Ever strike up a conversation with a perfect stranger and find out you have a connection that seems impossible to be just a coincidence? Happened to me this morning.

You know that annoyingly repetitive Disney tune, “it’s a small world after all”? First heard it at the World’s Fair in 1964. I never really appreciated how small it was until this morning, 60 some-odd years later.

I was at my usual spot, City Lights Eastside Coffee Shop here in Charleston, minding my own business… not! Of course I started a conversation with a young couple from Charlotte, North Carolina, here to see our beach for a few days. I talk to everyone there who’s willing to talk, and Kent and Jordyn were willing.

It came out early that I’d been an Air Force guy for a while.

Kent mentioned his grandfather was a POW.

Wait, what?

“What was his name?” I asked.

(You see, I’ve got some history with POW/MIAs. So my head started doing math fast, grandfather, POW, Air Force. Maybe, just maybe, I’d seen his name before.)

“Perry Jefferson,” he said.

Jefferson. Hmm.

“Was his wife’s name Sylvia?” I asked, hesitating.

“Yes.”

“Was Perry related to the Coors family in Colorado?”

“Yes.”

Oh my gosh. Can this be true? I almost spilled my coffee. At eighty-seven, with a head full of mush most mornings, I’m lucky if I remember where I parked. But this name came back fast.

I told Kent and Jordyn I knew Sylvia. Knew her well, in fact. From 1970 to 1973, I managed the pay accounts for every Air Force MIA and POW in Vietnam. 325 of them. Sylvia was one of the most memorable, partly because of the Coors connection, and partly because she lived in Denver, where I was based. She was a gracious, kind lady, and I was happy to help her through a trying time. As I’ve said before, that assignment was the most rewarding (and entangling) job I had in my entire 30-year Air Force career.

I told them the Air Force made a presumptive finding of Major Jefferson’s death back in the seventies, but no remains were found at that time.

Kent, Major Perry and Sylvia Jefferson’s grandson, told me something I didn’t know. The DOD finally found forensic proof of his grandfather’s death in late 2007, almost 40 years after he was lost. The family finally had closure.

Sylvia had passed away in 1992.

Of all the coffee shops, in all the towns, a couple from Charlotte walks into mine. And ends up next to an old man who once managed the military pay account of the grandfather, and got to know his grandmother during one of the hardest stretches of her life. Over fifty years ago.

Guess that song was right after all.

It’s a small world, after all. 

Enuf.

There’s a list I carry in my head.

People I’ve seen. People I’ve touched. People I watched on a stage and never forgot. A New York kid who ended up in uniform for thirty years gets lucky that way. Lucky enough, anyway, to have run into some of the best.

If I’ve mentioned any of them before, bear with me.

* * *

Al Jolson — 1948

He was billed as “the World’s Greatest Entertainer,” and even a nine-year-old boy in Flushing had heard of Al Jolson. You couldn’t miss him. His voice was unmistakable. His movies were everywhere.

But in every one of those movies, he wore blackface.

So when the announcer at Loew’s Prospect Movie Theater hollered “Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Al Jolson!”and a white man walked out…

Wait, wha? He’s white!!

I was only in the early February of my life. I had genuinely believed he was a negro. That was the proper term in Flushing, 1948.

His singing voice was one of a kind and wonderful. The show was great. I was enthralled.

And still confused.

* * *

Bobby Thomson — 1953

I was a die-hard Yankee fan, which made this more complicated.

My Uncle Dan (not really my uncle) took me and my friend Johnny to the Polo Grounds to see the Giants. Bobby Thomson was their star outfielder. Two years earlier, he’d hit the Shot Heard Round the World, the three-run homer that won the 1951 National League Pennant against the Dodgers.

After the game, Johnny and I waited by the locker room door. We spotted Bobby. He spotted us and started moving fast toward his car.

We ran after him, shouting his name.

Johnny stumbled. Scraped his knee. The chase was over.

And then Bobby stopped. Turned around. Came back. Helped Johnny up.

And gave us both an autograph.

* * *

Surprise — September 1964

Marjorie and I had been married exactly three days.

We were on our way to two weeks in New York City, with a stop in Washington, DC. Walking past the National Theater, we noticed a matinee about to start. Tickets available. Great orchestra seats. Cheap.

We went in.

The show was a preview. We watched it and wondered to each other whether it might be a hit on Broadway.

It was Fiddler on the Roof. Starring the great Zero Mostel. On a spontaneous whim, three days into our marriage, we saw the original Fiddler.

Of course it became a monstrous classic.

What a surprise!!

* * *

Barbra — Same Honeymoon, Different City

We saw ten Broadway shows in fourteen days. One of them was the mega hit Funny Girl, starring the mega star Barbra Streisand.

I had been a super fan even before getting married. Had all three of her LPs. Marjorie had loved her before I even told her about her.

Her performance in Funny Girl.

Absolutely unforgettable.

