It's Hard to Remember What Happened

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One thing I regret professionally is that I didn’t take more notes and keep more mementos of my time working at Bloomberg LP.

One that I did keep was a picture of Elliot Spitzer and me at the office.

I have no recollection of the interview, but the grainy photo, which includes Bloomberg’s then Editor-in-Chief Matt Winkler, had to have been in the early 2000s, when Spitzer was Attorney General of New York.

Spitzer had been dubbed the “Sheriff of Wall Street.” He was smiling. He had an unmistakable swagger.

Within a few short years he would be elected governor of New York, and 16 months later he would resign in disgrace because of a sex scandal.

It would have been helpful to have kept some notes.

At the time Bloomberg was arguably the fastest growing media company in the world and I was in the thick of it as New York Bureau Chief.

But everyone was busy.

I regret now that I didn’t keep more notes and documents to remember what happened and when and why.

I kept a menu from a lunch we had with George Soros.

I have no recollection of the event, but according to the menu we ate Spiced Autumn Fruit Compote and Raisin Ice Cream for dessert.

I’m not saying the compote, or the fennel and arugula salad mattered per se, but it is the kind of detail that is so evocative of time and place.

I did scribble one note on the Soros menu.

It says quite clearly: “Rumsfeld won’t be in 2nd administration.” I have no idea who said that. (It proved to be incorrect.) But it obviously suggests the lunch took place during Bush’s first term in office.

I saved some of the more outrageous expense reports I was asked to approve, like the purchase of a carton of cigarettes for the author of the Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl. I must have thought it was funny.

I didn’t print out one reporter’s expense report to rent a horse, which the person claimed was necessary to track down a CEO at Herb Allen’s annual Sun Valley event for media moguls.  I did approve it.

I wish I had kept more. Perhaps I thought all the electronic emails and records would be saved (they weren’t.) Or maybe I was young and didn’t realize that someday I would want to look back.

Now, I regret not being more disciplined. I should have maintained a daily journal to keep track of what we did each day. It would have reminded me how events large and small unfolded.

I ran the New York newsroom on 9/11 when the first plane hit the World Trade Center and I remember some things. I stood behind Stock Market Editor Phil Serafino and dictated the first headline.

I remember how the sky was blue and the streets were deserted when I rode my bike home. I remember keeping the apartment windows closed because of the ash blowing in from the burning wreckage downtown.

But I’ve forgotten so much that happened that day and that week and that year.

I’ve been reading the diaries of David Sedaris, who is impressive for the acuity of his observations as well as the consistency of his journaling.

Sedaris explains his process this way: “I was never one to write about my feelings, in part because they weren’t that interesting.” He goes on: “What I prefer recording… are the remarkable events I have observed.”

By “remarkable,” he doesn’t mean big. He means interesting.

They may have been small, but meaningful snippets of conversation, strange behavior or some inappropriate outfit.

If I had one piece of advice for my younger self, it would have been to be systematic in writing down the most memorable things that happened each day.

A page or so would have been enough.

The best souvenirs remind you of the small, day-to-day happenings.

Like the email I printed out from a White House correspondent asking for permission “bring his dog in for an hour or so next Friday afternoon.”

“He’s a little pug, very quiet and well behaved,” the person added.

I have no idea if I approved that request.

It’s definitely something Sedaris would have written down.

BRIEF OBSERVATIONS:

NOT MUCH HAS CHANGED: Augustus built a temple to honor Julius Caesar in the Roman Forum on the spot where he was cremated after his assassination in 44 BC. In one of history's delightful examples of revenge served cold, he decorated the temple with the rostra taken from the ships used by his enemies, Anthony and Cleopatra, when they were captured at the Battle of Actium. The names and places change. Human nature, not so much.

IT'S NEVER ENOUGH: Mutual fund pioneer John Bogle told the story of a conversation between Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut in his book Enough: True Measures of Money, Business and Life. It's a timely reminder for young and old. 

YOU GET WHAT YOU MEASURE: We all live in bubbles. I think about temperature in Fahrenheit even though Fahrenheit is used virtually no where save the U.S. (along with a number of really tiny countries like Guam, the Cayman Islands and Palau. Often, we are bound by the perspective we inherit.  

FEWER AND BETTER WORDS: One piece of feedback about writing I give is to keep it short. This became something of an inside joke at my last job. Whenever I was asked to review a memo, I would invariably suggest it be re-written with "fewer and better words."