Thanks for the Memory, Kevin

Truth be told, over these past months, I have grappled with not being a boss. Not because I like bossing people around. I don’t, as anyone who has ever worked for me can attest. I would rather do something myself than ask anyone and have always held to the maxim that the best way to show authority is to not show authority. Fairly egalitarian, is how I once termed my workplace.

I guess I miss it because I like teaching people. Not work stuff necessarily. But people stuff. Adult stuff. How to ask for things, how to deal with crises, how to treat people—from the owner of the company to the guy delivering the pizza. The pleasure that comes when everyone is moving in the same direction, toward the same goal, and feeling the same amount of ownership of an idea.

I am lucky because, over the years I have had some great bosses, really and truly. I have also had some terrible ones, whose bodies I wouldn’t even contaminate a landfill with, lest they increase the number of vermin. Literally. But, by and large, I have been very lucky and have tried to pass that luck on.

What got me thinking about this in the first place was when I heard this morning that a guy I worked for a few years ago, Kevin Hahn, had passed away from cancer. (I know, another friend gone.) He was in his forties, with a lovely wife and two kids. He was also the smartest guy I have ever known, had an infectious laugh, and was a real gentleman. And he liked me very much and always felt guilty that he put me in the middle of a tempestuous business relationship that my former employer had with a professional sports league that shall remain nameless.

When I last saw him, it was at the company Christmas party in 2003, my last day there, and we clinked Heineken bottles and toasted my new job. Despite the fact that I was sort of leaving him in the lurch—I had been doing about twelve jobs at once—he was genuinely happy and kept telling me “don’t worry about it” when I fretted over how he was going to handle everything.

That is the memory I will always have of him. Gracious and kind. And I hope some day, in about 45 years or so, that is the type of memory people will have of me.

Not the one where I try and eat an Emma’s Combo sandwich in three bites.

(Okay, they can have two memories.)