom was continually sending updates and forwarding e-mails from his son to friends and family. Shortly after the invasion of Iraq, Tom sent one of these updates. A cousin responded quite negatively on the invasion of Iraq, the US in general, the President, and the Armed Forces. The response by Tom and others was strong and indignant; basically telling the cousin to stop denigrating the troops as a dear friend and relative was in harm’s way.

Sunni-Shia: I can understand Jews and Moslems not getting along. I can understand Christians and Jews, Moslems and Christians not getting along. I even understand how not getting along combined with economics and territorial disputes can transform not getting along into hatred. I do not get this Sunni-Shia schism. They are killing each other in this war. I would venture to say that more Iraqis have been killed by each other than by the US, but it is only a guess on my part.

Bombs are set off by either Shias or Sunnis. A recent and most gruesome twist to car bombs and suicide bombs is the double bombing. When people approach a bomb scene to provide aid, investigate, or out of simple curiosity, a bigger second bomb is detonated. There is no horrific indignation of this by Moslems or anyone else for that matter.

There has even been bombing of Shia Mosques by Sunnis in Iraq. There has been no Islamic outrage of these bombings, at least none reported in the Western media. Yet, while a few Danish cartoons offend the sensibility and dignity of Moslems worldwide causing massive protests and the random killing of a few Christian clerics, detonating a bomb in a mosque killing Moslems worshipping does not elicit the same reaction. If the same act was done by a non-Moslem… whoa Nelly, as they used to say. It is Moslems killing Moslems and no one complains and worse no one can explain why. This schism dates back a thousand years and the hatred is still incredibly strong. With this kind of strong reaction in country, how can any non-Moslem entity like say the US Army expect to have any effect or influence?

I do not get the Sunni-Shia divide and no one has been able to explain it. Not talking heads on CNN, PBS, or the History Channel. My Armenians friends from Lebanon understand the “Arab mind” and the “Arab culture” far more than I ever will. They cannot explain the difference. Even Moslem friends have been unable to explain the schism in any meaningful way.

I truly hope that if I ever write about this war again it is in some historical perspective and not because it went on another 1,347 days.

October 2006: Novelists Orhan, James, and George… but mostly George

Orhan Pamuk won the Nobel Prize in Literature earlier this month (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2006/). Pamuk is a Turkish novelist of international renown and certainly deserving of the Nobel Prize. He is best known for his novels Red and Snow that take place in modern Turkey and, like many other prize winners, explores and exposes the everyday reality in a way no one else has quite expressed. In the case of Pamuk, he also belongs to a lesser class of winners not viewed favorably by the government of their country. Pamuk was persecuted and chastised in Turkey for violating Article 301 which that makes it illegal to express any view that denigrates the state or Turkishness in general.

Was Pamuk prosecuted? Charged? Acquitted? Almost prosecuted? Almost charged? Almost acquitted? I do not really know because the details were so convoluted and the law so arcane that I was simply confused by the details. There was an incredible amount of press coverage including the “New York Times” and the “Wall Street Journal” to name two.

Pamuk is, clearly, a national treasure that the Turkish state must, or at least should, now embrace. Why was he persecuted? He was persecuted because he had the audacity, strength, conviction, or iconoclastic nature to address the issue of the Armenian atrocities, deportation, or genocide in his novel, Snow. Many accuse him of doing this only to get the attention and garner the favor of the Nobel committee. Certainly the “deniers” of the genocide have this view, but so do some of the left who basically agree with Pamuk’s view that whatever happened needs to be openly discussed. Hopefully, this Nobel Prize will generate more discourse on the Armenian issue and ultimately lead to some resolution and closure for both sides.

I read an on-line editorial from the Turkish newspaper Zaman by Ali H. Aslan. It was distributed via the Armenian Workshop listserv of the University of Michigan, which is an open and academic forum to discuss Turkish and Armenian relations. Here isthe first paragraph of Aslan’s editorial:

The first Turkish novel, “Akabi Story” was written by Armenian Vartan Pasha in the middle of the 19th century and printed in the Armenian alphabet. What an interesting manifestation of fate is that the first Nobel Prize for Turkish literature has an Armenian element as well. Our successful novelist Orhan Pamuk, who was subjected to national anger after referring to events experienced by Anatolian Armenians during World War I in a way different than the ‘official history’ rhetoric, received this prestigious award.
http://www.zaman.com/?bl=columnists&alt=&trh=20061030&hn=37524

This letter, however, is not about Pamuk but a new novelist. This novelist is older than Pamuk and certainly less known than the newest Nobel Prize winner. This novelist, like Vartan Pasha, is Armenian. I want to write about my friend George Mouradian.

George Mouradian is an amazing fellow. He is a most cool guy, friendly to all and one of the most congenial people I have ever met. He never has a bad word for anyone. He looks for common ground rather than who is right or wrong. This is a rare quality in the general population. I find it an even rarer quality among Armenians who love to mix it up in the politics of church and state, making “enemies” for life in the process. It would be easy to be fooled by this congeniality and miss the depth and breadth of his talents and interests.

I first recall getting to know George, a contemporary of my father back when he was organizing a Boy Scout Troop at our church, St. Sarkis Armenian Apostolic Church in Dearborn, Michigan. I was on the older side of the boys in the organizing group and well established in my own Troop 223 based at Burns School. Rather than join the church troop, I opted to stay with my own troop where my friends Brad Lackie, Tim Miller and I were all pursuing the Eagle rank together.

But from that time, George and I have always admired each other and chatted whenever we saw each other. The friendship solidified when we both worked together in the Reliability Engineering Department of Rockwell International’s Automotive Division back in the 1980’s. See each other everyday, working together, chatting, and having lunch; we really got to know each other. I really came to admire George and appreciate the diversity of his interests and experiences.

I learned that on his honeymoon, George took his wife on a camping trip to Alaska. Back then in the 1950’s this was quite a trek with the last few thousand miles of the drive being dirt roads. I was in awe George thought of this and even more impressed that his wife, Rosie, went along with it.

I learned of George’s love of gardening. Actually, gardening might be too modest a description. When I visited his home, I remember thinking that his very large garden was really on the cusp of being classified as a small farm. Seasonally, his lunch would always include fruits and vegetables from his garden.

I learned that George was very good engineer with experiences in aerospace and automotive. In retirement, George has written two books on Quality Control and has travelled to Armenia to teach a master class on the subject.

A central passion for George, beyond his love of family, is his love and devotion to his Armenian heritage. He is proud to be Armenian, a student of Armenian history, and keenly interested in doing whatever he can to help preserve and perpetuate that heritage, certainly within his family, but in the Armenian-American community in general.

