A new start
Don Coldsmith
Monday, May 7, 2007
IT WAS a few decades ago, when my main occupation was the practice of medicine. My bookkeeper/receptionist/office manager and friend had informed me that she would be leaving. I had learned a lot from her, but she had lost her husband, and was to remarry now, moving out of town. I didn’t see how I could replace her. I had a busy practice, a ranch operation and the youngest of our five daughters was in college at Kansas State University.
This new employee should, if possible, have some medical background. I had a capable nurse already. I began the search at the hospital in the records room. The lady in charge was a good friend anyway. She assured me that a person she had in mind would be a perfect fit in the job. The potential person had worked with medical records, was great at typing dictation and had only resigned to do similar work for the construction company working on the new wing of the hospital which was nearing completion.
“You’ll like her!” the records supervisor assured me. “She’s an animal person.”
Our whole family of girls were “animal” persons, in that context. We had dogs, cats, chickens, horses, cattle and more. With the assurance of the hospital contacts, I called the young woman and asked her to come in for an interview at the office. Every reference had been excellent.
I immediately recognized her when she came in, having seen her at the hospital, though I hadn’t known her name. We visited, becoming acquainted as we talked: dictation, typing, bookkeeping — everything seemed good.
At about that time the office phone rang and my receptionist put the call on through to my desk. It was my wife, “Eddie.” No emergency, just an unrelated event she had encountered, which I might need to know about. Before we hung up, I thanked her and told her, “I love you.”
A person needs to be told that occasionally, I’ve found. It’s priced right and makes a big impression. I’m amazed that so many men have never discovered this.
We continued the interview and the applicant was quite comfortable with the fact that a part of the job would be typing manuscripts for books and magazines. I hired her and she fit in beyond any expectations. She seemed to instinctively know what was needed and how to do it. Quite a few pages of my early book manuscripts were written by hand in the night on the back of hospital order sheets while I’d be waiting for babies to arrive. That has worked for us better than dictation, I found.
But my own main job description was the practice of medicine. A salesman came in, wanting to sell me on a simple bookkeeping system, using printed forms to be purchased through him. His sales pitch was interrupted by a call from the front desk and a request for me to step out there for a moment.
“That’s nothing but a record sheet and some code numbers,” said my new receptionist. “I can do that with your present office equipment.”
I told the salesman that I’d think about it and I’d have an answer on his return in two weeks. The next day, when I reached the office there was a classy-looking paper form with code numbers, on my desk. How to use it?
“Just use it for the next patient who comes in. Have them hand it to me as they leave.”
I tried it and we used that system until the day we closed the office to write full time, years later. By that time, we advanced from the typewriter to the computer for manuscripts and my assistant was known by most of my editors and publishers in New York, some of whom have tried to hire her.
I still write longhand and she converts it to manuscript. We each work at home now and get together every day or two to exchange what I’ve written; columns, magazines, a book manuscript or maybe just correspondence. Rarely, however, have I written about her. It is nearly 24 years later (which seems impossible in itself). She is practically family, though she has her own family, too.
Not long ago, she called my attention to her job application interview and the phone call interruption in which I had told my wife, “I love you.”
“I told myself then,” she continued, “I am going to enjoy working for this man.”
I think she still does. We’ve done nearly 40 books and more than 1,800 syndicated newspaper columns, including this one. Maybe it will work!
See you down the road.
Author and columnist Don Coldsmith lives in Emporia.