* * *

Johnny Mathis — The Copa

Yep. Same honeymoon.

The Copacabana. Most famous nightclub in New York City. Maybe the world. Golly, I was naive. I thought having a reservation meant we were all set.

Then I noticed the people ahead of me slipping something into the maître d’s hand.

Of course, it was $$.

So you want a decent table, reservation or not, have cash ready for tipping/bribing. Believe it or not, we got a decent table. Johnny sang a bunch, didn’t talk much (that wasn’t his thing), and we loved it.

We went back decades later, saw him again at Myrtle Beach in the ’80s.

Still great.

* * *

Sammy — 1981

He was the only headliner in Las Vegas advertised on the Sands famous giant hotel billboard with just one name.

Sammy. That was enough.

Of course, it was the great entertainer, singer, dancer, comic, actor Sammy Davis Jr. He put on the most entertaining one-man show that Marjorie and I ever witnessed. A one-of-a-kind talent and the only member of the Rat Pack I ever had the privilege to see in person. Never got to see Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, or Joey Bishop.

He died way too young, at 64, in 1990. Smoked too much. Lived too hard.

But happily, Marjorie and I got to see him in his glory.

* * *

Presidents Nixon and Carter

In early 1973, I was at a podium in the Statler-Hilton in Washington, briefing families on what to expect when our Vietnam POWs came home. Medical care, finances, the whole process. We were expecting Dr. Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State.

What we got was better.

I heard Hail to the Chief over the loudspeaker and stepped aside fast.

President Nixon walked to the podium and said, modestly, “I know you were expecting Henry, but I hope I can step in for him.”

Standing ovation. He’d ended that stupid war. Our POWs were on the way home.

President Carter was different. Around 1978, at Pope Air Force Base, adjacent to Fort Bragg, NC, home of the 82nd Airborne Division and the great Green Berets, he made a pass-through visit on his way to somewhere in Florida. He wasn’t very popular among military folks, but he was our Commander-in-Chief, and my boss asked (ordered) me to bring some of my people to the flight line to greet him.

I brought my seven-year-old son Jeffrey.

President Carter walked by with Rosalyn. She looked at Jeffrey and said, very graciously, “Oh, what a cute little boy.”

Jeffrey and I never forgot that wonderful honor.

* * *

Reagan and Bob Hope — Same Stage, 1985

Believe it or not, they were on the same stage together.

At a major Army-Air Force training exercise at Fort Bragg/Pope AFB, there they were. President Ronald Reagan and the one and only Bob Hope, a fantastic supporter of those serving our country in uniform and one of the greatest comedians ever.

Their good-natured banter about their respective ages was easy, warm, and genuinely funny. Reagan was beloved by the military. And there will never be another Bob Hope, not for those of us who served.

I had the honor to be in that audience.

Not bad for a geezer from Flushing.

Jolson. Thomson. Zero Mostel. Barbra. Sammy. Two presidents and Bob Hope.

Unforgettable.

Enuf.

The water below was a beautiful shade of blue-green. The pink coral was shining through. Light winds. Variable. And me, a 24-year-old Air Force lieutenant navigator, hopping island to island across the Caribbean.

Even compared to Joburg. Bangkok, Thailand. Adana or Istanbul. And all the other exotic places I’d been, this was the most fun airlift mission I ever flew.

The mission was called “Up Range.” In support of NASA radar tracking sites in the Bahamas and the Caribbean. It went from Patrick AFB, Florida to Grand Bahama to San Salvador to Eleuthera to Grand Turk to Antigua. Maybe not in that order.

Low stress.

The pilot could tune in the next stop on his ADF radio.

Nobody was gonna get lost.

The Overnight

Antigua was the payoff. We stayed overnight, and the island did not disappoint. Great Caribbean food. Rum punch. Steel bands. Dancing. And lots of ladies who were there teaching or nursing.

A fun, easy going mission.

Not a bad place for your aircraft to break, either. But that never happened.

Twenty-some years later, the Beach Boys would write a song trying to describe exactly that kind of night. Rum punch. Steel drum band. Cocktails and moonlit nights. They called the place Kokomo.

I just called it Antigua.

Enuf.

Carl Sagan famously stated, “A galaxy is formed of gas and dust and stars — billions upon billions of stars.”

As an Air Force airlift navigator in the mid 60’s, I especially enjoyed flying over one of our oceans at night.  No lights below—just a black void.  But above?  A windshield full of stars.

Don’t know how a navigator could be an atheist, considering the absolute order and everlasting nature of the universe. So much order, that those “billions upon billions of stars” had been used for reliable navigation for thousands of years.

I became close friends with my “Book.” The HO249, Celestial Navigation Tables.

Here’s how it worked.

Using my best guess for where I was, I’d enter the Book with an assumed position (Lat/Long). Magically, there would be a list of stars I could “shoot” with my trusty periscopic sextant. I’d select three. Do some calculations. Crank the results into the sextant. Look through the scope — and magically (there’s that word again), the brightest star in my field of vision would be my selected star.