I saw the same passion in George’s father. Whenever, I would see Mr. Mouradian, he would always tell me something about our people for which I should be infinitely proud. He would say it with a glint in his eye and a smile on his face. For father and son, the glass was always full… not just half full.

In this last regard, George continues to grow and expand his horizon by becoming a man of Armenian Letters. Beyond the two works on Quality, he has penned two Armenian themed books.

The first, Armenian InfoText published in 1995, is a one volume Armenian themed encyclopedia. It is accessible to readers and enthusiasts of all ages. It is perfect for any young student preparing any kind of school presentation or report on Armenia. I am convinced George wrote this for his grandchildren to make it easy for them to learn about their heritage. For my children’s and eventual grandchildren’s sake, I am glad he wrote it.

Never to Die: I had reviewed Armenian InfoText for the Armenian press. Because of that review and our friendship, George contacted me in January 2005 to tell me he had written a novel, Never to Die. He wanted to see if I would review this book. Sure, I was happy to do it.
Never to Die is an ambitious effort. It is a tome of almost 600 pages. It is written in the model of the famous American writer James Michener of whom George is a great admirer. If you are not familiar with James Michener, many of his novels are actually two novels in one. He chooses an area, Mexico, Hawaii, the American West, or Alaska to name a few, and writes two novels in one. One is usually set in current times and presents a plot related to the region and its history. The second novel interspersed with first in alternating chapters provides the full history of the region. Often the book takes the title of the region e.g. Mexico, Hawaii, Alaska.

Never to Die is two books in one. The odd numbered chapters take place in the 1960s. A team, led by a French archeologist and his theologist wife, planned to search for Noah's Ark on the slopes of Mount Ararat. In preparing for their expedition, the French couple negotiated with a Boston based electronics firm to produce a kind of sonar that could detect oak beams that might lie buried in the glacial ice of the mountain. The firm developed the device and it was agreed that one of their engineers would join the team to man and maintain the sensitive device. As it turns out, the engineer is a young Armenian, Azad, fluent in English, Armenian, and Turkish.

In a plausible twist likely to happen in a novel, Azad meets two Armenians, a man and his niece, in the Araratian village of Dougubayazit, that serves as the base town to their base camp so to speak. The niece, Vartouhi, and Azad fall in love. The novel is a love story.

But, it is more than just your run of the mill love story while searching ofr Noah’s Ark. The Turks, being the militaristic paranoid control freaks we so easily portray them as, assign a Major Vehib to the team. This hard nosed patriotic lifer, considers the Westerners as giaours, infidels, and Armenians, like Azad, as enemies of his country. Azad and Vehib clash, bicker, and argue in the shadow of Ararat. So, this novel is also addresses the collective recent ugly and horrible history of Armenians.

In Never to Die, George weaves a wonderful story of love, hate nationalism and Biblical archeology... but this is only half the book, the odd numbered chapters. In the even numbered chapters, George presents the entire history of Armenia from 3000 BC to the 1915 Genocide.
The novel is a brilliant idea and an ambitious venture. George even approached James Michener himself to write it. But Michener was ill and failing and could not. So, George decided to write it himself.

As you may have noted, George asked me to review the book in January of 2005. It is now the end of October of 2006, and, believe it or not, this is the review!

What took me so long? It is quite simple. Every book James Michener wrote, well many of them, interested me. They interested me enough to buy them or check them out of the library and attempt to read them. The key word here is attempt. I have tried several times and have never ever finished a James Michener book. I do not know what it is. They are well written and usually critically regarded. Yet, I bog down in them. Sometimes, it is in the very beginning where Michener writes from the creation of the earth point of view. Other times, it is in the middle of the book when I am really into it and the narrative just goes into a holding pattern over the middle ages.

I was hoping the same wouldn’t happen with Never to Die… but it almost did. It took me over one year to finish it. George would write every month or so checking on the progress of the review. I felt totally stupid and considerably inept to always answer, “I am working on it.” I would even ask him a question or two about the latest passages I had read to provide evidence of the snails pace progress. George eventually stopped asking. He probably assumed that I didn’t like the book and didn’t want to review it.

Actually, I enjoyed the book. I enjoyed both parts the story of Azad and the search for the Ark as well as the history of Armenia. Many of the things I read in the book have stayed with me. I was especially taken with his portrayal of the 17th and 18th Century Armenian communities in Poland and the assimilation of that diasporan community in the Polish population. There is an eerie parallel to what I have seen happen to our community in the United States.

It was interesting to see all things Armenian from George’s perspective. It is certainly laden with pride but not superiority. It is both noble and humble, looking forward with hope to yet grow again… Never to Die. This view was the same of my Great Uncle Rouben and much more evident in that generation. That view point has faded, sadly, but not with George.

Is Never to Die the best book I have ever read? Is the most well written book I have ever read? No. There were some awkward passages and phrasing. But, maybe that was simply because I know George so well and kept hearing his voice when I was reading it. Yet, it is the best written most interesting novel any friend of mine has ever penned. I learned a lot about my people and a bit more about George.

I also learned how to read a Michener book: a little bit at a time. There is so much information to process that I must simply stop reading and think about things for a while, digesting the information before reading on. I think I will next tackle Centennial and take a year or two to read it.

Anyone can write a book these days. Many people even express a desire to do so. Technology facilitates the writing and publishing of books. It can be written, edited and laid out i.e. desk top published on a PC. Then they can be published by what used to be called vanity presses. These personal publishing services have blossomed and grown on the internet. George published his book through one, AuthorHouse, based in Bloomington, Indiana. Beyond just publishing, AuthorHouse also lists the book on its website and handles customer orders e.g. www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/ItemDetail~bookid~27435.aspx. It is pretty cool. Never to Die is even available on Amazon.com and many Armenian based bookstore sites.

So while getting a book published is much easier and cheaper than ever, one still has to write it. I am amazed that George did so and picked the Michener model to do so. Bravo and apologies for taking so long to both read it and review it. Somehow, Orhan Pamuk winning the Nobel Prize and learning of Vartan Pasha motivated me to do it.

Epilogue: I never know who will respond to these letters and what they may say or add. This month I am quite certain that another good friend and devoted reader will respond and ask “Marko, when are you going to profile me?” Someday Ara, someday…

September 2006: Retirement... Kinda, Sorta

As it turns out, my January 2006 letter on Pensions, Retirement and the changing nature of both was quite prophetic. On May 15 of this year, my employer, Colgate-Palmolive, offered a Voluntary Early Retirement Program (VERP) to US based employees based on age and years of service. I was smack dab in the middle of this demographic.

