Never Give into Defeat !
Blog Posted: Wednesday, September 9, 2009
I consider myself very fortunate that for the majority of my career I haven't had to do any airline travel for business. I have often thought about the enormous amount of hassle and stress I have been spared. Another thing to mention in setting this story up is that I have never had a laptop computer, never, that is, until a few weeks before the experience I will share occurred.
The company I worked for from 1985 through early 2009 had been purchased by investors about a year and a half prior. And as the momentum of the changes being implemented was building, I was presented an opportunity to do a proposal for a project in Hyderabad, India that was an order of magnitude larger than anything the company had ever been invited to work on. I had long term ties with this particular client who made the invitation, nurtured very carefully over many years, and my company and I were utterly stoked.
The first few meetings took place in New York at the developer's world headquarters. On my second trip back from New York, I sat down at one of the desks set up for travelers to catch up on work. There was an avalanche of e-mail from the last half of the day when I was focused on Hyderabad, and I had no time to check any e-mail. I began trying to get my head above water, and what seemed like no more than ten minutes later, I looked up at the gate and saw nobody there. I freaked. I went running down the ramp and boarded just in the nick of time.
The plane was packed and I was not in the mood for the sardine can routine as I jostled my way to my window seat, but was very relieved that I had caught my flight. Within five or so minutes I nodded off, and then woke up as we were landing at Washington Reagan Airport. As I was thinking about what belongings I needed to grab to get off of the flight, the realization that I left my laptop at La Guardia hit me with the force of an axe.
"Holy ^*#@ !", I said out loud.
A sickening feeling came over me. I was pretty sure that in that busy airport, I had almost no shot that an airline employee or good citizen had found it and turned it in. I scrambled to the baggage claim office and explained what happened and a call was made to New York's baggage claim office. Nothing was turned in, so I asked the lady to ask if they would look where I was sitting doing the e-mails. Again, nothing. She then called TSA and Lost and Found which also turned up no laptop.
I was beyond panicked at this point. Due to the nature of my work, which was in the security field, and with no "spyware" loaded onto the machine due to the fact that I never took it out of my office, I knew I was totally screwed. My thoughts then shifted to my resignation, because I knew that I had so badly compromised my firm, there was no alternative but to resign. I couldn't believe it: After all of the grueling years of hard work it was all about to come crashing down.
I then began trying to muster some semblance of courage, "OK, you may have lost, but never cave in to defeat", I told myself.
This was all I could do at this point. I drove home from the airport and when I arrived, I couldn't even focus on what I would say when I broke the news to the CEO and tendered my resignation. I had to keep mustering the promise to myself not to cave in !
I tried to sleep some and dosed off deep in the middle of the night. Then I woke up and took a shower but can't remember if I ate anything. On the way to work I kept trying to mentally prepare myself for the conversation with the CEO and tried my best to put together in my mind what I would say. I had to maintain my dignity - that was key. I felt that I to show that I was not crushed by this fatal mishap.
When I arrived at my office I wrote down the words I had come up with on my short drive to work. I knew it was far more important how I said what I had to say than the actual content. As I felt my thoughts slipping into the oblivion of what would become of my life, I slammed that mental door shut; I realized couldn't go there. I knew if I didn't cave in I would recover. Eventually.
Readying myself for the walk to the CEO's office, the thought went through my mind that I should tell the airline that I had decided to offer a reward. I contemplated that for a minute and decided I had nothing to lose, and determined an appropriate amount. I called the airline's baggage claim office in New York.
"Hello, this is Mike Gauer. I lost a laptop computer yesterday evening, did anyone find it?" I asked.
"Hold on please.......no, nothing has been turned in yet", she replied.
"Can you tell me if TSA and Lost and Found turned up anything? The woman last night said they would check every hour or so", I reported to her.
"Yes, I see that it was logged, if you'll hold on I will check with both, please hold on", she said.
Within a couple minutes she was back on the line and told me nothing was found.
"OK, I'm offering a reward for the return of my computer to me", I told her, also specifying the amount and then gave her my cell phone number.
Sixty seconds hadn't gone by when my cell phone rang.
"Hi, this is David", the young man said in a sheepish voice, "I understand you lost your computer yesterday? I found a computer last night".
He gave me the description of the machine and it was indeed my laptop. I wasn't in any mood to challenge the fact that an airline employee had waited until there was money involved before calling me. I was so blown away that perhaps my career hadn't gone to hell after all.
"OK, David, I am going to give you a FedEx account number and I need you to take the computer to a FedEx office right away and ship it 'Priority Overnight', OK ? Here is the number (I read the digits to him) and as soon as the computer arrives here in the morning and all is in order, I will wire the money to your bank account. If you call me back with your wire instructions we will be all set". I instructed him.
As a mixture of every kind of emotion flooded my brain, I could sense great trepidation in this young man who sounded like he was in his early twenties at the oldest. He was really in no position to say anything along the lines of what assurance do I have if i ship the computer I will in fact receive the reward nor did he utter a word about it. The thought went through my mind that when I received the computer I wasn't obligated to pay the reward, but I put the brakes on that line of thinking. My gut told me it was best not to tamper with the way things were going.
An indescribable sense of relief washed over me like a cool rain on a scalding hot day. I couldn't believe my computer had been found and was on its way! And as I tried to focus on work the rest of the day, I felt a deep sense of appeciation for the people in my life who had taught me the importance of never giving in to defeat, even when it appears all is totally lost.
The next morning, the FedEx package arrived at about 9:00 AM. True to his word, David had in fact come through. Within an hour or two I drove to my bank and wired the reward to his account. About two hours later he called me and was waxing on in a religious tone about how I was an angel from Heaven.
As I look back on this experience, if there is any core lesson, it is this: because of the habit I had created from the numerous times I had refused to let defeat un-glue me, I was able withstand this prodigious test of my resolve.
In many ways, recovering the computer was just icing on the cake.
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