If You Don't Have Big Breasts, Put Ribbons on Your Pigtails (11 page)

"Yes!" we yelled in unison. Dad jostled the ladder side to side as though he were losing control.

"Are you sure you're ready?" he taunted.

"Yes. Oh yes!" we pleaded back, overwhelmed with anticipation.

"Then get going!" And with a quick shove, Dad jumped on the back of the ladder and sent it lunging forward, zero to sixty in less than a second!

We screamed a Palisade's Amusement Park scream as we zipped through the side yard, hurtling down toward Undercliff Avenue. We were picking up speed as we sailed toward the six-foot cinder-block retaining wall at the bottom. The front riders shrieked as their half of the ladder went airborne and momentarily waited for the back half to catch up.

Then, all at once, we shot off the ledge, sailed over the sidewalk, and thumped down squarelv in the middle of the street, just behind a lone passing car that was sliding its way down Undercliff Avenue. We lay in the street, a jumbled pile of kids laughing until our sides and faces hurt.

Eddie offered Marty his hand and pulled him up. "Okay, Marty,

you go first this time," he said, and, still laughing, Eddie and Marty helped Dad lug the ladder back up the hill.

Mom was changing the sheets in the girls' room when she spotted us flying by the side window. It was our third trip on Dads death-defying ladder, and John caught a quick glimpse of Mom from the front rung. iC It*s Mom!" he gasped and pointed, as we plummeted toward the wall.

By the time we hit the street, Morn had barreled through the house, was down the steps, and had her face within two inches of Dads. I noticed her blue slippers were soaked and, from what I could see, she looked cold and she sure looked angry. "Eddie!" she screamed. "Eddie, you have no common sense, absolutely none! Get the kids off the ladder NOW before you kill them," she seethed, "or I swear, Eddie, 111 kill you!"

We cupped our socked hands over our mouths to choke back our laughter, until Dad leaked out his Cheshire cat smile. When we all exploded into a fit of laughter, even Mom began to laugh, and we knew for sure we had the best family in town.

1982. Snow day Whaley Lake.

"Ice-skating?r Esther repeated. "But I don't know how to skate!"

"That's just it," I told her. "Nobody does. But everybody will when they get there!"

I had just bought my first house, for $75,000, a nine-room fixer-upper on Whaley Lake in Dutchess County. The house had six bedrooms, six bathrooms, two cabanas, two boathouses, and absolutely no land. My purchase was the classic case of buying "the biggest house on the worst block." Twelve years later, I would sell it for . . . $75,000.

"I have the whole weekend figured out, Esther," I continued, explaining my plans for our first company retreat. "I bought twenty

pairs of ice skates for everyone, all in different sizes: white ones for the ladies and some black ones for the men. I also bought four sleds, eight sleeping bags for those who won't get beds, and twenty pairs of cheap wool mittens."

"Cheap?" Esther interrupted. "Nothing about this sounds cheap to me."

I dismissed Esther's look of concern with a quick wave of my hand, and continued, "And I've talked my brother Tee into catering the whole weekend!"

"Tee? But isn't that brother a cabdriver?" she asked with growing concern.

"Yeah, but he got his weekend shift covered and he's bringing Judy Somebody, one of the other cabdrivers, and he says she's a really good cook." Esther tilted her head.

"It'll all work out just fine," I went on. "And I got a great deal on a school bus to take everybody up on Friday night. We'll leave here around seven, and when we get there, the table will already be elegantly set, the flowers arranged, a fire burning, and a luscious meal will await us." I waited to see if Esther could picture it. "And after a great night's sleep, we'll all get up, eat a big breakfast, and have all day Saturday for ice-skating—and all day Sunday, too! We'll leave on Sunday around six and be back to the city no later than eight, eight-thirty the latest."

Esther looked pale.

We opened our eyes Saturday morning to a crisp, icy-cold day The night before had been just perfect. The bus showed up on time, the dinner was truly gourmet, and while we ate and drank, we talked about what our office needed, what we all wanted, and what we all dreamed about doing together. We came up with a flurry of new ideas, so 1 grabbed a piece of junk mail and jotted them down. I starred someone's idea to produce a Corcoran Report strictly on new condominium prices. I liked it because we had never sold a condominium

and I wanted to get into that market. Then, like kids at a giani slumber party, we climbed into our beds and sleeping bags and fell asleep.

By 0:00 a.m. on Saturday, we had finished breakfast and were all sitting on the boathouse ledge, juggling sizes and putting on our skates. Despite her inhibitions, Esther laced up first and desperately clung to the boathouse wall.

"You look like a natural over there, Esther," I joked, and chinned in her direction. ""Now, hurry up, everybody, we don't want to keep Dorothy Hamill waiting!"