Shoot them over a few minutes. Get some actual results. Compare those with the results for my assumed position. Plot the actual results on my navigation chart.

If I shot accurately and computed accurately, I’d get three lines that either intersected or formed a small triangle. That’s my “fix” or location at a specific time.

Too complicated? Well, after 100 practice flights, it was second nature to an experienced “naviguesser.”

Thousands of years of order and precision. And then there’s astrology.

Tonight I received a gracious email from a dear friend wishing me a Happy March Birthday. A bit early (March 24 is my big day).

I happen to be an Aries. Apparently, I’m “energetic, pioneering, likes to be number one.”  Also. Get this… “impatient.”

Moi? Non!

As for number one — I’ve been number two for most of my professional career. I identify as Tonto or Robin rather than The Lone Ranger and Batman.

And then there’s this: Aries pairs well with Gemini.

Marjorie was a Gemini.

Maybe there’s something to this “hogwash.”  Ya think?

Enuf.

]]> https://scoolerisms.com/stars-billions-of-em/feed 0 1366 https://scoolerisms.com/the-power-of-bs-then-and-now https://scoolerisms.com/the-power-of-bs-then-and-now#respond Sun, 02 Nov 2025 06:23:12 +0000 https://scoolerisms.com/?p=1273 I’ve always been told I talk too much. When I’m wound up or worried, the words just come. Talking helps me sort things out, and it helps to have people who’ll humor me. That, I think, is love. The barbershop is one of my favorite places to run my mouth. It’s a small, one-chair shop. […]]]>

I’ve always been told I talk too much. When I’m wound up or worried, the words just come. Talking helps me sort things out, and it helps to have people who’ll humor me. That, I think, is love.

The barbershop is one of my favorite places to run my mouth. It’s a small, one-chair shop. The kind with senior gentlemen (AKA old farts) who like to talk. My daughter calls it “holding court.” I call it just another day.

The other day we were swapping stories about how unreliable young folks are (a favorite topic among us old farts). One man said he’d tried to hire a helper: forty-one applications, four interview promises, one no-show, and a grand total of zero employees who lasted. Oh, for the good old days!

I had to throw in my two cents. Back when I worked at Trident Tech, reliability was already an issue. It’s not just Gen Z, Gen X had its share too. Every manager I knew said the same thing: “If they’ll just show up and follow instructions, I can teach them the rest.”

Somewhere in all that talk, I started thinking about another time when a little well-placed BS paid off…

A long time ago, in 1976, in a galaxy far away, Scott Air Force Base, I was rapt in a discussion about something called the Airlift Service Industrial Fund — the ASIF. Nobody liked it or understood it. While others argued, I jotted down a few notes, charting how the airlift funding process worked. One of my big bosses, a high ranking civilian who knew more about airlift than anyone in the command, walked by and looked at my notes. He asked, “What’s that you’re writin, Scooler?”

“Just some notes about the ASIF process, sir,” I answered.

He stared at my notes. He then, literally, grabbed me by the collar and said, “Come with me and bring your notes.” I followed him into an inner sanctum I hadn’t seen before.

“General,” he said, “take a look at this.”

The general studied my notes. “Shee-it,” he said. “That’s the clearest explanation of this mess I’ve ever seen. Let’s clean it up and send it out.” Then he said, “Thanks, Captain… Shuler, right?”

“It’s Scooler, sir.” (Dummy. Not out loud, of course.)

That little sketch made its way across the command. Turns out, being able to put meaningful BS on paper can keep a career afloat.

And sometimes, it still pays.

After Lenny finished trimming the gray off my ears, I reached for my wallet. He waved me off. “One of your new friends wanted to pay for the vet,” he said. “Don’t tell him till I’m gone.”

So small talk and thirty years of practiced BS earned me a free haircut.

Maybe BS is my one enduring skill. It’s kept me working, laughing, and connected all these years.

Enuf.

No, I don’t mean goin’ south to Miami. Or even Mexico.
I’m talkin’ about south of the equator. The southern hemisphere.
South latitude in my navigator days. Minus latitude today.

In 1963, I had never been south of the equator.
New Yorker that I was.
I was a qualified, but rather junior, lieutenant naviguesser in the C-130 aircraft outta Charleston AFB.

Then I was assigned to an airlift mission to Johannesburg, South Africa.
We were to fly to Patrick AFB, Florida to pick up initial cargo, then on to Recife, Brazil—which lies at about 8 degrees south latitude.
Then to Ascension Island, out in the South Atlantic Ocean (affectionately called “the moon” by aircrews).
Then Leopoldville, Congo (now Kinshasa), and finally to Joburg, as we called it.

The mission was in support of the U.S. space program of the 1960s.

So what’s so different about the southern hemisphere?

