Stella Disappointed in Impact But Still Provided a Snow Day and Memories

Stella, the blizzard of ’17, didn’t quite make it into the record books, and for that we are all grateful for we got a snow day (Gilda was able to work from home) with not as much pain and travail as forecast, though I did feel bad for those who traveled into Manhattan by train only to learn too late that Metro-North was cancelling afternoon outbound service from Grand Central Terminal. How they would get home bewildered me.

The snow dump evoked memories of two 20-inch storms back in 1978 that remain with me as lessons in commuting that nobody should experience. They were the reasons I developed a well-deserved reputation for taking snow days at the drop of a snowflake.

In January of that year, after a 20-inch snowstorm, I trudged to the train station from our apartment in downtown White Plains in plenty time for the 8:18 am transport. The train arrived on time. I sat down for the usual 35-minute commute. Four hours later, the train pooped out in the tunnel beneath Park Avenue. Snow had fallen through the grates, blocking all trains from entering Grand Central Terminal.

We couldn’t move forward or back up. Metro-North decided our only exit was vertical. All on board had to carefully climb down onto the tracks and ascend one of the emergency staircases, taking us up to Park Avenue and 72nd Street. From there I walked 15 blocks to my office at 425 Park Avenue. When I got there I discovered the office was closed. After a few minutes to thaw out, I was back on the street, slogging my way down to Grand Central, 13 blocks to the south, all the way hoping there would be a train back to White Plains.

I was lucky. Double lucky. A train was set to depart momentarily, and I had secured a seat. Four hours later it pulled into White Plains. I had spent more than nine hours commuting in the snow. I vowed to be more circumspect in future snowstorms.

I had my chance two weeks later when another 20-inch storm struck. This time I sought assurance our office would be open. I called our VP administration who, by coincidence, commuted on my same train each day. He daily drove down to White Plains from Ridgefield, Conn. If anyone would be a no-show, Mike surely would lead the pack. But his wife cheerfully reported Mike had set off for work. I reasoned I had better show up, as well.

Once again, I trudged down to the station. The 8:18 am train again arrived on time. I sat down. Once again, the trip south took four hours. This time, though, it made it all the way into Grand Central. I engaged a pay telephone (this was pre-cell phone days), called the office and discovered it was, once again, closed!

Once again, I was lucky. Double lucky. A train was set to depart momentarily, and I had secured a seat. Once again, four hours later it pulled into White Plains. Once again, I had spent more than a full work day commuting in the snow. This time, I came to the realization that snow was God’s way of telling me to slow down, that work could be done at home just as easily as in the office. I soon garnered my well-deserved reputation for taking a snow day for anything more than a dusting.

Sales Promotions and Top Down Management

Did you hear about the Baltimore furniture store that gave away $600,000 in merchandise as part of a Super Bowl promotion that promised free goods if a Baltimore Raven returned a kickoff for a touchdown during the penultimate game? 

Anyone who bought furniture between January 31 and 3 pm game day last Sunday from any Gardiners Furniture store would have their money refunded. Gardiners had been running a Super Bowl kick return promotion for three years before Jacoby Jones ran 108 yards to pay dirt at the start of the second half of the game the Ravens won. Co-owner Gary Mullaney sponsored the promotion as part of a traffic-building scheme. Fortunately, for Gardiners, he also opted to insure his idea, just in case. The insurance policy cost $12,000 (http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/bs-ae-gardiners-follow-20130204,0,6257047.story). 

As I write this, it’s snowing outside, the early stage of a blizzard that will blanket the New York metro area as it makes its way up into New England. I’m reminded of a sales promotion tied to snowfall run by Potamkin Auto Centers Limited of Manhattan back in January 1996. Potamkin promised free leases to anyone who signed for a car between December 22 and January 2 if it snowed more than four inches in Central Park on January 8 between 10 am and 10 pm.

Sunday, January 7, it started snowing, and snowing and snowing. The biggest snowfall in 48 years. All told, 20.6 inches fell from Sunday through Monday. But Potamkin escaped unscathed, except for its insurance policy of $32,000, because the devil was in the details. During the 12 promotion hours, only 3.3 inches of snow fell (http://www.businessinsurance.com/article/19960114/ISSUE01/100011057). 

I was reminded of this brush with snow history because I recall being told the idea for the car lease promotion might have come from an ex-publisher colleague who was working for Potamkin at the time. I can’t verify if Arthur was indeed the originator of the plan, but it worked. Potamkin leased 104 cars during the contest period, worth nearly $1 million in rental fees.

Arthur died recently. I think he’d appreciate being remembered for his salesmanship, even if he wasn’t directly involved.

Top Down Management: With much fanfare one year ago J.C. Penney announced a new policy of everyday low prices. No more sales every week. Just everyday low prices. With little more than a whimper two weeks ago the company reversed course and conceded customers couldn't be enticed to shop its stores without the attraction of sales. So they're back.