Although this would be my first skate on Whaley Lake, it sure looked like the kind of lake you'd want to skate on. It was one mile long, a half mile wide, and frozen over as far as I could see.

Ron Rossi, our leading salesperson, glided out onto the ice. He was resplendent in a one-piece Bogner snowsuit with matching chartreuse gloves. His ensemble's finishing touch was a long magenta and yellow Hermes scarf, which floated behind him as he pushed off the boathouse wall. In a previous life, Ron had been a world champion ballroom dancer, and from the looks of his first spin, we suspected he had been on the ice before.

"Follow Ron!" I gushed, and like ducklings doing their first waddle, we all got behind Ron as he demonstrated a large figure eight. After a few hundred falls, Ron had us looping large figure eights back and forth, back and forth, farther and farther out onto the ice. Esther staved behind practicing her glide close to shore.

We were almost to the middle of the lake when I noticed we had attracted an audience on the shore. Squinting my eyes against the sun, I recognized the man in front of the old Gloyde's Motel as Old Man Gloyde himself. He was waving to us, and I waved back with enthusiasm. He shouted, "That's nice, that's nic el"

"Thank s!" I acknowledged in the loudest voice I could muster. "Watch t h i s! 9 And with a quick tap of my right toe. I turned mv left foot and went into my best amateur version of a twirl. I made a point of holding my hands straight out with pinkies up, just like Ron had taught us.

Mr. Gloyde seemed to like my twirl because he waved even more vigorously, yelling again, "That's nice, that's n i c e!"

I was thinking about attempting a pretty pirouette, when I noticed Esther standing up on the boathouse ledge. She was waving just like Mr. Gloyde. When I heard the ice creak and begin to moan, it hit me. "Nice" wasn't "nice"—it was "ice." "Thin i c el Thin i c e/" And we were skating on it!

"Let's get the hell out of here!" I screamed, and the entire Corcoran Group shrieked in unison as the ice under our skates began to crack. Our panicked feet raced toward the shore, every man for himself, as the splitting ice chased us from behind. What could have only been two minutes at the most felt like a ten-mile run.

We all groped at Esther's legs as we clambered up onto the boat-house floor. We were huffing and puffing from our near-death experience. "You okay? You okay? You okay?" we chorused, as we scanned each other's faces. I looked around at my nineteen exhausted speed skaters, pulled off my hat, and started to laugh. With that, the whole boathouse rocked with laughter and I knew we had just become the best team in town.

MOM'S LESSON #11: Go play outside.

DAD'S BEST LESSON: Fun is fun.

THE LESSON LEARNED ABOUT HAVING FUN

Conducting business as usual always results in usual business, but playing together creates extraordinary business.

Our weekend away at Whaley Lake not only built cohesiveness, it also made a community out of twenty vastly different personalities, and I instantly recognized that if we continued to play together, we could become the strongest company in town.

This is what I've learned about having fun:

1. Happy people work better.

It's hard to leave good feelings back on the playing field. Inevitably, they find their way back to the office.

2. Fun makes people laugh, and you can't help but like someone who's laughing.

People like each other better while they're playing. Playing together unites differences and breaks down barriers between people. It's also the best cleanser for bad feelings, old grudges, and ill will.

3. Only in the context of fun do people ^et the chance to see their colleagues beyond their usual work roles.

Fun lets people get to know their colleagues better, learn about their families, their kids, and where they're from. By socializing, people discover other common grounds beyond the workplace.

4. Playing is the best way to bring rivals together.

Strong salespeople are free agents, independent by nature, and often don't naturally make good teammates. But allow two rivals to vent their competitiveness in a spirited game, and they become a team.

5. If you want good ideas for the office, go play outside.

All of our best new business ideas were thought of while outside the office—our advertising campaigns, our publicity ideas, office perks, and whole new ways of doing business. The things we discovered while playing outside were all brought back to the office, like free massages and manicures, free soft drink coolers, Ping-Pong tables, and yoga classes. Playing outside always offers a fresh perspective and always stimulates new ideas.

TIPS FOR PLANNING GOOD FUN

1. Play on company time.

Most salespeople subscribe to the "Make it while you can" philosophy and run themselves ragged trying to do so. Planning for fun during company time gives the salespeople permission to take a day off and to do it without guilt.

One of our most successful annual sales meetings was scheduled to last three hours. But ten minutes into the meeting, I surprised everyone by inviting them next door into a private movie theater where together we watched the inspiring movie Pay It Forward.

Even our management retreats are scheduled during the workweek. They get three days away from the office at a luxury resort, and they come home with a tan, deepened friendships, renewed energy, and new ideas for the business. And while they're away, were able to discover new management talent because other salespeople step up to the plate acting as substitute managers.

