Thursday, March 30, 2017
Where do I start? Like Matt would have done, to the point. In my 35 years at Bell Labs Matt was by far the best boss I ever had, bar none. Don’t get me wrong, there were times I wanted to murder him. He expected you to perform and do your job (shock, shock). He expected nothing less than the best you could do and then, oh by the way, add another 100%. Matt had an incredible work ethic. For example, we were supposed to have a staff meeting one day but got about 18 inches of snow during the night before. So I get a call from Matt. “Where are you?” he says. “Home, of course, buried under snow and can’t get out” I replied, thinking something along the lines of “like any rational person who can’t find their driveway”. He had cross country skied to work and was expecting all of us to show up for the staff meeting. No problem, he says. Pete has a 4 wheel drive and will pick you up for our meeting on his way into work. We had the staff meeting and worked the rest of the day. No snow days for Matt. He also taught me SO MUCH. My favorite “Matt-isms”: “Go Slow” (as in, make no decision before you really have to and have all the facts), “One Pager” (write it on only one page and he really meant that, as I learned the hard way), “Take Care of Your People” (Matt was the most caring boss I ever had), “You Can’t Slip Your Schedule More Than The Time Remaining” (I tested this once, and once only, and was taught an extremely painful lesson)and “Just Outwork Them” (when confronted with corporate bureaucrats) are just a few of his many lessons which I passed on to another generation of managers. Matt was also a dear, dear friend. He and I shared many a dozen oysters on the half shell prior to catching one of our “more than I can count” red-eye flights back to NJ from the Bay Area. Then going home, showering and putting in a full day or more of work. That was my Matt. And he was the Best Man at my very small wedding. I miss Matt so much.
