I am traveling out to my company’s annual sales kickoff meeting. I don’t mind these meetings while I am there, but I hate the time I waste traveling to these events and on the balance are generally not worth the time I spend at the meetings and the money my company spends putting on these events. However they seem to be a corporate ritual no matter where I work, so I try to make the best of the meetings and make the trip as pleasant as possible. After my 3rd Diet Coke of the day, somewhere over Wyoming and half way into my seat 300 pound seat-neighbor’s third pile of sawed logs I had to make my way to the lavatory. On my way back to the seat I noticed that the people watching the edited for airplane viewing movie seemed to be enjoying the movie more than a usual airplane film. They were smiling and giggling as I stumbled my way back to the airplane facilities. I thought that Shrek 2 must really be good as I got to the back of the plane, where us coach-class slugs had to take care of business. I thought any movie that could make people forget that they were packed into an aging 737 like tuna fish in a Starkist tin had to be a truly wonderful film. About the time I completed that thought, I closed the door to the bathroom only to discover that my fly was down. Holy mackerel! I was four and a half hours into a 6 hour trip. I had changed planes in Chicago, eaten the obligatory 7 dollar breakfast sandwich, gate checked my over-stuffed suitcase that had no chance of fitting into the overhead bin, only to now find out that I had done all this with my barn door open. Maybe Shrek 2 wasn’t such a good movie after all. I would submit that more than a few of smiles I saw walking back to the non-executive hopper were really sneers – “hey look at that knucklehead with his pants unzipped” “I am glad he’s wearing underpants”. These are a few of the things I would have thought had I seen me strolling back to the head, airing things out a little prematurely. It also explains why there were a few of the looks that were a little askance. When I sheepishly returned to my seat, I decided that reading PJ O’Rourke’s new book “Peace Kills” was a little too heady for me given my public display of indiscretion. I thought I should ponder my most recent “zipper down” experience. So here it goes: The thing that bothers me most is that, like locking my keys in the car, when I have a zipper down event, it is inexplicably followed by at least one usually two more events in the near future. Given that I was headed to a multi-day meeting where not only my team mates would be there, but my boss, his boss, followed by his boss on up to the top of our corporate food chain. Who would be the lucky duck that was around the next time I flew the flag at the bottom of the pole? How much damage to my career was this going to inflict? Until now, a little appreciated advantage of working for a company with over 10,000 sales, engineering, and management types, is that the probability was good that the next flash of boxer shorts was likely to be amidst total strangers. That was the best case scenario. The worst case is almost unfathomable. What if, heaven forbid, I won some award and had to go up on stage to shake hands with some executive who may not think that an introduction to Mr. Johnson was a good idea with the spot light on both of us in front of a crowd of 5,000 until now bored sales people eager to do what sales folks to best – empty out the nearest bar. If history was any predictor of future events, the probability was 100% that in the next 5 days I was going greet someone in full “zipper down”. I am starting to sweat.
My only consolation is that there have been other zipper down events that have had fairly innocuous or even happy endings. My brother in law was tossed out of a job with a formerly profitable S & L back in the initial days of over extending business plans when his seemingly happy employer went belly up. He was going through the grueling process of interviewing for jobs in the banking industry when there was a glut of banking professionals on the street thanks to the Keating 5 and other business visionaries. We were chatting one day about his quest and I asked him how his interviews were going. He told me that he had had what he hoped had been a promising interview earlier in the week. However he then told me that he was not bullish on his prospect for this position given that when he got in the car to return home, after interviewing all afternoon with the president of the bank and his executive team, he realized he had been “zipper down” all day. Better yet, he was wearing his best navy blue suit which created a fabulous contrast to his white boxer shorts. Is it ironic or simply fortuitous that after months of unsuccessful job interviews that the one interview you go through in its entirety with your fly down is the one where the phone rings and you hear that you have the job? There is no way that no one noticed his display. Come on, navy blue suit, white underwear, all day has to make an impression. What to you think bank’s executive committee said when they were making their decision to fill the job – which was for their chief lending position, an officer of the company? “that guy was able to pull off a full day of interviews with his fly down and didn’t skip a beat” or “Was his strategy to be ‘noticed’ in the interview process to flash his yang our way under the guise of being professionally dressed” I think I would have concluded that he had just given up his job search was now doing things like going all day with his fly open just to see what happened. I would have called some other banks to see if someone had shown up at an interview with no shoes, parked their car on the front lawn rather than in the parking lot, or had helped themselves to the interviewer’s chair and desk after exchanging pleasantries. However, this is a zipper down event with a decidedly happy ending. My brother-in-law got the job, got some stock options, waited for the bank to get gobbled up by some overpaying, incompetent rival, and cashed out with way more dough than he ever imagined. This really is a great country. However, I wonder two things about this little episode. First what would have happened if he had not had his fly down all day during his interview and second, what the heck were the other candidates like that the best of the bunch was a guy who couldn’t remember to check the barn door before going into an interview. I wish I could rewind this one to see what the other outcomes would have been.
In a far more personal zipper-down incident several years ago, I was waiting to get on very crowded flight back from Seattle. This was back in the day when I traveled all the time and having to fly coach was anathema. I was on stand by to upgrade to civilized class in very crowded waiting area. While standing by the check-in desk, trying to make sure the agent didn’t forget about me while not being a pest, a guy I had never seen before started walking toward the check-in counter. I was extremely worried that this was another upgrade wannabe, unwanted competition for my upgraded seat. If he had more miles than me I was toast. Just as I thought he was going to ask the agent to be added to the standby list for first class, he veered toward me, and stood right next to me. I was a little flustered as it was just about time for me to ask the attendant if I had made the cut yet and I didn’t want to get moved off her front burner. The interloper with intentions unknown leaned over to me and quietly said “I know you don’t know me, but if I were in your shoes, I’d want some one to say something to me” What could this possibly be? I wondered, starting to feel more than a little uneasy. He went on “you may want to pull up your fly unless you are trying to make a point with everyone else on this flight”. Rather than try to be coy or pretend like I had intended to have my pants unzipped in front of 200 people I had never seen before, I reflexively sent my hands into action to correct the problem and thanked him for his help. While I stood there and tried to compose myself, zipper back at full staff, I was called for the upgraded seat I coveted and was ready to head home. As luck would have, my informant was also in the upgraded cabin in the seat across the aisle. As he sat down, he commented, “going to keep everything in place for the flight or should I keep an eye out for you”. I laughed. I didn’t tell him about my track record leaving my fly down in bunches after the first offense. I would have bought him a drink for the flight home, but they were already free.
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