I had until the end of June to decide whether to accept or turn down this offer. At first, I was close to 100% sure I would be turning down the offer and continuing on at Colgate. The company is in a period of change but the change would be good for me. Customer Service and Logistics, what I do, is an area on which Colgate will be placing more emphasis on. I knew I could contribute and continue to thrive.

But, after attending a seminar on the program and as I began reading through the paperwork of the VERP offer, I realized three things. First, the incentives in the program were most impressive. That makes sense since programs such as VERP are designed to get people to change their status quo and move on.

Second, I could not believe how rooted I was to the company. I was kind of stunned to get this offer and was a bit concerned about a combination of things. I had never been without work since 1975. I had never faced any kind of layoff, buyout, or, as in this case, and early retirement program. In thinking about these things, I realized how much I had actually associated myself, my worth, with this company affiliation. I have been with Colgate for 16 years, the longest I have worked anywhere.

Lastly, VERP provided a most sobering look at my retirement planning. It was not as pretty a picture as I would have liked, i.e. there was no way I could retire and do nothing. Being on the younger end of this demographic meant there would be significant tax penalties if I tried to retire. Also, my savings were not near where I thought they had to be. Up until this offering, I was following an ostrich like, head in the sand, approach to retirement planning.

I was not alone in these realizations. I noticed the same stunned look on most others as I looked around the room in the seminars offered to help people think through the VERP. Naturally, we sought out each other and talked through what we were all feeling and thinking. Very few had done any real retirement planning beyond the savings and stock programs offered by the company. Most were also well rooted in their position and routines inside the company. After all, part of the qualifications for VERP was based on a years of service threshold.

Upon understanding both the incentives offered and the state of my retirement planning, my status immediately changed to 70% that I would stay and 30% that I would accept the VERP offer. With each passing day, the percentages changed from 70-30 to 60-40. When I hit the 50-50 mark, I realized it was inevitable that I would be accepting the VERP offer. To build on the analogy that I was deeply “rooted” to the company, I felt like I was tree that was slowly falling.

I did accept the VERP offer. But, I also knew that I had to find another job and the sooner I could find it the better. Ideally, I had to find something before the severance ran out to remain cash positive. Ideally, the sooner I could find something, the more severance I could pocket. They call this “double dipping.” In one of the seminars offered by the company to help us learn about the VERP details and to explore and define our own needs employment wise in retirement, I also learned to say, “I am retiring from a company, Colgate-Palmolive. But, I am not retiring.”

I have had to use those lines many times. Everyone hears that you are retiring and, most naturally, they congratulate you, wish you well, and ask how you will use all the free time. Travel? Golf? Cycling? What? After reciting the above mentioned lines, most understood but a few still wished me well with all my free time… go figure.

Of course, not everyone was stunned or dazed by this. There were two classes of colleagues who had huge ear to ear grins that couldn’t be wiped off. The first class, were employees whose careers had probably peaked a few year ago and were counting the days to their retirement. I know one fellow who, whenever asked how long he had to retirement would always answer, “I am not really sure but is something like two years, eleven weeks, two days, and… (pausing to look at his watch) two hours and thirty-five minutes.” Bear in mind that a large part of the big grin was due to the fact that these folks were retiring under the “old plan,” the classic pension based program. There was no deciding retire or not to retire. They were all retiring. They could not wait, though they were, in fact, waiting and hoping for such a program, like VERP, to come along. There was also no question if they would be seeking further employment. Most would not be working again. Of the few that talked about, “maybe, after a few months, finding a little something to keep them busy.” I am guessing from the tone of their half-hearted statements that they will be doing more volunteer and hobby work than gainful employment.

The second class of happy retirees to be is even more interesting. These colleagues were pretty much in my class. They were retiring from Colgate, but not retiring. They had to get another job and work for five to ten years more before they could “retire retire.” These folks were happy because they immediately saw and embraced all of this as a wonderful windfall and opportunity to move on and do something different. They weren’t stunned or dazed for even a second.

Why were they happy? Why were they taking it enthusiastically and energetically? Simply, they were viewing this as a wonderful opportunity to start anew and follow-up, finally, on the wouldas, shouldas, couldas, and oughtas that run around in our all heads regarding life and career. Here was a windfall of funds that provided the chance to explore doing something new. What was there to be upset about? This was a good thing.

There were two seminars offered that I have spoken of. One was to explain the financial and tax implications of the VERP offer so everyone would have a better understanding. Beyond retirement and financial planning, a significant part of this seminar was for everyone to realize the size of the carrot at the end of the stick. That was duly noted.

The second seminar was more life and career planning. How do you decide if you fully retire or simply retire from Colgate but need to continue one’s career? If the latter, what kind of job is best? Similar to ones current position with a similar sized company? Something smaller? Part-time? This life planning seminar first explained how most of us go through an emotional cycle when faced with a life changing or altering experience like the VERP offer. Basically, it was the SARA Model I once learned about: Shock, Anger, Rejection/Denial, and Acceptance.

Shock: Why is this happening? Why is it happening to me? Why now?

Anger: Why the *#&@ is this happening? How dare they?

Rejection/Denial: I am just going to go about my business pretending this is not happening. It isn’t real. It will go away.

Acceptance: Finally coming to terms with the reality of the situation and beginning to move on.

Once I was fairly certain that I would accept the VERP offer. I did begin a most earnest and enthusiastic job search. All the literature and even the life upon retirement seminar talked about how long such a search might take. At my level, the search was expected to take six months to a year. Yikes! With all the news of companies offering people just like me similar early retirement offers, I assumed that it would probably take all of that time. As I did not want to go cash negative on the severance, I really got into looking. I realized that it was the first time in my life I was actually seeking a position. In every position I have had until this point, the jobs came to me. It was a sobering thought.

I realized the importance and value of networking. I knew this already and the seminar confirmed it. I also knew companies posted jobs on-line and there were web based job boards either on sites like Monster or Yahoo but also with professional societies like American Society for Quality (ASQ).

I went on the ASQ web site and immediately saw the perfect job for me: Vice-President of Quality for a third party logistics provider. I was almost uniquely qualified for this having spent roughly half of my career in Quality and the other half in Logistics. Even better, the job was based in Chicago, as I was focusing my efforts on Chicago and New York based opportunities. I posted my resume and a cover letter and remember sitting back, staring at the phone expecting it ring any second. Why wouldn’t it? It was almost a perfect job and I was practically the perfect candidate. It, of course, did not ring. In fact, they never called.

