In one selfless act in February 1995, in the international terminal of San Francisco Airport, Mork became my friend for life. We’d been friendly colleagues at that point, of the ordinary sort—didn’t really know each other well, because, although we worked for the same company, Mork worked in Santa Clara, and my group was in Mountain View. For you out-of-towners, that’s about eight miles apart, forty-five minutes door-to-door during rush hour in those days, when we were all working from work (WFW).
The day Mork became my friend for life, we were about to leave on a flight for Korea, to represent our respective divisions in a series of lectures known as the Asian Technical Seminars. Along with a handful of other colleagues, we were scheduled to give lectures in Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Japan over the course of a week or so. The audience would be comprised of engineers from our key customers, all semiconductor folks.
Because of the language barrier, we had to submit transcripts of our lectures in advance, so they could be translated for the local audiences. We’d meet with the translators before the talks to identify and clarify any potential trouble spots, usually technical terms. The translators would sit in a glassed-in booth in the back of the hall and speak the translation through headsets, United Nations-style. The effect was one of real-time translation, and translation of the Q&A afterwards really was real-time. But the talks themselves were fully scripted. And it was the same script in every country.
Just imagine this trip. We flew to an Asian country, checked into a hotel. Met with the translators for half an hour, had dinner, cruised around town, maybe shopped a bit, then took melatonin so we had a prayer of sleeping in a wacky time zone. In the morning a hired car and driver carried us to the site of the event. We took turns standing up front and reading our transcripts. Word-for-word, no improvisation. We fielded questions, mostly in Singapore. In the other countries, back then, audience members seldom asked questions in public.
By the fourth seminar, Mork and I would be getting a little bored. We thought about giving each other's talks.
A banquet followed each seminar, where we mingled, smiled and talked to customers.
The customers mostly didn’t talk to me because of my two X chromosomes. It was the mid-1990s, and the semiconductor manufacturing community was not known for progressive ideas like women with anything important to say. It’s a bit better now.
The minority of customers who were comfortable in English did talk to Mork and the (male) product sales people from the US. The other customers ate, drank, and complained or kidded around with the the local account team, men who spoke the local language and whose compensation was critically dependent upon customer relationships. Mork and I were just the reasonably presentable technical geeks. Largely (Mork) or entirely (me) neglected, we mostly talked to each other.
After each banquet, we’d go out drinking. Even me, back then, you’ll be shocked to know. The day after the banquet was always a travel day, a day reserved for flying to the next country (I mean territory, in case Xi Jinping is reading this and gets annoyed about my referring to Taiwan as a country).
We didn’t have to be at our best on the travel days, since we didn’t have much to do. Or the seminar days either, really. Pretty much all we had to do was read a transcript for thirty minutes, every other day.
The word boondoggle was invented for just such a trip as this. Except, now that I think about it, there was an even more boondogglacious trip to Hawaii that had happened a year earlier, shortly after I joined the company.
The Japan sales team had been incentivized to meet an aggressive (and presumed unattainable) sales goal, with the promise that they could go to Maui on the company’s dime and bring their wives. To the delight and financial shock of the general manager, they met the goal. The US product marketing team got to go, too, because they’d all helped the Japan sales team meet their target. I’d done nothing to deserve this amazing trip. I’d just joined the company a few weeks earlier. Knew squat about the Japan market.
We stayed in a Prince resort in the southwest of Maui (Makena, the best part of Maui, and go ahead—argue with me). My oceanfront suite was the size of a small house. All expenses were paid, and we were allowed to choose any excursion we wanted each day, as long as the participants included people from both the Japan team and the US team. And also, no helicopter trips. I guess they had to draw the line somewhere.
The first day we met a van at 3 AM (advantage: jet lag), were driven to the top of Mount Haleakala for breakfast and sunrise over the crater, then rode bikes down the volcanic cone. No brakes. View of the ocean on all sides. The second day we went snorkeling in Molokini. Then we flew back to real life.