This reversal of fortune is a slap in the face of CEO Ron Johnson, who came to Penney from a successful stint as head of Apple’s stores. Decisions by CEOs often run counter to expectations, but are made for personal as well as business reasons.

Sticking with Penney, some 25 years ago the company abandoned its New York headquarters in favor of Texas, because, it was rumored in the trade, its then chairman William R. Howell was interested in running for the U.S. Senate from his native state, Oklahoma. Never happened, to my knowledge, but he did commute by helicopter to the new corporate headquarters in Plano, outside Dallas. 

Target changed its check acceptance policy when its leader couldn’t pay for purchases to furnish a condominium he and his wife bought as a warm weather vacation retreat from Minneapolis’ brutal winters. When Bruce Allbright rolled his shopping cart full of household goods up to the checkout counter, the cashier told him corporate policy stated the maximum personal check she could accept was for $100. Though he complained it was an unrealistically low amount, she responded that even if he were the chairman of Target she could not violate company rules. She stood her ground even when he revealed himself as chairman of the chain. The next day Allbright amended company policy to accept checks up to $1,000. 

Most supermarket chains have one store that stands out from all others, in appearance and in the diversity and quality of its offerings. It usually is known as the chairman’s store, the one where he or his wife shops. So it was with the now defunct Colonial Stores of Atlanta.  

It happened some 30-plus years ago that in its effort to cut labor expenses Colonial’s management team decided meat no longer would be processed in-store. Whatever was shipped to the stores and arranged in the refrigerated bins was the only meat available. And so, the story goes, when the chairman’s wife went to her store to pick up some chop meat, and couldn’t find any, she was stymied in her efforts to get the staff in the meat department to grind up some chuck. Against new corporate rules. 

She bought some prime beef, brought it home and cranked it through her hand grinder for a meat loaf. Her husband praised her cooking that evening, but swallowed harder when she explained what she had gone through and what she paid for the prime meat instead of the chuck she originally sought. Recognizing the inconvenience and the extra expense his customer would face, the chairman rescinded the meat department rules.

Snow Dog Memories

The almost never-ending snow and a recent article in the NY Times on the intelligence of border collies took me back 50 years to the year we had one of the breed as our pet (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/science/18dog.html?_r=1&ref=science).

Dusty was a handsome, golden-haired dog. Just a puppy when we brought him home in June, he grew to be around 70 pounds by the end of the year. His owner told us he was a border collie, though my siblings and I believe because of his size and color he probably had some golden retriever in his genes, as well.

I can’t say he was the most intelligent of four-footed friends, but he was among the most playful and fun dogs I’ve ever come across. In this winter of incessant snow, it’s enjoyable to recall the winter of 1960-61, when 54.7 inches of snow fell in New York City, the 7th snowiest before this season.

By winter, Dusty had grown to almost his full weight, and I, as stated in a previous blog, I was skin and bones growing up. Average weight for an 11-year-old boy is 77 pounds. I was lucky if I weighed 50. It was comforting and reassuring to have Dusty around. No one would bother me when I walked him. Or rather, when he walked me. He’d go into typical border collie mode, circling back and forth on the leash as he corralled me to walk where he wanted to go, just as his ancestors would do when herding sheep.

He never tugged on the leash, except in extreme conditions, like when he saw a squirrel across the street.

Our row house in Brooklyn had a front porch eight steps above the ground. After one deep snowfall, it was my turn to walk Dusty in the morning. We went out onto the porch and as I carefully prepared to negotiate the steps covered in about a foot of snow, Dusty spotted a squirrel across Avenue W. He leaped at the chance to make a new friend. I landed spread-eagled, face down at the base of the steps. I didn’t hold onto the leash. It was a good hour before Dusty harkened to my call to come back inside.

A few days later it was my sister Lee’s turn to walk Dusty. Lee always claimed Dusty was her dog, that we got him as an elementary school graduation present for her to make up for the absence of our father who was on a round-the-world trip at the time. This particular morning Lee had to be at school by 9 am to take a mid-term exam. Dusty was not informed, however. So when he slipped his leash from her wrist to romp in the snow, Lee was beside herself. No amount of entreaty could coax Dusty back home. Finally, Lee called out she was leaving four Oreos on the steps of the porch and that she’d come back for him after her test.

As should be obvious by now, Dusty loved frolicking in the snow. One evening during another blizzard we decided that rather than subject one of us to trying to walk him in the driving snow, we’d just let him loose on the street. When he got tired, hungry or cold, he’d come back home, bark loudly and we’d let him in. We didn’t think he’d bother anyone, nor would he be in danger from any passing car, as no one in their right mind would be outside in the middle of a blizzard.