At first, I thought this rather odd. But soon, I came to learn the truth about job boards and company postings. They never work. They are black holes that suck up résumés and one, for sure in my case, never hears back. They must get so many responses that they quickly fill up their candidate slate. I truly believe I would have had more luck if I were to burn my résumé in a ritual fire and recite incantations in the hope that the smoke might drift to the right place and influence people with open positions to contact me.

As badly as job boards worked, networking was the complete opposite. I called good friends, colleagues who have gone on to other companies, and valued suppliers. The network was great. The connections and referrals, as often as not to recruiters, were very helpful. In very short order, a lot of interest was generated. I was on the phone and e-mail constantly sending résumés and letters, answering specific questions, being screened over the phone. I was kind of amazed and impressed by the “buzz.”

There seemed to be a fair number of positions for Directors or Vice-Presidents of Quality or Logistics. The ones that showed interest were in New Jersey, Iowa, Illinois, and Massachusetts. As quick as something would become active, it could go away equally fast. “The company is going to go with another candidate, in another direction, or simply decided to put the search on hold for the foreseeable future.” Fill in the blank. I think I heard them all.

Through this entire time, a short three months, one position kept gaining momentum. Based on one phone interview and two face-to-face interviews, they thought I was right for the job. I thought the job was right for me. They made me an offer at the end of August and I accepted on September 5th. It is with Sanford Brands NA, a division of Newell Rubbermaid. Check out the Sanford website (www.sanfordcorp.com). You will see the various brands of… pens. What better place for me to work given my February 2005 letter? They make Sanford, Paper Mate, Waterman, and Parker. (If I can only get them to purchase Caran D’Ache.). As VP of Supply Chain, I get to run a bigger operation and it is more my show than ever.

My last day at Colgate is September 29th. My first day at Sanford is October 9th. I am beginning that quickly simply because Sanford is starting their budget process and what better way to learn about a new company than to jump right into the budget process.

I went from feeling down and worried about finding a job before the severance runs out, to the complete opposite. It has been an exciting time in which many good things happened so quickly that I truly felt the influence of a large hand, from above.

Lessons Learned:

1. Nothing is forever.

2. Looking for a job is a full time effort. It is very unlikely to find something new looking casually.

3. In terms of career change, there is only value in “I might”, “I could”, or “I oughta”, if you are truly intent to act. Otherwise, it will probably only cause frustration.

4. Sometimes you need extrinsic, like VERP, motivation to act on “I might”, “I could”, or “I oughta.”

5. As rooted as you get working someplace a long time, always bear in mind that there is a big world full of opportunities out there.

6. Never stop growing and expanding one’s skills.

7. Job boards are black holes. Networking is the only way to go.

8. The amount of junk one can accumulate seems to grow exponentially with years of service.

9. Stay up beat and enthusiastic. Embrace such changes as an adventure and an
opportunity. These things will happen no matter what your attitude, so you may as well have a great attitude.

10. #9 is easier to say than to do.

August 2006: Porches

On August 8th, I was driving home from the train station listening to NPR as I normally do in that short leg of my commute. They were announcing the next installment of an, apparently, on-going series “Summer on the Porch.” I started giggling and thinking of Professor Such-and-So, at some Mucky-Muck University, babbling something like, “In my many years of studying the porch, both front and rear, as an iconic part of American Culture, I must conclude that… blah blah Freudian blah, yadda yadda dichotomy yadda…” at which point I would have lost interest, fallen asleep, and ran the car off the road.

Immediately after this thought, a flood of memories poured in. I understood the real purpose for the series, of which I did not hear a word of the six part series. And Bingo! I knew what my August letter would be about.

When I think of porches, I think of front porches, porches that face the street. They are extensions of the living room onto, well, the street and visible to all passersby. The City of Detroit, where I grew up was definitely a front porch kind of town. The porch in those days, the late 1950’s and 1960’s was a family gathering place on lazy summer afternoons or after dinner. Others would do the same. You would wave and nod at neighbors if you were in one mood or invite them over if you were in another.

Over time, the family room and deck (basically a rear porch) have replaced the living room and front porch. Pity. Living rooms are generally in the front of the house. Living rooms opened to vestibules, foyers, or the more plebian front hall onto the porch, the front porch, and thus to the outside world. Family rooms, by contrast, tend to be in the back of the house and open onto patios, decks and rear porches. They do open up to the outside but in a more reclusive way i.e. away from the street.

Certainly, neighbors could be on their patios and decks. You could still nod and invite them over. But that happens much less, from my perspective, than it did in the front porch world. With front porches, the houses were closer and communication from porch to porch was not so difficult. People walking by could stop and chat. With the migration to suburbia and the rear of the house, the houses were also farther apart and without the network of sidewalks to enhance a sense of community. In the back, fences and landscaping add to the sense of separation and privacy.

The most memorable porch growing up was at my grandparents’ house in Detroit. My Mother’s parents, Azniv and Levon, lived on the corner of Stoepel and Fullerton in Detroit, a block west of Livernois. Both Livernois and Fullerton were “busy streets” as parents and grandparents impressed upon us. Theirs was a sturdy two family brick home. My grandparents lived on the first floor. The front porch was not very big but had a majestic feel to it. It had a cement floor and brick pillars and wall. The ceiling was also cement being the floor of the porch of the upstairs flat. The brick wall was 2-3 feet in height with a cement tongue like spout or drain for when it rained or when they hosed down the porch.

On this porch, my grandparents had a “glider,” basically an outdoor sofa that rocked or glided back and forth. These steel framed cushioned beauties were de rigueur for the porches fifties and sixties. My grandfather, Babo as we called him in the Armenian way, loved to sit out there. Sometimes, he would smoke an El Producto, most times he would have the Hairenik, Armenian language newspaper, close at hand. He never said much, being a quiet humble man, but he loved being near his grandchildren: me, my sisters and cousins. We were certainly active and talkative enough so his quiet enjoyment of it all fit right in. There were cars whizzing and people walking by. We sat on that porch in the summer months with Babo, getting to know each other, and growing up. We watched the neighborhood changed, as Detroit changed. It all culminated with the 1967 riots that accelerated a “white flight” that was already in progress.

My grandparents moved to Dearborn. Their house on Steadman had a front porch. I do not ever recall sitting on it. Outdoor life had moved to the backyard which my grandmother’s amazing green thumb had transformed into a flower and vegetable wonderland.