The Maui boondoggle happened just before Mork joined. But the yearly Asian Technical Seminars were boondoggly enough, thank you very much. Especially Singapore. Mork introduced me to a bar in the stately, colonial Raffles Hotel. Did we drink Singapore Slings, or were we too cool for that? The answer is lost to posterity. We had dinner in a restaurant on the quay. Hottest Thai food I’ve had in my life.
The Taiwan segment was less boondoggly. In those days the semiconductor industry was based in Hsinchu, and that was a city of open sewers and funky-smelling hotels. It was during that part of the trip that I saw the nastiest restroom I’ve seen in all my born days.
When it’s not the situation you want, my son Max would say, do it for the story. He wasn't born yet, though.
So there we were, Mork and I, at our gate in San Francisco Airport, ready for the adventure of the Asian Technical Seminars that lay ahead. We were about to board for a ten-hour flight to Korea. We were flying business class; we all did in those days. Our 747 featured two business class sections, one downstairs and one upstairs.
Mork and I were friends, regular friends, not friends-for-life friends just yet. We checked our tickets to see if we were sitting anywhere near each other.
Well, I was downstairs and Mork was upstairs. I paled. Horrifying. Not because we weren’t sitting together, but because downstairs was the smoking section. I hated cigarette smoke. Still do, and I’m grateful flights are non-smoking now. Cigarette smoking would kill my birth mother within a few years and contribute strongly to the deaths of both my adoptive parents eventually. Hated it, cigarette smoke.
The people at the United desk, normally so understanding and helpful, were neither. The upstairs business class section was full. I despaired. I may have been a tad dramatic about it.
Mork hated cigarette smoke, too. And even so, he performed an incredibly generous, heroic act: Mork switched seats with me. He sat downstairs in the smoking section for ten solid hours, while I breathed the relatively clean air up above. My eyes welled up with tears when Mork offered this huge magnanimous personal sacrifice. Similarly, his eyes teared up—but because of the smoke. For ten hours.
In one fell swoop, Mork became my friend for life.
A couple of years later I got to do a good thing for Mork. I was on the interview team to hire a director-level applications manager for our division. One of the interviewees was auspiciously named Mindy. (Not really, but it helps with the foreshadowing.) Mindy’s interview was stellar, and I enthusiastically recommended her for hire.
After Mindy had departed for the day, Mork came up to me and asked if the person I’d interviewed was indeed the very Mindy he’d met some years earlier during a customer visit at Motorola. By then he’d moved to the same building I worked in, and he’d seen her walk by out of the corner of his eye. Together we checked her resume. Yep.
Mork said, I really like her. Do you know if she’s single?
Well, even back then you couldn’t ask a question like that in an interview. I didn’t know. But Mork was my friend for life. Later that afternoon I went over to Mork’s desk and said, I think I have a way to find out.
What you’re about to read is not cool, kids. Don’t do this. You could get into real trouble these days. I probably could have, too, even back then.
Well, I called Mindy and said I had a few more questions. Could she meet me for lunch the next day? She could.
We went to Thai Basil in downtown Sunnyvale. Had a tasty, relaxing lunch. I’m sure I had come up with a few plausible work-related questions, but I also inserted the real question into our informal chat, designed to get to the true reason for our lunch together: So Mindy, what did you do for the holidays?
Luckily it was early January, so the question seemed casual and not wholly inappropriate. Just chatting, you might think.
Mindy replied that she visited her mom and brother. Just her, visiting. No husband or boyfriend had tagged along.
Whew!
Oh, Mork was pleased when I gave him the news. They’ve been together for years now, Mork and Mindy.
A couple of months ago, Beau and I went hiking with Mork and Mindy, a moderately challenging hike in Rancho San Antonio Preserve.
Mork’s lungs are strong, and I’m grateful for that. He’s my friend for life, after all.
[Found photo of the historic Raffles Hotel in Singapore]
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