My Hero
Never ask your wife “how she’s doing” when she is eating ice cream straight from the carton.
A very astute husband
Hero; /noun/: a person admired for bravery, great achievements, or good qualities.
Ask me who my hero is and I’ll give you an answer faster than a teenager can retweet a photo of Taylor Swift. It’s easy, because not only has this embodiment of all that is good and possible in the world been my hero for what seems like forever, I’m legally and morally obligated to wake up next to her every morning. And trust me, I get way more out of that arrangement than she does.
The Pretty Blonde, better known to the universe as Mrs. Anne Geiger, has many talents, but blowing her own horn isn’t one of them. She wisely took a pass when God was busy handing out the pretentious genes. But that doesn’t mean her loudmouth of a husband, better known around Moraga as Mr. Anne Geiger, won’t do it for her. And besides, I rarely miss an opportunity to show off to the world the gargantuan return on investment I’ve received from buying a pathetic dime-store engagement ring and getting down on one knee.
There’s no better place to start than at the beginning. I first met the former Anne Denniston in May 1983 in Los Angeles. It was her first day at work in the Credit Training program at Lloyds Bank of California and I, as a Senior Credit Analyst, was assigned as her mentor. Our first few months of working together weren’t just rocky; it was a remake of the Napoleonic Wars (i.e., she’s taller than me). But we somehow managed to work things out. By the end of the one-year program The Pretty Blonde stood alone at the top of her class (she’s a founding member of Perfectionists Anonymous), and she accepted her dream assignment as an International Trade Finance Officer. But shortly thereafter, this fireplug of a man with big dreams and a super-sized debt load proposed to her. She foolishly bought my act, and for reasons known only to her she decided to marry me while I was still in graduate school. Then, in a moment of total delirium, she decided to leave the glamorous position she had worked so hard to earn, a risky move made even more perilous because circumstances dictated she become the immediate family breadwinner in the less-than-corporate confines of Hanover, New Hampshire. What woman in her right mind would leave a comfy banking job for a risky startup venture like me?
Anne scrounged around and found a $5/hour job at the Dartmouth College Investments Office managing the school’s short-term money market activities, a far cry from the spiffy salary she earned as an international banker. Nonetheless, The Pretty Blonde showed up every day for work with a smile on her face and a pleasant attitude that was as eager to please as a pubescent puppy. After her slot machine of a husband graduated with an MBA and a job on Wall Street, Anne’s boss recommended her for an administrative position with The Common Fund, an asset manager of college endowments.
While I was wining and dining my way through the six-month First Boston training program in dreary old Manhattan, The Pretty Blonde reverse-commuted two hours a day to her job in Stamford, CT. They must have liked her, because just hours after First Boston informed me I was being deported to their office in Atlanta (“Atlanta? As in Georgia?” I asked), the Big Boss at the Common Fund was on the phone with his buddies at Salomon Brothers trying to find a job for me in New York City so The Pretty Blonde could remain in Stamford. Salomon didn’t even bother looking at my resume. “We may have been born at night,” they said, “but not last night.”
Thanks to a strong referral from Mr. Common Fund, Anne secured a position at Trust Company Bank, a rock-solid Atlanta-based financial institution that held in its very vaults the original formula for Coke. Anne thrived in the bank’s Institutional Trust Administration department, rising in three short years from administrative assistant to the position of Vice President and Manager, which included making sales calls to colleges throughout the Southeast and overseeing a staff of fifteen. Her path to future success was limitless, unless, of course, her husband threw her another anchor. Which he did, first by getting her pregnant, and then by getting himself fired from First Boston. Once again, Anne’s bosses tried to find a job for her underperforming husband, which included scoring an interview for the position of Head of Investor Relations at The Coca-Cola Company. And once again, a possible suitor referred by Anne’s company decided I couldn’t pass the laugh test. Do you see a pattern here?
In March 1991, after I miraculously found employment with Montgomery Securities in San Francisco, Anne gave birth to Son #1 and decided to pursue a career in Mommyhood. She spend the next twenty years digesting parenting books, volunteering in classes and church, and taking the most detailed board minutes anyone had ever seen. And according to her kids, she could also whip up a pretty good after school snack.
After Son #2 left the nest, The Pretty Blonde decided it was time for her to reenter the working world on a fulltime basis. She first took a job with a startup hedge fund, only to discover that 3:00am wakeups to ride a BART train into San Francisco weren’t for her. After taking some time off to heal both her body and spirit, she applied for a temporary job in the Facilities Services and Project Management department at nearby St. Mary’s College. The job was to only last three months, but her boss couldn’t get enough of her sunny disposition and can do work ethic. So he brought her on as a fulltime assistant. If there was a plugged toilet, or a dorm with a leaky roof, she was the second person to know about it.
The Pretty Blonde’s talent for numbers and attention to nitpicky details attracted the attention of her bosses, and they wisely put her on the largest capital project in the history of St. Mary’s College; the building of the new 50,000 square foot, $23.5 million Joseph L. Alioto student recreation center. A year of grinding six-day a week, ten-hour days followed. Anne didn’t just commit to her job; she made, drank, and sweated the St. Mary’s Kool-Aid on a daily basis. Best of all, she LOVED every minute of it, and at the project’s opening ceremony she was as proud to be a Gael as any St. Mary’s student. After years of carrying the twin anchors of husband and kids, the Pretty Blonde had finally found her professional passion. And it was less than three miles from home.
To say I’m proud to wear the title of Mr. Anne Geiger would be an understatement of the highest order. And that was before she got promoted. Effective July 1, former temporary assistant Anne Geiger is the new Contracts Coordinator and Budget Analyst at St. Mary’s College.
Dinner for my hero will be waiting on the table when she gets home tonight.