Well, for one thing, the seasons are reversed.
Winter is summer. Spring is fall.
Not so noticeable in tropical climates, but in South Africa, Argentina, Australia, and New Zealand, it’s quite obvious.
Takes a little getting used to.

As a budding navigator, celestial navigation was especially intriguing.
A whole different set of stars is visible south of the equator.
The most famous and prominent of these is Crux, more commonly known as the Southern Cross (yes, there’s a Northern Cross as well).

Using the periscopic sextant, kept on board our C-130 aircraft, to shoot stars in the Southern Cross and navigate the South Atlantic–well, that was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
(Well, maybe thrice in a lifetime, since I flew that route at least three times in my 5,000 hours of flying.)

Another phenomenon that was allegedly different south of the equator?
Coriolis force.
That’s an apparent force to the left or right due to measuring straight lines on a spinning spherical globe.
The active myth among aircrews was that toilets flushed counter-clockwise south of the equator.
I never got the chance to test that… or maybe I just didn’t think it was important enough to try.
We did have to account for Coriolis in several of our celestial navigation computations though…so it wasn’t all myth.

Back to Recife, Brazil.
Eight degrees south latitude is pretty close to the equator. Hence, pretty damn hot.
Bad sunburns were common among aircrews crew-resting on the beach in Recife.
And let me tell you, getting a sunburn bad enough to impair your ability to do your aircrew job (pilot, navigator, engineer, or loadmaster) was a potential court-martial offense.
So yeah, the beach was beautiful, but you had to be careful not to overdo it.

Enuf.

I was especially pleased to receive my next Air Force assignment after three years at Scott AFB, Illinois and the MAC Headquarters staff. Our next destination…Pope AFB, in Fayetteville, NC, just over three hours from the Holy City of Charleston, our beloved hometown. (This Yankee from NYC had long since adopted Charleston. Hope she adopted me).

Fayetteville offered a chance to own a home for the first time. With help from the VA and a wonderful realtor named Ann, we bought our first home in a suburb called Devonwood. It was close to the base and the Cape Fear Mall, the area’s main shopping center. Ann said buying the house would be as easy as picking up a loaf of bread. It sorta was.  No down payment and affordable mortgage payments made it doable. Our Devonwood home was the best part of our three-year tour in what the 40,000 GI’s of the surrounding Fort Bragg affectionately called “Fayette-Nam,” a nickname still echoing the Vietnam era psyche in the late 1970s.

We made several weekend trips to Orangeburg, SC, where Marjorie’s mother lived, and to Charleston, reinforcing that “home” was never far away.

Pope AFB was tiny compared to the giant Army installation to which we were adjacent. That was Fort Bragg, home of the 82nd Airborne Division, with its 40 to 50 thousand GI’s. We had about 5000 folks at Pope. The 317th Airlift Wing liked to say they put the “air” in ” airborne”. There is truth in that.
Fort Bragg soldiers and their families were the primary industry of the town of Fayetteville. Air Force blue was well hidden by Army green.

I was assigned to the USAF Airlift Center, a tenant organization at Pope, a test center for new and proposed airlift equipment and tactics. We also did studies on issues assigned by the Command.  One big one was the study to determine if a navigator was an essential crew member on a C-141 with Inertial Navigation System (INS) on board. I was a navigator, you see. We went where the evidence led. It showed the pilots could easily use the INS and find whatever place which they sought. There was a safety concern in losing a third set of experienced eyes and ears in the cockpit. However, the $$ that could be saved from removing navigators from C-141’s ruled the day. Soon after our study Air Force changed the C-141 crew complement, removing navigators. Oh well. Thankfully, I had an MBA and there was plenty for me to do as a financial manager for the rest of my Air Force career.

A Director at the Airlift Center and one that enjoys running my mouth, I became a spokesman. I presented a rather showy quarterly briefing to the senior staff at Military Airlift Command on the results of our many tests and studies.
When it was time for me to leave the Center for my next assignment, which was to become one of 25 Air Force officers to attend US Army War College in Carlisle, PA, with over 300 Army officers, my colleagues presented me with a large plaque. On that plaque was a large Air Force style Tap shoe. The inscription said I was the official USAF Airlift Center Tap Dancer. An obvious tease about my quarterly “tap dance” for the senior MAC staff. That Tap Shoe Plaque still owns a place of honor on my bookcase. Thanks folks.
As for my upcoming assignment to Army War College, that was to be my favorite year in my 30-year Air Force career. Only 45 years ago. Wow. Enuf

Denver was my first long-term assignment in a western USA city. It was a brand new, somewhat scary experience for both me and Marjorie. A long way from South Carolina and home for her. I was an Air Force captain, just returned from Vietnam. We arrived with a 4-year-old daughter, Christine and 3-year-old son, Jim. We left four years later with an 8-year-old daughter, 7-year-old son and, yes, another 3-year-old son, Jeffrey. Jeff was born there in 1971.

