The Good Life

The distance between the good life and a good life may be no more more than a change of article.  The good life is the preoccupation of moral philosophers and the people who advertise beer.  The latter is a phrase usually reserved to obsequies.  I've neither the qualifications nor the occasion to review or dispute the philosophers, and now is not the moment to critique the vulgar usage of the advertisers.  I  would however argue, if just from instinct, that as near as we can come to the good, most of us, myself included, is by example.  Bryan Pearce was a good man.  He died Friday.   

He was my boss at the University Book Store.  He was also of course a husband and a father, the CEO of the company, a force in both the business of independent and college bookstores, a devoted graduate and supporter of the University of Washington.  I'll let other speak to all that.  Bryan's was a life and a career that effected more people, I suspect, than he knew.  I came to know him at work.

Even that seems to imply a greater intimacy to our relationship than there may actually have been, for which I'm afraid I'd have to blame Bryan.  He was a gentleman.  He invariably said, even of someone as remote from his position in the company as me, that we "worked together."  He also used the word "team" in contexts outside of organized sports. When we met and for some time thereafter I was, I confess, suspicious of such inclusive language, which to my old ears, tuned to the somewhat cynical sounds of socialism and class-divisions, smacked of the School of Business and an MBA.  Likewise "family," another word of which Bryan was fond, when used in reference to employer and employees, in my previous experience was more usually deployed as a rhetorical device preceding the announcement of some unpleasant or exploitative change in either benefits or hours or both.  Bryan's sincerity was new to me in a man in his position, at least when addressing a man in mine.

Our very first conversation of more than a few words was indicative of this misunderstanding.  I hadn't been working for him very long when the decision was taken somewhere well off the sales floor to stop calling people like me "clerks."  I learned about this from a recorded message on the store's phones -- we used to have advertisements and announce forthcoming events intermittently while the "hold" music played.  Calling back and forth every day between the branches of the bookstore to arrange book transfers and the like, I heard those messages a lot.  (Selfishly then, I am not sorry they're gone.)  One day the message included the injunction to, "just ask one of our sales associates if you have any questions!"  (All those messages came with exclamation marks.)  In my opinion, there have been few developments in contemporary management culture more tin-eared than this practice of calling clerks, "sales associates."  "Clerk" is a word nearly as venerable as the language.  "Bookseller" is a good one too, even better as it more exactly describes what it is I do (hopefully) every working day.  I do not, even on my worst day, "associate" with sales.  The idea is to make sales, not sidle up to them at a party.  I understand the urge to flatter relatively low paid workers by giving us airs rather than raises, but I've neither a law degree nor any need of being made to feel better in this way about selling books.  I like what I do.

All of which arguments I eventually made to my immediate supervisor after listening to that damned phone-message for the hundredth time.  She, quite rightly if discouragingly suggested I take the matter up with the boss.  Now, as I've said, heretofore we had exchanged no more than an introduction and the usual morning pleasantries.  Still, I had what someone's grandmother would probably have described as "a bee in my bonnet," so off I went to the third floor offices.  Bryan's door was always open.  (It really nearly always was.)  In I went.

Looking back, I imagine myself intruding into Bryan's office for the first time in something like the character of Pappy Yokum.  For any not old enough to remember the comic strip Lil' Abner, Pappy was his short and short-tempered father, notorious for jumping up and down in a state usually described as being "hoppin' mad." I'm sure I looked a little mad indeed.  Bryan smiled.  He did that nearly all the time.  Without much more than a by-your-leave, I'm pretty sure I launched into the same arguments against the phrase "sales associates" made above, though not so concisely as this and with, I do not doubt, an unseemly passion for an unscheduled business meeting.  Bryan listened.  He did that.  On and on I went.  I remember describing that idiotic phrase, "sales associate" as both meaningless and "an abuse of the language."  I specifically remember that rather windy pomposity as something like my last word on the subject.  As I've said, I talked, Bryan listened.  He did that.  He may have asked me a question or two.  He did that too.  I can't remember.  I do remember that at some point he stopped smiling.  Instead, he leaned in.  His expression quickly changed to one of calm concern.  His interest I eventually came to recognize as genuine, though at the time I remember something like panic coming over me at the intensity of his gaze.  I may have mistaken his sympathy for something else.  He proved to be a most sympathetic character over the years.  I hadn't the experience yet or the simple common sense to see this at the time.  When I finally ran out of gas, he acknowledged my obvious discomposure and thanked me for bringing my concerns to his attention.  (He may have used the word "feedback."  The man did talk that way.)  I left feeling I'd done nothing much but proved myself a perfect ass.

