Yellow Flag

I received one of those mailing tubes yesterday. I didn’t recall ordering a poster or anything like that. Inside was a yellow flag with a photograph and check wrapped around its dowel. No letter or note. None required.

Around the beginning of the year, Tom stuck his head into my office. “Can I see you a minute?” Tom has a small company that does work around our office complex.

I braced myself, thinking we were in for a major repair. “How much is it going to cost me?”

“What? Oh no, nothing like that. More like what it’ll cost me. I heard you did some business consulting on the side and was wondering how much you charge.”

“Depends on a number of factors; type of assignment, scope, level of involvement. (How much my next vacation will cost). But, usually about three hundred an hour.”

“Jeez. So it could cost someone thousands to use you?”

“If they let me do my job, it doesn’t cost them anything. I make money for people. If I’m not generating a lot more profit for them than they’re investing in me, it wouldn’t make much sense.”

“Yeah, but it probably doesn’t make sense anyway for a company our size.”

“Assuming you want to stay that size. Look, I know you slip us some free stuff here because we’re a nonprofit. Why don’t you just tell me what’s on your mind and I’ll return the favor without running the meter? When you’re rich and famous, I’ll expect you to cut a contribution check to us.”

“Nothing real specific. Just haven’t faced an economy like this and don’t quite know what to do. Tightening the belt like everyone else, but that ain’t helping much.”

I looked out the window and saw Tom’s Monte Carlo with the Rusty Wallace number decal. “You floor it.”

“Floor what?”

“You’re racing at Daytona. What’s the easiest way to move up a place?”

“Try to go faster than the other guy?”

“Go faster when the other guys slow down. Move up during the yellow flag.”

“Can’t. Against the rules.”

“Yeah, but if you could, and only you could, it would be easy to move up. In this economy, your competition has yellow-flagged itself. You can step on the gas and pick up places.”

“And that works?”

“It’s always worked for me. Never a better time to pick up market share than when everyone else is pulling in their horns.”

So, I knew what the flag was about without benefit of a note. The check was a nice contribution to the nonprofit I run.

The photo? Tom in his new Corvette. Sweet.