We moved into a small apartment at a neat, sorta yuppie, 70’s apartment complex called the Canyon Club. Address: 6495 Happy Canyon Rd. Sounds Beaver Cleaverish, doesn’t it? It was not like “the Beve.” A few unmarried couples were neighbors and gossip swirled about adult antics at the Club House near the swimming pool. The “zero population growth” movement was active among the environmentalists in our community. We were sometimes scolded by neighbors for daring to have a third child. Ain’t people grand?

The kids and us all enjoyed the Canyon Club pool. The pool season was a bit short however. Summer is scarce and winter is long in Colorado. We all also enjoyed touring the wonderful Rocky Mountain Scenery, and the Denver area was blessed with lots of interesting things to do. Marjorie even tried skiing, Once. I never had the desire. Too clumsy and chicken.

Almost all my nine-year military experience to this point had been as an aircrew navigator. I was a newbie to finance but fortunate to be assigned to the Air Force Accounting and Finance Center in downtown Denver. Oh. I did have an MBA degree from Ohio State, courtesy of the Air Force. My focus, as was common throughout my career, was on my job.

When I met my new Finance Center boss, he said, “OK Scooler, you got an MBA. How about helping us fix this damn Vietnam pay system. We haven’t paid anybody via the system this entire year. They’re all still getting paid through the old manual system. Let’s fix it.” Wow, what a welcome.

Soon after my arrival, I was appointed chief of the division that managed our POW/MIA pay accounts. This was the most rewarding job in my Air Force career. Most satisfying was the return of over 500 POWs in 1973. My team and I got to meet several heroes whose families we served by managing their military pay throughout their captivity. That was over five years for many of them. Their gratitude was a great reward for us. They all had heard, through the POW grapevine, that the Air Force was “lookin out” for their families during their captivity. It was a great solace to them. We were so glad we could provide that.

As for my family, we all have fond memories of our actual first time the five of us were together. Denver, 1970-1974, provided a beautiful, snowy, cold, adventurous and friendly backdrop for our young, growing family.  Enuf

I believed I was done after the first 10 truisms. But after earning “Best Article” award for 1985, my people dared me to come up with another 10. Coming up with more unique truisms that I have learned about managing the unmanageable was harder than I thought, but I had nearly 2 years to ponder. This earned me another “Best Article” award in 1987. This was the pinnacle of my Air Force career. No where to go but down!

Without further ado. Part II.

How to Manage the Unmanageable – Part II

By Col Donald Scooler

If Rocky can do it so can I! In the July 1985 issue of The Air Force Comptroller magazine, I was fortunate to see my article, How to Manage the Unmanageable, in print. I had a lot of fun writing it, and frankly even more fun reaping the benefits of several kind comments and even a plaque from General Spangrud. With that kind of inspiration, how could I possibly avoid the temptation of writing a sequel. As you may recall, the article consisted of ten short statements I referred to as “truisms,” thoughts which helped me over the years to meet the daily challenges of managing people and pleasing bosses. One famous comedian often said: I got a million of ’em. Well don’t fear, I haven’t got a million “truisms,” but I do believe I can share ten more with you which again I have found helpful in meeting management challenges and keeping a sense of humor. So here goes How to Manage the Unmanageable II or HTMTU Il for those who like acronyms. 

* Bad News Doesn’t Improve with Age.

Of course, like all truisms, this one is not always true. Sometimes events change or improve with no action on our part, but most often bad situations worsen if no remedial action is taken. Your boss would much prefer to hear bad news from you than from his boss. Believe it or not he may even have an idea or two how to fix it. Fix what is within your authority to fix but inform others (superiors and peers) of situations they can help with or those which they may hear about anyway. Keep the boss informed  

* Eat an Elephant One Piece at a Time.

Difficult problems are not solved with quick, simple solutions. Problem solving is almost always an iterative process. When the boss hands you a project which is apparently overwhelming, do not despair. He really doesn’t expect a quick solution (even if he says so). He does, however, want to see some progress made toward a goal. Divide the problem into many smaller doable goals and report your progress back. (By the way, you should brag a little about whatever progress you make.) What not to do is take the problem back to your office and try to come to the perfect solution before reporting back. The boss’s only logical conclusion is that you’ve done nothing. One example comes to mind. The task: Develop a management information system for a major command commander that will allow him to readily assess the health of his command and its bases. We’ve been working on that one for 2 years now and each month we get a little better, but we still have a long way to go. However, by nibbling away at this elephant we have a far better system than we had 2 years ago. 

* The Boss May Not Always Be Right But He’s Still the Boss.

Just a few words here about loyalty. No one believes you’ll always agree with your boss; but you do owe him the loyalty to try to make his decisions work, not to prove him wrong. One of the surest ways to make yourself look good is to make your boss look good. You’ll also probably realize that there are several ways to accomplish a goal, and his way will work (with your help) as well as the way you had in mind. 

* Don’t Suffer in Silence.

