John Guaspari

One of the few good things about officially being an old coot is that I now get to say anything I goddam well please about things that annoy me, and one of the things that really annoys me is when people say that "age is just a number." Yeah, and so are the contents of actuarial tables. I started out my business career in the early 1970s as an aerospace engineer, then wandered into positions in a variety of disciplines: marketing, sales, sales support, quality, and--God forgive me--human resources. For the immediate 30 years before becoming old and cranky I was a business consultant, specializing in management/leadership development. Back then I had to be diplomatic: "Maybe your people would be more likely to follow your lead if you were able to create a more engaging workplace environment." Were I still doing that sort of work as an old coot I could be more direct: "You couldn't get people to follow you out of a burning building." Or better yet: "You couldn't get people to follow you out of a burning building even if they were wearing gasoline pants." I am currently hunkering down, attempting to be single again after my wife of 40 years passed away in 2020, regularly Zooming with my kids and grandkids, and hoping that I'm too ornery for Covid-19 or any of its offshoots to want to have to deal with me.