When my grandparents lived on Stoepel, we lived a few miles away in Detroit, first on Freeland and then moving a few blocks to Strathmoor. The Freeland house was another two family dwelling and we lived on the first floor. In contrast, the porch was wood with wood railings. The deck was painted that ubiquitous battle ship grey of the day. My sisters and I used to play on the porch. Mostly, I recall a game my Mother taught us and enjoyed, button-button with which we amused ourselves. You would try to get which hand the button, or more often a penny or little stone, was in and either moved up or down the six or so steps. Whoever got to the top first, won. I do not recall just sitting and watching the world go by.

I do recall painting the porch with my father in September of 1967. Actually we were painting the entire house. We had already moved to Strathmoor but kept the Freeland house as a rental property. It was shortly after the riots. But as the weather was glorious and the Detroit Tigers were battling the Red Sox for the American League pennant, everything was great. It was as if the riot, of just a month earlier, never happened. I remember, clearly, being on the porch, the transistor radio beaming the rich broadcast of George Kell and Ernie Harwell, the excitement of two contenders battling it out for the pennant. Even though the Tigers came in second place, one game behind the Red Sox, that time on the porch, painting with my Dad… well household chores and teenage memories do not get much better than that.

The front porch of our Strathmoor house was cement with wrought iron railings. My parents put up an aluminum awning replacing the canvas awning. The canvas awning looked good enough in the summer months when it was up. But in the winter, with the awning down, only the skeletal piping structure remained. That always looked ugly to me.

That Strathmoor porch was a great place to sit on a summer evening, reading on a lazy summer afternoon, or to relish the cool humidity of a rain shower. We were close with our Greek neighbors, the Holorises. They would often be on their porch. We would get together sometimes, simply wave to each other from porch to porch or meet up at the Good Humor truck as it rolled up ringing its little Pavolovian bells.

We had bought the house from Leo Atkinson. He was retired and, I believe, a widower. He moved in across the street with his neighbor and friend Jack Callum. Jack was close to retirement but still working for General Motors. I remember both of them sitting on their front porch every day after Jack had retired. Leo was reading the Bible, from cover to cover. We would wave across the street from porch to porch.

There was a girl. She was about the age of my sister Nancy though I cannot recall her name. She lived across the street and down the block. She would ride her bike around and around her block… non-stop, seemingly all day long. After she mastered basic biking, she graduated to a rather odd hobby of reading a paperback while she was pedaling. She was quite good at it. We were amazed watching her go on and on, reading and pedaling. Somewhere in the second or third summer of practicing this amazing feat, the inevitable happened and we got to see it from our porch. She ran into a tree. Thankfully, she was not hurt too badly. Thereafter, she kept her reading and riding hobbies separate.

During one memorable thunderstorm, my sisters and I were just sitting in awe of the ferocious thunder and lightening. A bolt of lightening struck the maple tree of the McCormicks, our neighbor on the other side. It sounded like a canon, scaring the living daylights out of us. We heard the majestic tree snap and watched the greater part of it fall, slowly, in our direction landing a few feet in front of us. There was a great long moment of silence and then all at once, we were talking and jabbering about what we just saw. The city removed the tree in short order and eventually replaced it with a sycamore. The shade profile and view from the porch was never quite the same.

Since leaving Strathmoor in 1969, wherever I lived, the front porch was at best decorative. We may have placed furniture on the porch giving them an inviting appearance but mostly it was just for decoration. On any nice summer day, the front porches of our Detroit homes were used more than the front home of all suburban houses I have lived in put together. Life simply moved to the backyard, the patio or deck.

Of course, it is partially structure defining behavior, or in this case, architectural design defining behavior. The suburban front porches are generally smaller and not really built as living space. Partially, it is socio-economic. As we moved up, crept up, economically from lower middle class to whatever we are now, life moved from the fronts of the house to the rear. As stated on the first page, time spent in living rooms and front porches are now spent in family rooms, kitchens, and backyard patios, decks or porches. The same seems to be true wherever I go. In Latin America, folks of less means tend to congregate street side on stoops or literally on the street. The more affluent have porches in their high rise flats or beautiful courtyards inside their stand alone homes.

In my current abode in Wilton, CT, the separation is to the extreme. I have a great screened porch in the rear. My lot is two acres and heavily wooded due to the reforestation of the past fifty years. When on the porch, I am totally isolated. In the summer, I cannot even see another house. The only passersby, besides birds, chipmunks, and squirrels, are deer, the occasional flock of turkeys, and the rarer sighting of a fox and maybe even a coyote. None of these faunae stop to chat.

I have written parts or all of these e-letters on the porch. I wrote May 2004, August 2004, and July 2005 stand out in this regard. In fact in the May 2004, I was reflecting on my Great Uncle Rouben and I wrote about a memorable August late afternoon sitting on thefront porch with him and Uncle Charlie. We were all smoking pipes and chatting.

Oddly enough, I was not able to use the porch to pen this letter. The house is being painted and the porch was simply not available.

One of my favorite things to do on any porch is playing music. I love to sit, practice and even entertain myself. About ten years ago we had a memorable session on the porch. I played oud, David Attarian played accordion, Garo Lehmejian played guitar, Judy played dumbeg, and the inimitable John Berberian played violin. That was a day to remember.

This past Memorial Day weekend we had a house full of people. After the barbecue, desert, cigars, after it was dark and about an hour before the party would break up, I got my oud and my songbook. I played and sang. We all sang. We sang in Armenian, Turkish, Arabic and Persian. We were all Armenians but from Lebanon, Turkey, Iran and, in our case, born here. It was great and simply one more in a long list of porch memories.

I hope you read this sitting on your porch, front or back, enjoying the weather.

——— • ———

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5627856
in case you want to access and listen to the NPR series “Summer on the Porch”

——— • ———

Many people liked my January 2006 letter on pension plans. There is an article in the August 28, 2006 New Yorker entitled “The Risk Pool,” pp. 30-35 that provides even more, and better, insight on the subject.

July 2006: Time Management

Lately, I have become very busy. The reasons for this business and the outcomes thereof will be the subject of another letter in the coming months. The additional tasks I have heaped on myself have resulted in a certain amount of frustration about getting everything I want done, when I want to get them done. I have found myself complaining about not having enough time both to myself and anyone within earshot.

Back in the 1980’s, the complexity of everyday life both at work and home got to the point where a market developed for Time Management products. Executives always had desk calendars in which they would manage their schedules. These new products all kind of did the same thing by providing a daily calendar with room to note events of various types, a to-do list with a system for prioritizing the to-do list, and a long term goal setting and management system. These systems became very popular under brand names like Day Timers and Franklin, now FranklinCovey. The best of these practices are now commonplace in most PC based calendar systems from Microsoft, Lotus Notes, PDAs of every sort, and even FranklinCovey.