2. Surprise them!

Our company quickly outgrew the sleepovers at the Whaley Lake house. When I bought the next house, the smallest house

on the best block with a lot of Land, we began to bus two hundred, three hundred, then four hundred people up for midweek picnics. At our first picnic, there was a sixty-foot hot-air balloon waiting in the backyard to give everyone a ride. We formed cheering and rescue squads when we faked a few problems in getting the balloon back down. Our salespeople had the same thrill as we did as kids when my dad jostled the wooden ladder beneath us on top of the hill.

One year, a five-thousand-pound elephant and a spitting camel waited on the front lawn to give safari rides, and yet another year, we leased ten Thoroughbreds in full gear and everyone got to run them up and down the back fields.

Perhaps the best surprise was the year everyone arrived to find that there was no surprise! An hour later, with hundreds of people picnicking on blue-checked blankets, a motorcycle gang of tattooed guys dressed in black leather and chains roared up onto the lawn, revving their engines and circling the frightened crowd. I jumped up and indignantly shouted. "You're on private property! Leave-or I swear 111 call the police!" As someone ran to call 911, one of the bikers removed his helmet and revealed that "he" was really a "she'' with a big smile, bright blue eyes, and long blond hair. The gang turned out to be my sister Mary Jean and her born-again Christian motorcycle club that came all the way from Pennsylvania to "crash" our party.

"So," I asked my shocked guests, "who wants a ride?

People most resistant to fun need it the most.

People sometimes resist fun simply because they've never had it. All they need is a little encouragement. Our most proper Park Avenue ladies were the first to hike up their skirts and hop on the back of the Harley-Davidsons. They blissfully roared up and down the back roads, clutching their pearls as tight as they held on to the drivers.

4. Change keeps fun fresh.

When our company outgrew picnics at my house, we invented new ways to keep the party going. Instead of corporate Christmas parties, we began a tradition of "February Sweetheart Parties." In real estate, as in many other businesses, February is the slowest, most depressing month of the year, and it's the month when people need to party the most. Also, since few parties are planned in February, the best places in town are available at the cheapest rates.

5. Themes make teams.

Our first black-tie Sweetheart Party took place in an abandoned warehouse in Queens. My guests' adrenaline started pumping when they were greeted by a huge man holding a gun in the graffiti-covered industrial elevator. The elevator opened into a ten-thousand-square-foot warehouse my brother Tee (cabdriver turned caterer) had transformed into a speakeasy.

Every year, people eagerly look forward to the announcement of the February party's theme. When the theme was "Diva or Drag," men and women cross-dressed for the occasion and laughed about it for months to come. We held our "Stars on Broadway" party in a theater on Forty-second Street, and a few days before the party, we took our managers to rummage through the city's largest costume shop in search of perfect star costumes. Our wardrobe outing turned out to be a party in itself. The moment I opened the party as Carol Channing lip-synching "Hello, Dolly," the party was a success.

When the theme was "The Glamorous Forties," I tromped through every costume shop in New York trying on and rejecting a series of 1940s ball gowns because they were just what people expected me to wear. Still without an outfit on the morning of the party, I spotted a cardboard box marked "Girdles" in a Greenwich Village drag queen shop. Five hours later, I walked

into the glamorous Rainbow Room high atop Rockefeller Plaza wearing a 1940s girdle and 46-double-D bra stuffed with two softballs. seam stockings, and an ice pack pinned to my head. As a "1940s woman with a morning-after hangover," I was the belle of the ball.

6. Fun always follows the leader.

In my 1940s costume, I got more kisses and gropes from mv salespeople and employees than I got in the last ten years of my marriage. My insanity made the gossip columns, and, most important, I made a big deposit in our company loyalty bank simply because I was smart enough to be stupid.

7. Make the party a madman's plan.

Fun isn t logical. Fun happens when you take people out of their normal routine and drop them into an abnormal circumstance. When I'm dreaming up a new fun idea, I think of myself as a half-mad scientist in a well-stocked laboratory mixing up the potions. I take a little of this and a little of that and try to create something entirely new.

8. Take a few chances.

Fve often been surprised by what happened during company fun, but Fve never been disappointed. Making real fun is a cross between good planning and taking a leap of faith. Taking the leap of faith creates the spontaneity that the best things happen. When mv brother Tee and his cabby friend Judy cooked for our first ice-skating party their delicious food and amazing presentation gave birth to a successful new catering business. The chances were much better that their food would be a disaster rather than be exceptional. But it proved that harebrained schemes often lead to great discoveries.

9. Snap some pictures.

You double the pleasure of company playtime by taking pictures. A photo is nothing short of an everlasting echo of a really good time, and proof that, yes, the boss did come to the party wearing only a girdle.

