I've mentioned before the British company I worked for back in the 70's that made very large and very expensive things like electron microscopes and mass spectrometers. It was headquartered in Manchester, England, and the main American location was in New York. I worked in the Chicago sales office.
One of my favorite people in New York was a guy named John Tinnon who was in charge of shipping and receiving. He was intelligent and witty and fun to talk to, and completely reliable. If he said the equipment would be shipped on Tuesday, it shipped on Tuesday. He never let me down, and I thought the world of him.
An important customer needed a replacement part urgently, and I called John to see what could be done. He said he had the part in stock and promised he would get it to our office the next day. Now, this was before FedEx and over-night shipping had been invented, so I asked him how he proposed to do that. He said, "If I have to, I'll hire a courier and put him on an airplane with it."
Sure enough, about 10:30 the next morning, a dude came into our office carrying a box with the company logo on it. I was a little alarmed because of his appearance -- long, stringy hair and a very long, stringy beard, tie-died tee-shirt and love beads around his neck. I was thinking, "Oh, John -- couldn't you find somebody besides this long-haired hippy freak?"
The guy set the package down on my desk and said, "Hi. I'm John Tinnon."
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