As I travel to visit our comptroller offices, I allow time for our people to talk to me about problems they are working. All too often they will tell me of a problem they’ve been struggling with for months but have not elevated to me or my staff until I specifically question them about it. Many times, by elevating a question you may find an answer or at least get some empathy. Many times, you’ll find that you are not the only one struggling with the problem, and perhaps some others have found a way to solve it or lessen it. In a word—communicate. 

* There’s No Such Thing as Bad Visibility.

Again, a truism which is not always true. Of course, negligence, incompetence, or a lack of integrity can gain you some bad visibility. The main point here is that actors succeed better than reactors. The cliche “never volunteer” is as obsolete as the World War I stereotype of a draftee from which it was spawned. The comptroller people who volunteer for the tough jobs (the elephants if you will) and make some progress in accomplishing them will be the future top comptrollers in the Air Force. The middle managers and leaders who can think on their feet and who become known throughout their profession as doers and experts will be the future top managers in comptrollership. Be one of t h e actors. 

* Anticipate the Next Shoe.

If the boss reads a message involving a problem in your area and asks, “What does this mean?”, he really wants to know more than that. Most probably he wants to also know what you are doing to solve it and when you think it will be solved. Answer all three parts of the understated question, and you’re anticipating the drop of the next shoe. Did you ever call an individual and ask “Is Col – _ in please?” The receptionist answers “No”‘ or even “No, sir.” You weren’t really calling to take an attendance check. You obviously want to speak to the individual you are calling. Therefore, it would be far more professional for the receptionist u say: “No, but he’ll be in tomorrow, or five minutes from now, or even next week’ and also to ask if he can return your call. This is also anticipating the next shoe. 

* Put the Em-pha’-sis on the Right Syl-la’-ble.

Most of us work for a commander. Our primary emphasis and interest should be on what the commander’s emphasis is. Worry about commander things first and comptroller things second. That may sound a little heretical, but I guarantee not following that principle is the way many comptrollers lose the confidence and interest of their commanders. The professional comptroller that devotes most of his financial management skills to solving the commander’s operational problems will continuously garner the respect of his commander and retain the honor of being one of the key staff members. It is sometimes too easy to accomplish comptrollership for comptrollers rather than commanders. Don’t fall into that trap or you’ll have only comptrollers listening to you. 

* Murphy Lives.

Don’t curse Murphy’s Law. Accept its existence, challenge it, and stay a step ahead of it. If you allow important events to have any probability to go awry they will. Check, double check, and check one last time to ensure important milestones are met. If it is critical that a certain program be run by your data automators to get a critical report out or meet a payroll, don’t assume it will be run. Make sure your data processing folks have what they need and meet their timetables. If a distinguished visitor is coming to your base don’t assume the room will be ready for him on arrival. Check it yourself or have it checked prior to his arrival. I bet that rings a few bells for you! Stay a step ahead of your boss and Murphy, and you’re a sure-fire success. 

* TANSTAFL.

A misprint? An eye test? No, neither. It’s an acronym ready made for financial managers. There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. Our business consists of constant trade-offs, difficult choices, and prioritization. In working a commander’s problem, we must constantly remind him that each decision entails a cost (not always obvious) and we must not fool ourselves that we can really accomplish more with less. At the very top level in DOD our leaders have some tough choices ahead. Programs started in the real growth funding years (1981-1985) are still in a growth period, but the funding has been constrained to zero or negative growth for the present and foreseeable future. Something’s going to have to give. I hope we don’t fall into the 70s’ trap of creating hollow forces. Only time will tell. Our job as financial managers, however, is to continue to ensure commanders understand the cost and impacts of potential decisions. A final thought involves the most important function of management-communication. The root of all success and failure in financial management is the ability or inability to communicate well. Notice the emphasis on the “well” because the final truism is- 

* You Cannot NOT Communicate. 

Just the way you enter a room communicates. Silence communicates. Your boss and your subordinates pick up all kinds of verbal, written, and nonverbal communication from you every hour of every day. Understand this-control your communications, insist on feedback, and encourage communication lines to remain open-and you’re well on your way to a successful career as a leader in comptrollership. 

Col Scooler is Deputy Chief of Staff, Comptroller. at Headquarters Military Airlift Command, Scott AFB, IL. He was commissioned in the U.S. Air Force in 1961 through AFROTC. He earned a Master of Business Administration degree from the Ohio State University (AFIT). He is a graduate of SOS, ACSC. ICAF, AWC, Army War College in residence, and PMCS. Prior to his present position, Col Scooler, was MAC’s Director of Accounting and Finance. Col Scooler is a member of the ASMC.