Stella's baggy, saggy eyes glaring at us from behind her chenille curtains. "She's got her broom! Run for your lives!" Stella opened the window and threw her broom at us like a javelin, and we took off across the tin roof. "Follow me!" Timmy Tom squawked, his skinny legs running ahead of him across the roof. Like a superhero, he leapt into the air, landing midway up the cliff that climbed dramatically behind the Harrison house.

"Psstt In here!" he beckoned, opening the tiny window in the old shed behind their house. I jumped off the roof with Kathy Harrison, Janet Cleary, Michael Mertz, and my brother Tee following. We scurried through the window and dropped into the cool, shadowy corner of the Harrisons' old shed.

We were huffing and puffing, our little hearts racing. "Oh, my gosh," I gulped leaning against the inside wall. "Did you see her eyes? They were glowing as red as her cherries!" A few beams of light streaked through the windows, splashing light over the contents of the shed. "What's that?' I gasped at the giant hulking structure looming above us, twice as tall as any of our heads.

"That's Charlie's boat,'' Timmy Tom explained, "He's been building it in here with his own hands since I was three. He said he's gonna sail away on that boat."

"It's beautiful!" Janet Cleary gushed as she caressed the bottom of the boat, feeling its smooth, shiny wood. The boat ran from one end of the shed to the other.

"Hey, let's get in," I said, already climbing the ladder.

"Be careful!" Michael Mertz warned. "It might be dangerous."

"Are you a scaredy cat. Michael Mertz?" I taunted.

"I'm not scared of nothing," he said, following me up.

One by one we climbed up the ladder onto the deck of Charlie's boat and then stepped down below into its cabin. Though unfinished, the boat was already outfitted with tin kitchenware and two blue blankets. "This will be our new clubhouse!" I declared. It was clearly the greatest clubhouse in the world. "Who wants to join?" Everyone raised their hands. "It's our secret clubhouse," I said.

"Only us and no one else can know. Understand?" Everyone nodded their heads. "We'll have to seal the secret. Michael Mertz, vou first."

"W hadda I gotta do. Barbara Ann?" he asked.

"Show us your heinie," I said. Without blinking. Michael Mertz dropped his pants, and as the light poured into the cabin of our new clubhouse, we all stared at Michael Mertz's little white eight-year-old behind.

After four more sets of cheeks were shown. I declared the first meeting of the "Showing Heinies Club"" officially over.

"Tomorrow at noon," I whispered as we all climbed out of the boat, "and don't tell anyone, not anyoneV I felt I might be doing something wrong and figured with a mom like Mom, I didn't want to get caught.

On the fifth day of our Showing Heinies Club, five pairs of white cheeks were shining like harvest moons when the shed door swung open.

"It's Charlie!" I whispered, as we all squatted down, paralyzed and exposed.

"Who's up there?" Charlie hollered. "I know somebody's in there." The boat sat quiet, five naked behinds momentarily frozen in time. Then the boat rocked in its wooden cradle as all of us scrambled to pull up our pants. "Who's in there?" Charlie demanded.

I grabbed a metal plate and fork and banged a few of Charlie's tin Coleman pots around, trying to make as much noise as possible to disguise the sounds of snapping buttons and zipping zippers. "We're making spaghetti, Charlie," I shouted, "just making spaghetti."

One bv one, five guilty faces popped over the edge of the boat and peered down at the old blond Swede. "It's just me." Timmy Tom peeped. "And me." "And me." "And me." "And me," the rest of the fanny five admitted.

"Making spaghetti, huh?*' the old Swede said. "All right, but be careful in there. I'm going to sail away in that boat at the end of the summer."

On the eighth day of the Showing Heinies Club, we were right in the middle of Michael Mertz's turn when we heard my mom's voice outside the shed. "What are the kids doing in there, Charlie?" Mom asked. We all held our breath.

"Oh, they're fine, Mrs. Corcoran," he told her. "They're just making spaghetti."

"Nope, Charlie," she said. "When the clubhouse is quiet, they're never making spaghetti!" With that, she barged into our clubhouse, grabbed me and Kathy Harrison with one hand, told Michael to pull up his pants, and sent everybody home.

Summer 1983. Monday-morning meeting. The Corcoran Group.

We were right in the middle of a long, hot summer in New York. City streets and tempers alike steamed in the high temperatures. Our salespeople were happy to return to our air-conditioned office between showings, and this Monday morning they were all at their desks for our regular sales meeting, sipping the iced lemonade I had substituted for coffee. I took a deep breath, bracing myself to do what I had carefully planned to do.

Everyone at The Corcoran Group knew the company listing policy, which I had established at our first sales meeting. Our "share and share alike" policy required that salespeople post all new listings in our office files within one hour of getting the listing. Our policy was understood and welcomed, as it set us apart from the other firms' "every man for himself" practice. Their salespeople often pocketed special listings for their special customers, keeping them secret from the coworkers they viewed as competitors. In contrast, we shared our listings. At least, that was the idea.