It was 1986 or so when the Director of Quality at Rockwell Automotive budgeted and provided the entire Department with the Day Timer System. We all thought we were pretty cool with our vest pocket leather folios in which we would insert a new calendar booklet each month. It had all the bells and whistles explained in the above paragraph. We used them and were quite organized, jotting down this appointment, that to-do, and phone numbers and other little notations.

The Day Timer system came with a booklet introducing the system, how to use it, and other motivational material. I read something in this book that struck me as very profound and has stuck with me until today. “You have all the time there is.” No one has any more or less time. Sure, people live longer or shorter lives and have more or less time from that point of view. But, think about a day, any day. No one with all their faculties and health has any more or less time in that day. We all have all the time there is. So, when I complain about not having enough time it is really quite silly. I have all the time there is. I must not be using that time well or my ambitions may beyond what I can possibly accomplish in that amount of time i.e. a day.

Most self-help or self-improvement books focus on some aspect of time management. They often provide a framework in which the reader has to evaluate what is and is not really important to them. The next step of the exercise is to assess the feasibility of all the various items. Often, one realizes that everything cannot be done in the time frame one wants. One has to both prioritize activities and then focus on this list of strategic priorities. Anything not on the list ought to be ignored.

It sounds real easy. Making lists, at least for me, is the easiest thing in the world. There is no problem whipping up a to-do list. The problem is in the doing. The books do not help so much in this area. Sure the driven personalities out beyond three sigma can do it, they are either real smart or real manic or both.

Many people who still cannot knock items off their to-do list, may, in fact, not really have a problem with time management. They probably prefer a routine that is a mix of leisure and work. The self-help books, when honest, will force people to accept they are truly using their time as they prefer. While they may profess that they want to accomplish this or that on some psychological aspirational level, they truly would rather play golf or bicycle whenever they can. They may truly want to sit on the couch, watching “Survivor Timbuktu” and devouring unhealthy snacks. People tend to do what they are interested in. They do what is the priority for them.

Many remark about this monthly e-letter and say it must take a lot of time. It does take time about a half hour to an hour a day, culminating in the publication of the letter usually at the end of the month. Yet, it is a priority and something I truly value doing, so it is not really a burden. I gladly make time for it and as the Nike commercials say, “Just Do It!”

Why are some people’s landscaping and lawns meticulous works of art while the rest of us have a more “natural” presentation? Simply, they value such a look and prioritize resources to it. Whether they are out there clipping and trimming themselves or if they pay someone else, it is something they prioritize and value.

There is also the concept of random shock. This comes for the quasi-science of statistical forecasting where one uses prior history to predict the future. This can work pretty well in the short term especially if what you are trying to predict is well behaved. Yet, one must understand there are random shocks, acts of man or God, that are not predictable and when they happen may disrupt the best of forecasts, and in the case of time management our daily plans. Imagine if you were an American airline and you began September 2001 with a sound forecast of air travel for the remainder of that year. The random, and in this case devastating, shock of September 11 completely negated the validity of that forecast.

The same happens in time management. You may have the best of plans and be an ace at time management. Random shocks can and will disrupt your plans, your priorities, and your to-do lists. Think of how your plans changed with 9-11, the death of a loved one, storm damage to your home or business. No matter how determined one is, random shocks of all sizes force us to be “flexible”.

There is something else that most people are not as good at: metering out large, time consuming, or complex tasks into little doable daily bits. Again, take this letter as an example. If I had to write two thousand words in a day, I probably would not be able to do it. But, by writing a page a day and picking a theme early enough in a month, I have plenty of material from which to edit into a letter. A paragraph here, a full page there, and voila the letter is ready to go. If I could only become a better editor…

Earlier this year, I was thinking about a large complex project I am working on. I need to basically develop a very large series of Power Point presentations. You could think of it as course. Everyday that I thought about it instead of doing it, I was staring up a very large mountain. Everyday I procrastinated or did other things (not ever watching “Survivor: Timbuktu” thank you very much), the mountain seemed larger. One morning when I was writing, I came up with the idea to just produce two slides a day. How hard could that be? Not very hard at all. If I had heeded my own advice from back then, let’s say April Fools Day, I would have two hundred and twenty-two slides instead of the pathetic sixty-two I currently have.

As mentioned earlier, it is very easy to make a list. I do it every day. The list is divided into two columns: business and personal. As I accomplish something, I cross it out. I went back in my notebook to see, percentage wise, how well I have been doing. The average accomplishment was a pathetic 60%. Why didn’t the list get done? Upon reflection, there are three reasons:

1. Random Shocks of a lesser sort. The phone would ring, my boss would e-mail or stop by, and I would have another to-do or ten.

2. There were many things I could have been doing a little bit of every day. If I had done so, they would have been done. This would definitely be better then only working on them when their priority became scalding hot due to an imminent
deadline.

3. The list was just too damned long. My ambition was bigger than my ability to process and accomplish.

So, having many goals is OK. I must just be more realistic about what can be done in a day and I must learn to do little bits of several things each day.

There are two types of people that come to mind when I think of those that use time most effectively. The first is visible and energetic. These people are dynamos. They are in constant motion with a most steady and incredible sense of urgency in everything they do. They answer e-mails within seconds. They appear not to be able to stand having any pending to-dos. They rarely leave today’s work for tomorrow. They never seem to plan, but rather do everything immediately with dogged determination. Sparks are flying from both their brains and feet. Do not get in these folks way. They will mow you down or go right around you.

Everyone reading this has probably known or worked for someone like this. They can be legendary. They color the workplace and pepper corporate lore with their, at times outrageous or manic behavior. This is kind of like General George Patton, at least as portrayed in the movie Patton. People may love or hate this kind of leader and time manager. There is little in between. They will, however, never ever forget them.

The second type of excellent time manager is more nonchalant and appears to expend very little energy and gets as much or more done than the former. This class of achievers is much more enigmatic to me. They look calm and never seem manic about anything. Yet, they get as much or even more done then the visibly energetic type. How do they plan? How do they work? Clearly these folks are smart, excellent managers, and terrific motivators. This quiet competence, this cool approach is very attractive to me.

This kind of leader may not even carry a pen or pad of paper. In this computer era, you may go by their office and find them on the internet or playing solitaire (I kid you not, I know someone like this). Yet, they are incredibly prolific. Nothing fazes them, neither the extreme positives or negatives and certainly not the mundane. This enigmatic combination reminds me of a passage in Tao Te Ching, the basic scripture of Taoism.

