So most people have a sort of “tiny bouncer” in their brains. A Yoda-like creature sets up permanent residence in the frontal lobe. He perches in the doorway between thought, speech, and career suicide. He guards against inappropriate observations and reckless thoughts. He gently shakes his little green head. With a firm “Say this out loud, you should not,” he turns away the chaos. He maintains order. He is, frankly, doing incredible work.
However, my own personal Yoda left the building sometime around the time the first Star Wars film was released. Can’t say I blame him mind. Intergalactic franchise work versus a lifetime managing my impulse control? He made the right call. And I can only assume the pay was better.
In his place I have Brian, my gloriously chaotic and spectacularly unfiltered ADHD brain. Brian doesn’t do drafts. He doesn’t do pause for thought. He doesn’t do words of caution or restraint. He’s all about the immediate. The unedited. The authentic. Everything goes straight to print, full colour, no proofread.
Most of the time this is mildly embarrassing.
Occasionally it is mortifying.
And then there was the Dubai Airport “moment”.
Let me set the scene. It was a work trip. It was my first time traveling with the Chairman. “Le Grand Fromage”. The “OG” of the insurance world. Brain the size of Canada. The type of person whose presence makes others subtly straighten their posture. They become 15% more professional just by standing near him. And, first and foremost, the person I would later get to know as a genuinely lovely bloke.
We’d been at a conference and were now back at the airport for the flight home. I was shattered and couldn’t wait to get on the plane and close my eyes.
My new BFF strolled purposefully towards security. I meekly followed them. I knew I would only need to keep my professional game face on for just a while longer. I also knew I was too tired to make small talk and definitely shouldn’t attempt it. Brian, though, had other ideas. Good Grief Charlie Brown.
“So, what seat have you got?” asked Brian, a tad too mischievously for my liking.
“I’ve got the window,” said the Chairman.
Brian balked. What? The window seat? The superior seat? The seat-I-have-never-been bothered-about-until-now-seat? Here is where a functioning filter would have stepped in. Any reasonable brain would have issued an immediate red alert. Sirens. Flashing lights. A small frantic robot flailing his arms shrieking “Danger, Will Robinson!” Most humans would have done this automatically, without even thinking about it. It’s not difficult. It requires almost no effort.
Brian, however, was now on autopilot and seriously on a mission. On his orders, I stamped my foot and, barely looking the Chairman in the eye, uttered the immortal words:
“I hate you!”
I would like to tell you there was a pause before the words came out. A moment in which I weighed the situation and made a considered choice. There was not. The words were already out in the air. They very much existed. Then, I experienced the most total and instantaneous mortification of my professional life.
The Chairman turned to look at me. There may have been a flicker of something across his face. Amusement? Mild alarm? A quiet internal note filed under “review at next appraisal”? Genuinely hard to say. The polite ambiguity of senior leadership is truly a remarkable thing. But the fact remains that you cannot unsay a thing. This is one of the great cruelties of the no-filter life. There is only the long, horrible moment afterwards. You are standing there, holding your boarding pass. You contemplate whether it is too late to simply change your name and move to a different country.
Then the loveliest thing happened. The Chairman looked down his glasses at me and with a twinkle in his eye, said:
“Zoe, would you like to have my seat?”
What could I say? Brian had played a blinder on me, to which the man had responded with warmth, good humour and pure class. There are no words for that level of composure. I was utterly overwhelmed. Even Brian had gone uncharacteristically quiet — humbled, for possibly the first time in his life. Which, if you know Brian, is really saying something.
My Yoda is never coming back. I’ve accepted that. What I have instead is a deep appreciation for anybody who can cope with being in my company for more than 48 -hours. And the firm knowledge that I should never, under any circumstances, be allowed to check in for a flight while tired, and standing next to an officer of superior rank.
The Chairman has not been named to protect his window seat dignity.
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