The next two Blog posts I will submit are a piece of ancient history. They are two articles I wrote for the Air Force Comptroller magazine. The first is from 1985. The second is 1987. I was at the peak of my Air Force career as Comptroller of a major Air Force command.
I wrote the article cause I thought I had learned a bunch about leadership and management in my prior 25+ years of being an Air Force officer. My other motivation was that financial management articles can be flat ass boring. I thought I could make mine somewhat entertaining. I guess I sorta succeeded, cause I was honored to receive the Article of the Year award from my peers in both 1985 and 1987.
Each article is a list of 10 management truisms. (not to be confused with Scoolerisms).
I’ve already committed the ” crime” of redundancy, so let’s get on with the posting. As always, thanks for paying attention. Questions? Comments?

How to Manage the Unmanageable

By Col Donald Scooler

Comptrollers are managers-some are good, some not so good. Regardless of management ability, comptrollers at all levels are constantly required to perform the typical management tasks (planning, organizing, directing, and controlling if you’re a classical management theorist; or getting things done through people, in a much more general sense). Over my twenty-three years in the Air Force, I have worked for managers of varied styles-some have been strong, some not so strong; but I’ve learned from each of them. In some cases, how to manage; in others, how not to manage. I have also practiced management over several of these years and have probably made about every mistake possible, interspersed perhaps with some successes. Hopefully, I’ve learned something from my years of experience and past errors. In this article I would like to share with you ten management truisms (at least for me they are truisms) and a conclusion. You may agree with some, all, or none of them. In fact, I find some of them apparently contradictory and certainly not foolproof. However, I have used them most frequently to preserve my sanity (and absolutely superior disposition) in a world of persistently more difficult management challenges. These challenges include declining resources and manning, increased tasking with increased complexity and recently, a data automation explosion in terms of minicomputers that can boggle one’s mind. My only real goal is that you will find them thought provoking, interesting, and maybe you will smile at their relevance to experiences in your career. The following are Scooler’s glittering management truisms.

The primary function of management is to remove burdens from the real experts.

Managers must provide a work environment conducive to productivity. Some burdens the manager must remove include poor facilities, excessive interruptions, and insufficient training for his people. Not quite as obvious is that the manager should act as a buffer between his “experts” and higher management/authority and not over-react to each whim or “what if”‘ from above. “Tis a real skill to be responsive to higher management while keeping your people on track with the mission. Of course, the main issue here is that you must not become your people’s biggest burden. Instead, provide clear guidance, parameters and timetables, and stand back and let your experts perform. Obviously, occasional progress checks and readjustments are essential but give your people some space.

There is no substitute for caring.

Lincoln spoke about fooling people some but not all of the time. What is essential here is really caring for your people and demonstrating that care by specific action. This is translated into recognizing superior performance with awards and other forms of appreciation, but most of all with career progression and promotion. Equally important to pushing your winners is to beware of “turkeys.” Mediocre or inferior performance also deserves recognition by non-promotion, non-progress, and realistic performance evaluations. Praising or rewarding mediocre performers with the same zeal as your winners dilutes the truly deserved recognition due superior performers. In the meantime, you, as a manager, have a duty to provide every opportunity to all your people to progress into the superior performer category.

Maturity is the ability to live with imperfection.

There are no perfect spouses, houses, assignments, bosses, locations, etc. They just don’t exist. Looking for perfection usually leads to disappointment, disillusionment, constant job changes, and other traumas. In short-minimize big mistakes, learn by small ones, and do the best with what you have. Remember “Zero Defects,” the Air Force program which essentially told us to remove erasers from pencils and to expect perfect performance the first time? Although this author does not agree with that concept, I also wish to point out the inherent danger of carrying my truism to the extreme which says, “Expect nothing and you’ll never be disappointed.” Not a chance-as a manager we must demand, encourage, and motivate superior performance. Expecting perfection, however, will only serve to frustrate your people and yourself. Excellence, on the other hand, should be our constant goal.

Trust is a two-way street.

We expect our people to trust and believe us; therefore, we must, at least until proven otherwise, believe and trust them. My favorite story to exemplify this truism occurred several years ago at a staff meeting I attended. I’ve modified actual verbage a bit but you’ll get the point. A fellow division chief told our director that he needed to work his people overtime the up-coming weekend. The director asked, How do you know you need overtime? The division chief replied, My people told me so. Director: How do you know your people aren’t lying to you? I won’t state the division chief’s response here, but I will summarize by stating that the director in this case was one from who I learned how not to manage. The moral is to trust your people. They will fail now and then, but the risk is worth it. If your people know you are depending on them, they will strive to live up to your expectations. Obviously, this like the other truisms, cannot be carried to the extreme which, in this case, is gullibility.

Whatever the boss is watching will improve.

Does this contradict the prior truisms? Probably. But management is sometimes contradictory, always situational, and never static. When management information points to a specific problem area, focus on it. Measure progress and let your people know you are watching it. Generally, the area will improve but don’t be fooled that there won’t be a trade- off. Your people will fix what you’re watching and most likely some other area will get less emphasis. In order to make this method work you need a good management information system with reasonable standards and good management indicators.

Flexibility is the key to air power.