“Leading and not trying to control: this is the supreme virtue” Verse 11

“When the Master governs, the people are hardly aware that he exists.
Next best is a leader who is loved. Next, one who is feared. The worst is one who is despised. If you don't trust the people, you make them untrustworthy.

The Master doesn't talk, he acts. When his work is done, the
people say, ‘Amazing: we did it, all by ourselves!’”Verse 17

http://www.mindfully.org/Tao-Te-Ching-Lao-tzu.htm

This is the shortest letter I have written in awhile, not counting the quotes. Why? I simply ran out of time.

——— • ———

Some Quotes on Time Management
www.famous-motivational-quotes.com/time-management.html

Benjamin Franklin: Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.

Peter Drucker: There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.

Goethe: We always have time enough, if we will but use it right.

Art Buchwald: It may be the best of times or the worst of times, it’s the only time we’ve got.

Anthony Robbins: Once you have mastered time, you will understand how true it is that most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year – and underestimate what they can achieve in a decade!

John F. Kennedy: We must use time as a tool, not as a couch.

Bonnie Pruden: You can’t turn back the clock. But you can wind it up again.

From the website: And remember that time waits for no one. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why it is called the present.

June 2006: 3rd Annual Health & Fitness Letter

In June 2004, I wrote the “First Annual Health & Diet Letter.” The main message of the letter was that to lose weight one simply had to “Eat Less.” The 2nd Annual Health and Fitness letter came out in July of 2005. It was about my love of cycling as well as honoring Lance Armstrong who was headed to unbelievable seventh Tour de France victory.

This year I certainly wanted to write another Health and Fitness Letter. But, I had to decide is it a June or July letter? Is it ‘Health and Fitness’ or ‘Health and Diet’? See how we can confuse things on this side of fifty? Obviously, I opted for June and to call it the “Annual Health and Fitness Letter.” Having firmly stated this, I can see the 4th Annual letter come out in August of 2007 and be called something like the “The Wellness Letter.”

Upon writing the June 2004 letter with it’s seemingly brilliant premise that to lose weight one must simply Eat Less, Greg Postian wrote back and said that he heard one of the Unilever executives, where he works, add to this by saying one had to not only “Eat Less” but also “Move More.” His addition was equally simple and compelling. So, Eat Less and Move More became my mantra for the next year and half.

The results were unspectacular. I certainly kept riding and exercising. I did try to Eat Less but in reality it was more pretending and procrastinating than actually doing. I ended up actually gaining weight. Also, in that same June 2004 letter, I also coined a term and acronym: Chronically Unsuccessful Dieter or CUD. I was definitely on my way to not only being founder of this club but also lifelong president and poster child.

Another reason to make June the month for the Annual Health and Fitness Letter was an article in the June 6th USA Today entitled “Obese boomer face immobile future” settled it. In reading this article, I realized that my desire to be leaner and healthier was really motivated by a deep desire to be self-sufficient for as long as possible and to be as minimal a burden on my family and society as long as possible. Also, the trend today is for children to get married and have children at increasingly older ages. It is quite likely that I will be in my 70’s or 80’s when my grandchildren, that are barely a twinkle in my minds eye, graduate from college and in my 80’s or 90’s when they get married. Will I even be around then? What kind of shape will I be in? If I want to be around and even consider dancing at their weddings, I had better start taking exquisite care of myself.

There were three statistics cited in the USA Today article. First, by 2030 there will be 71 million senior citizens in the US. The baby boomer generation, those born 1946-1964 will all have turned 65 by then. One third of the adult population is currently obese i.e. thirty or more pounds overweight. Lastly, the number of obesity related disabilities in people 30-60 years old has risen dramatically in the past twenty years.

Quite simply the human body can be viewed as a biological machine. Speaking like a former Reliability Engineer, the various moving parts can and do wear out. They wear out much faster when under the strain of operating under an increased workload. This includes knees, hips and organs including livers, kidneys and blood vessels in the hearts. There are replacement surgeries and as magical as the results can be, they are non-trivial or cheap. The recoveries can be long and painful proportional to how obese one is going into the surgery.

We all know the story of blood chemistry and diet. Poor diet and obesity raise blood pressure, lower the good cholesterol, raise triglycerides and increase blood sugar. These five factors

1. Weight
2. Blood Pressure
3. Amount of Good Cholesterol
4. Triglycerides
5. Blood Sugar

are used to predict heart disease as cited in a recent University of Michigan study. Warning alarms should sound if any three are above the upper limit of what is considered normal. (http://www.umich.edu/news/MT/06/Spring06/story.html?EatBetter)

On December 22, 2005, I went for a long overdue medical exam. That day, Dr. Syed Reza told me that he would prescribe hypertension medicine if upon my next visit the readings were in the same range: pre-hypertension. This triggered something. Snap! I was already taking Lipitor and I didn’t want to add another “lifetime” type medication. I also didn’t like the trend of adding a new prescription medicine every three-four years.

But, it was just before Christmas and that is not traditionally good time to change one’s lifestyle. I decided to do what every good CUD would do: postpone and procrastinate. I enjoyed the holidays, con mucho gusto as they say in Latin America. Somewhere around December 27 or 28, I got a phone message from Dr. Reza in which he relayed the results of my blood tests. Of the five factors in the University of Michigan Study, I had negatively pegged the needle on all but blood sugar.

Yet, there was something different this time. I knew I had maybe one last chance to make a permanent change. Somehow filling a prescription for hypertension medicine and swallowing that first pill would be admitting defeat. I really had to do something.

I remembered watching a television documentary on a Dr. Dean Ornish back in the late 1980s. I never forgot his name. He shocked the medical world by reversing heart disease by only diet and exercise. All I remembered was that his diet was strict and vegetarian. I remember being quite impressed but also thinking the fix was too extreme truly believing that I would never be able to adhere and sustain such a seemingly dramatic lifestyle change.

I went to Amazon.com and looked at books authored by Dr. Ornish. One entitled, Eat More, Weigh Less caught my eye. These are the magic words every dieter wants to hear. It is the stuff dreams, and late night infomercials, are made of. Eat More, Lose Weight While You Sleep, Lose Weight While Sitting on Your Incredibly Fat Butt watching TV and Eating Twinkies. What could be better… or worse? Still, it was Dr. Ornish, so I ordered the book and had it delivered to my office.

I enjoyed New Years Eve. I ate and drank. I had a great time. I awoke on New Years Day to the reality of my resolution. I was determined and scared at the same time. Every CUD in the world resolves to begin anew on January 1… every January 1. The New Year’s Resolution is a cliché and fodder for jokes of late night monologues. CUDs last a day, a week, maybe a month before settling back into their well worn and most comfortable and unhealthy dietary patterns. I began with what I thought I knew quite well. I began Eating Less. Was I following Atkins or South Beach? Well, yes, kinda sorta. But I was eating less.

