Company (Wo)Men

by Maria Budet

My dad was a “Company Man” – old school loyal, pledging allegiance to Pan Am’s sky blue like one would the motherland. He worked there for over thirty years, overnight shifts in the MIS department, wall-to-wall mainframe computers creating a bunker that hummed with a War Games-style buzzing punctuated by the zzzzttt-zzzzzztttt-zzzzzztttt of dot matrix printers creating constellations on endless reams of paper. That buzzing was his lifeblood, his heartbeat, connecting him to everything Pan Am in the wee hours of the morning. He liked that shift – 8pm to 6am – because it was peaceful, giving him a sense of control that stemmed from the intimacy of sitting in a still hall with all of that information, connecting the dots that (in his mind) kept everyone flying safely. He was King of the World – and that world revolved around Pan Am.
When the airline went under, it literally broke his heart. He loaded up on Pan Am books, bags, cutlery, glasses – I can still host a party for 50 using only Pan Am branded wine glasses – proudly brandishing his “Pan Am: Gone But Not Forgotten” license plate on the front of his car to invite conversation. His closest friends were from Pan Am, the same friends that introduced him to my mother, that traveled the world with him and always brought him home. He spoke about the airline as passionately as he did Cuba, both indivisible from his sense of self. When ABC launched the new Pan Am drama a few months ago, friends and family all agreed: “Your dad would have loved this!” “I immediately thought of him…” Most of us can’t see anything Pan Am without seeing him; the Company Man came to embody the brand.
I consider myself somewhat of a Company Girl, always have been. Before joining Zubi earlier this year, I had been with the same agency for almost 10 years, something almost unheard of in today’s professional landscape. Maybe it’s genetic, but I am quick to immerse myself when I know I am in the right place. The professional is still personal to me, something I want to help build with my peers; it makes a difference when we are all committed to the “we.” But, for the most part, the “Company Man” (or, in my case, wo-man) died in the 1970s and 80s amid mergers and reorgs, the re-engineering of business processes in a post-internet world finishing him off. Career paths were invented and the way we identified with our work was re-invented, with mobility not only expected but rewarded. What impact does this have on the way that we work? On the way that companies look at their teams and build them? Does it impact the actual work that we put out, keeping it fresher? What if we want to stay in the same place for a long time – what does that say about us? Or about the place we chose to call home?
My dad passed away in 2006. When he did, I got the initials “gbnf” tattooed on the inside of my left wrist: “Gone but not forgotten.” It’s in Pan Am blue, but it’s him I remember.