Then the phone-message changed.  it wasn't immediate, but it did change.  That it changed was not due to my ranting, but was instead entirely the result of the management of Bryan Pearce.  He listened.  Even to me he listened.  More importantly, he actually sought out the opinions of the people most immediately effected by this and nearly every other decision, major or minor that he made, invariably in the hope of making the bookstore a better place.

It's a trivial anecdote, hardly worth recording.  It does however suggest something not only of our relationship but of the man's remarkable patience and complete sincerity.  I can not emphasize how much I came to rely on the first and trust the second.  Bryan invariably meant what he said.  That is a rare thing in my experience of bosses, and of men, come to that.  When he asked for my opinion, he meant it. Though I can't but think he must have regretted the question more than once, he never stopped asking.  When he said he shared my concerns, he did.  When he said he would follow up on something, he did.

If that had proved to be the whole of my experience with him, he would still have had my respect and I would still have cause to regret his untimely retirement, and now his passing.  He proved to be a most unlikely and powerful ally in every small effort or initiative I made to improve either my job or the bookstore.  His backing of the idea, and management of the practicalities involved, is the reason we sell used trade books.  He was a very real collaborator, not just another man at a meeting.  He made a point of introducing me at the used books desk to nearly every visitor he ever brought to the sales floor.  He asked me to appear on a panel on selling used books at a conference of college bookstores.  He encouraged me to write about my love of old books as well as new.  He laughed at the affectionate caricature I drew of him as a gift, and touchingly, asked if he could keep it.  He came to hear the very first reading I ever gave in the bookstore.  I'll always be grateful to him as much for his enthusiasm as his patience.

His enthusiasm for the bookstore, and his genuine belief in the company's mission; to serve the students, faculty and staff of the University, was truly a wonderful thing to see.  The was no better advocate for the bookstore to the campus and no one more devoted to meeting the needs of the University's students.  It was quite obvious he loved his job.  He loved the place.  He loved the school.  Even in difficult times for college bookstores, he loved coming to work and believed in what we do.

When a friend and coworker died some years ago, we had a memorial service after hours at the bookstore.  Bryan of course spoke.  I did too.  I'd never seen the man cry before.  I was moved to see him so moved.

When we started having our annual employee banquet at the bookstore a few years ago, somebody -- it may have been Bryan for all I know -- decided to hire a DJ for the party.  Bryan loved that event, and clearly looked forward to it every year.  He handed out awards and door prizes.  He worked the room and talked to everybody.  He was clearly very much in his element;  telling everyone how wonderful we all were, what wonderful work we all did together, what a special place we were privileged to occupy in service to a great University.  He meant every word.  The first year we had the DJ at the party, it seemed as though no one was going to dance.  Everyone sat at the tables and smiled as awkwardly as teenagers at their first formal.  Finally a coworker claimed the floor with a rather freely interpreted twist.  I joined her. Eventually a lot more people turned out.  At some point I spotted Bryan, grinning at the information desk, not dancing.  We dragged him onto the floor.  He was a very good sport indeed.

At last year's banquet, which sadly proved to be his last, he was already quit ill.  He had to sit on the grand staircase and let others distribute the prizes after awhile.  Nothing, however, would have kept him from at least sitting there, smiling.

I've worked for a lot of men.  There haven't been too many of them who danced with me.

In just the last year or so, when it became increasingly obvious that he was ill, I would watch him in the mornings when he would come down to the sales floor alone.  He would often just walk about the place, smiling.  The last time I saw him, it was quite early one morning after he'd already announced his early retirement.  I don't know that he saw me at my desk.  Traffic had been unexpectedly light that morning.  I'd gotten in very early.  I sat and watched him for some minutes.  He simply stood in the middle of the lobby, looking.  It was inexpressibly sad.  The place was his life's work.  He'd done well. Clearly, he was saying goodbye.  I didn't want to intrude.

Later that same morning, I saw him briefly once more, on his way out.  This time I caught his eye.  We smiled.  Neither of us spoke.  Neither of us waved.

When I learned of his death, I immediately regretted that last, lost opportunity to say goodbye.  Now I don't.  I will remember him, always, smiling.

He was a good man.  He was an excellent boss.  I'm flattered when I remember that he introduced me to strangers more than once as his friend.  I know he was one to me, as unlikely as that may have seemed when we met.  I respected and admired him.  He was universally acknowledged to have been a leader in his field.  He was a lovely man.  He was clearly loved.  I will miss him.

What is the good life then?  What does it mean to say, as we so often do at funerals that a person had a good life?  All I know is that we have lost a good man, an example of what it means to be decent, honest, kind.  We need such people.  They make us better for having known them.  They make us smile.

I'll always remember him, dancing.

Rest in peace, boss.  You did good.