I returned to my office on January 3rd. The Ornish book was there. I laughed again at the title and tucked it in my brief case. I began reading it on the train on the way home that evening. I was fascinated, engaged and intrigued. Dr. Ornish based his entire program on things I had either theorized or heard bits and pieces of over the years. Basically, the foods, processed foods, we have available to us today have emerged faster than our digestive systems have evolved.

Processed foods rich in fats and refined simple carbohydrates, i.e. white flours and sugar, digest quickly and result in the wild swings of blood sugar or the glycemic index in the South Beach Diet lexicon. Simply stated Ornish’s program is to eat fruits, vegetables, whole grains and to eliminate as much fat from ones diet as possible. These foods consume more calories to digest and digest more slowly. As a result energy is metered more evenly between meals. This regulates the metabolism and decreases the hunger pangs that accompany the wild undulations of the glycemic index. Ornish says that up until recently, the past eighty to one hundred years, this is how people ate. It is the true old world diet for which our bodies are well adapted.

The best way to minimize fats is to become a vegetarian. I chose to try this for this year. I also decided to eschew alcohol since it plays havoc with blood sugar and has a historical tendency to whet my appetite and destroy any dietary self-discipline. Vegetarian for me means no meat, poultry or fish. I eat no nuts, olives or avocados since they are relatively fatty. For the same reason, I eat only non-fat dairy.

I eat until I am full. Vegetarian full, while still being full, is different kind of full than I had been used to. It is not that I want to take a nap, lethargic, fullness. The energy release is more metered. If I get hungry, I have a piece of fruit or some dried fruit.

I sometimes call this my grandparent’s diet. I have eaten more vegetarian Armenian dishes in the past six months than I have the past six years combined. I eat hommus, tabuleh, green beans over bulgar pilaf, vospov khema (a lentil paste with scallions), and roasted vegetables of every kind. Calling it my grandparent’s diet came to me when I began eating leblebi (roasted chick peas) instead of nuts as a snack. It is a very old Middle Eastern thing to do.
Ornish provided testimonials from elated adherents to this lifestyle. The all claimed they were eating very well and weight just fell off. At the beginning, I looked at this as more infomercial nonsense. But, now six months into it, I am writing exactly that. I cannot believe how quickly the weight fell off and how well I have been eating. I have not denied myself and I have lost 48 pounds.

I realized that all previous diets, there were two problems. First, I was not learning a new way of eating for the rest of my life. Secondly and somewhat related to the first, I was eating so much less that I was kind of always hungry. So, I was feeling really denied and creating a kind of tension that when I would stop dieting would catapult pretty quickly back to my bad habits and all the weight I lost and more would return. Some refer to it as the dieting yo-yo and is reported to be more dangerous than simply being overweight. The case of the late actor James Coco personifies this to me. James Coco wrote a diet book in 1984, The James Coco Diet. On the cover, Coco was standing inside of his old pants that were like six sizes too large for him. He was holding out the waistband with one hand and looking quite pleased. Upon publication of his book, he was the darling of talk shows. I saw him on another talk show in 1986, he had gained all his weight back. I was sad to learn that he died of a heart attack at the age of 56 on February 25, 1987.

You are probably wondering if there were any problems at all with this diet regimen. Well, switching to this diet involves a transition. The transition is mental, but there is a physical transition that takes place in the digestive tract. Increasing ones intake of vegetables, fruits and legumes (i.e. beans) makes for some interesting, even surprising, rumbles and gurgles as the digestive tract adapts. For me, methane generation increased to where, with all this news of increasing fuel costs, it might have been possible to power a small city. But after a few weeks, this too passed.

In January, I was in Brazil for some meetings. My colleagues could not believe that we went to a Brazilian barbecue and I only ate from the salad bar and didn’t drink. They started calling me Gandhi. I even started referring to this regimen as the Gandhi lifestyle.

In February some of the same gang was in Miami for another two weeks of meetings. As the weight loss was beginning to show, my colleagues were throwing the Gandhi moniker about even more. This trip involved a weekend stay in South Beach. The hotel offered all kinds of activities for adults and kids. One that caught my eye was a Saturday morning yoga class. Ornish recommended stress management like meditation and yoga. So, I quietly signed up. When I showed up, I was the only participant. This was good because I would get personal instruction as I had never done any yoga before. The class was usually held in one of the hotel meeting rooms, but as it was just the two of us, the instructor decided to hold the class poolside and enjoy the beautiful morning.

Conceptually, this was a good idea. Realistically, any of my Colgate colleagues eating breakfast in the restaurant would have a clear view of me… doing yoga. I would be called Gandhi for the rest of my life had anyone caught a glimpse of this. As a result, I could not concentrate on the instructor. This very nice lady could tell I was distracted. She had me doing this one pose where I was balancing on one foot with the other foot against the knee of the grounded leg, my arms were over my head palm to palm. I started laughing because if any of my colleagues saw me, I may have well have been wearing a white linen sheet wrapped around me instead of gym shorts. I really expected to hear some comments at any point. Luckily, everyone had slept in or had other plans… good luck, good karma. I was appreciative of either or both.

Another realization is that I am finally living like a Gavoor male. Every other Gavoor named male I have known took great pride in physical health and appearance. I didn’t know my grandfather Aram long enough to notice this about him though he looked trim enough of the few photos I have of both of us. His brothers Rouben and Sisak, who I knew much longer, were very focused and disciplined in this regard. My father and his brother, my Uncle Buddy, are shining examples of eating right, working out and fit. My first cousin David and my son Aram? The same. I was the exception. In a sense, I have just given in to my inner-Gavoor.

I am cautiously optimistic. I have lost 48 pounds, Dr. Reza no longer wants to prescribe hypertension medicine, my cholesterol is 150, and my triglycerides are down. Yet, I cannot claim victory. I have experienced too many dietary backslides. Yet, I feel this is different mainly because I don’t have to be hungry to be successful and it is a lifetime eating habit and not a diet.

Lastly, Dr. Ornish’s program was the right diet/book/lifestyle for me at the right time. I do not suppose or propose that it is for everyone.

I began writing a page a day on June 26, 2002. Losing weight was one of the goals I wrote about on that page. It took four years but I feel I am on my way. Hoping to report sustained success next year this time.

I attach these photos because I have always harbored a secret desire to become a before and after model for both weight loss and hair treatment. The first, with Armene, was taken in late December 2005 and the second at Aram's Law School Graduation in May 2006.