We didn’t count, however, on “Uncle” Bernie and “Aunt” Ruth Schwartz showing up for an appointment to sell us on attending Camp Dellwood in Honesdale, Pa., that summer. As it was their first year operating the camp, they were eager to scrounge up as many campers as possible. For the past five summers we had attended Camp Massad Aleph, but Lee had so ingratiated herself with Massad’s owners that only my brother and I were invited back. Our parents, however, considered us a package deal; we had to find a new summer stomping ground. The prospect of signing up three campers in one sitting was too much for Uncle Bernie and Aunt Ruth to resist, blizzard be damned.

About an hour after letting Dusty patrol in front of our house we heard his barking. Not his usual barking, more a bark that signified danger, the type of bark a border collie would emit when he saw a wolf or fox near the sheep. As we approached the front door we noticed two figures on the porch, a man and a woman, shivering. They were not only wet and cold, they were downright petrified this huge dog was going to tear them to pieces.

We laughed apologetically as we let them inside, told them Dusty wouldn’t hurt a fly. After they thawed out, they showed us slides of the camp, told us their camping philosophy and pitched us on Dellwood.

We attended Dellwood the summer of 1961. During that summer our parents gave Dusty away. My brother, sister and I never got over it. We never went back to Dellwood.

Snow Day, Once Again

Gilda went off to work this morning. Nothing unusual about that, except this is the morning after the post-Christmas blizzard of 2010.

As much as I tried to convince her to take a snow day, Gilda was determined to get to work. Though none of the spine surgeons would be in the office because they were on vacation, three patients were expected to show up to see her, come hell or high snow. She felt obligated to be there for them. Moreover, she couldn’t call the other nurse practitioner who lives in Manhattan to cover for her as he, too, was on vacation.

Metro North was operating on a Sunday schedule, which meant only one train per hour. To get to the train station, she gave herself a few extra minutes to navigate the streets in her Jeep (and to mush through the 11 inches of snow on our driveway which I had not yet cleared). Metro North fulfilled its obligation, bringing her to Grand Central Terminal where she boarded the subway down to Union Square, arriving on time, but a few minutes after her 9 am appointment, a woman from New Jersey, who called our home from Gilda’s office to find out if she indeed was coming in.

Those two women are really dedicated. As were the two other patients who showed for their appointments. Gilda was right to go to work. Now the only dilemma she faces is how to get home. As she was walking through Grand Central this morning Metro North announced suspension of all further service because of switch-related problems. She hopes they will be resolved before her work day ends (still no service at 1 pm), or she’ll have to spend the night at Ellie’s apartment in Brooklyn.

No matter how conscientious you are, snow always seems to have the upper hand. As I wrote last February, when I worked in the city, I had a deserved reputation for taking snow days at the drop of a snow flake. It came from my double experience in the winter of 1978.

In January, after a 20-inch snowstorm, I trudged to the train station from our apartment in downtown White Plains in plenty time for my normal 8:18 am transport. The train arrived on time. I sat down for the usual 35 minute commute. Four hours later, the train pooped out in the tunnel beneath Park Avenue. Snow had fallen through the grates, blocking all trains from entering Grand Central Terminal.

We couldn’t move forward or back up. Metro North decided our only exit was vertical. All on board had to carefully climb down onto the tracks and ascend one of the emergency staircases, taking us up to Park Avenue and 72nd Street. From there I walked 15 blocks to my office at 425 Park Avenue. When I got there I discovered the office was closed. After a few minutes to thaw out, I was back on the street, slogging my way down to Grand Central, 13 blocks to the south, all the way hoping there would be a train back to White Plains.

I was lucky. Double lucky. A train was set to depart momentarily, and I had secured a seat. Four hours later it pulled into White Plains. I had spent more than nine hours commuting in the snow. I vowed to be more circumspect in future snowstorms.

I had my chance two weeks later when another 20-inch storm struck. This time I sought assurance our office would be open. I called our VP administration who, by coincidence, commuted on my same train each day. He daily drove down to White Plains from Ridgefield, Conn. If anyone would be a no-show, Mike surely would lead the pack. But his wife cheerfully reported Mike had set off for work. I reasoned I had better show up, as well.

Once again, I trudged down to the station. The 8:18 am train again arrived on time. I sat down. Once again, the trip south took four hours. This time, though, it made it all the way into Grand Central. I engaged a pay telephone (this was pre-cell phone days), called the office and discovered it was, once again, closed!

Once again, I was lucky. Double lucky. A train was set to depart momentarily, and I had secured a seat. Once again, four hours later it pulled into White Plains. Once again, I had spent more than a full work day commuting in the snow. This time, I came to the realization that snow was God’s way of telling me to slow down, that work could be done at home just as easily as in the office. I soon garnered my well-deserved reputation for taking a snow day for anything more than a dusting.