Stay loose, the only thing I can promise you in management is uncertainty. When you develop a plan, the only certainty is that you will deviate from it at least slightly. I have always looked upon the constant requirement to alter course as job security. Perhaps that’s the old navigator in me. If we had total predictability, we certainly wouldn’t need managers. The successful manager not only needs to maintain his own sense of humor and cool wits, but in his role as buffer, he needs also to ensure his people don’t become demotivated by the constancy of change.

An ounce of cooperation is worth a pound of competition.

I’m sure there will be some who will disagree with me on this premise. In the U.S. we almost have a fetish about competition-from nursery school to little league to big business, we implant the idea that competition lends to improved productivity and success. In many areas this is very true. However, intra group competition in your office degrades your efforts to have the office work together as a team. Most studies will support the premise that intra group competition reduces the cohesiveness of that group and is dysfunctional to productivity. As a manager of people working in the same area, you will normally find a cooperative, teamwork atmosphere will lead to improved productivity, innovation, and initiative. Now, here comes the contradiction (or apparent contradiction): Inter group competition can be a very effective management device and will help foster teamwork in any given office. In the comptroller field, the MAJCOM and Air Force awards and recognition programs do a great job of focusing interests of accounting and finance, budget, management analysis officers as well as individual comptrollers on the idea of being number one in the command or Air Force. This kind of competition motivates and promotes cohesiveness within each individual office.

We have met the bureaucracy, and it is us.

We are “they!” —That is, the “they” we used to blame (and maybe still do) by saying they say I have to do it this way of they say we can’t do this. If you are a manager at any level, you are “they” to someone. We also must face the fact the Air Force is a giant bureaucracy contained in an even bigger bureaucracy (DOD) contained in a mammoth bureaucracy (the Federal Government). To be a successful manager you must understand your environment, which is highly bureaucratic. I have found that working within the rules of your particular bureaucracy may be a slow, painstaking process at times, but you will eventually accomplish more working with it than by purposely fighting it. There are power bases in the bureaucracy at all levels and without their support chances of success are minimal. Two examples come immediately to mind-one directly involves our career field. President Reagan directed the federal agencies to develop a flat rate per diem system to simplify travel reimbursements in 1980. Today, we in the Air Force have only succeeded in implementing the current flat rate test-five years after an Executive Order by the President, the bureaucracy remains supreme. I have also witnessed several occasions when unpopular general officer decisions are treated with benign neglect by middle managers and essentially ignored until the next change of command. Even the mightiest of leaders usually succeed by working with the bureaucracy rather than

There are no geniuses.

If a problem appears difficult when it comes across your desk, relax. It is probably even more difficult than it seems. When you give it to your experts (not geniuses) to solve, it is almost certain they will find it difficult too. Don’t expect surprising, immediate solutions to complex, long-term problems. Complex problem solving is an iterative process and you can only hope to chip away at the problem and provide reasonable recommendations to “satisfice” the problem rather than solve it completely.

You don’t get more with less; you get less with less.

The fact is, as resources and manning are reduced, postponable functions are neglected. In accounting and finance, for example, customer service will probably stay at a high level throughout numerous manning reductions because of its obvious visibility and the “can do” attitude of our people. What is lost is quality assurance and training which will eventually lead to long-term problems. As any comptroller should know, “There is no free lunch.” One possible contradiction to this truism lies with the automation explosion. There is no doubt that as we automate functions, manning can be eventually reduced without adverse impact. Of course, increased productivity through training our people to use automation effectively and the possibilities of shared data bases and computer networking are the waves of the future, which I totally support. Computers and training and all the systems experimentation we will do before we settle on the right system bear a pretty high resource cost too. This cost must be borne if the job is to be done effectively and efficiently.

Conclusion

In the beginning of this article, I said I would have ten truisms and a conclusion. The purpose for writing this article was to provide you with some food for thought and insights gathered over several years in several different management roles. Although I said all management was situational and those ten truisms may sometimes contradict themselves, I have found one consistent key to successful management and productivity and that is-communication. Whatever the management style, the manager who can clearly communicate verbally and in writing is almost sure to succeed. If your people understand your guidance, they will make every attempt to follow it. However, the existence of foolproof communication which involves transmitter, network and receiver, all working on the same wave length, is rare indeed. Regardless of the plethora of education we provide our people and ourselves on effective communication in technical training as well as PME, we tend to come back to the office and practice the antithesis of it. This is one area we all need to continually improve. In the meantime, hang in there and enjoy the challenge.

Col Scooler is Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff, Comptroller. at Headquarters Military Airlift Command, Scott AFB, IL. He was commissioned in the U.S. Air Force in 1961 through AFROTC. He earned a Master of Business Administration degree from the Ohio State University (AFIT). He is a graduate of SOS, ACSC. ICAF, AWC, Army War College in residence, and PMCS. Prior to his present position, Col Scooler, was MAC’s Director of Accounting and Finance. Col Scooler is a member of the ASMC and president-elect of the Shiloh Valley Chapter