Faye and Her Planner

Troy started his career in the late 80’s, around the same time as Faye.

Right from the beginning, for Troy, work was everything. When he was just starting out, he always made sure that he worked harder than others around him, worked longer hours than everyone else, and always put the utmost pride in his every task. For Faye, on the other hand, work was a means to an end. She got married young (to the love of her life), started a family early, and took work where she could in order to help pay the bills. She also took great pride in the execution of her various responsibilities (in work and outside of work), but for her a happy life was about surrounding yourself with friends and family and enjoying whatever came each and every day.

Troy’s path merged with Faye’s when he hired her in the late 90’s to be his Personal Assistant.

By this time, Troy was a mid-level mucky-muck in a major company that you’ve probably heard of. Faye was already working there and had built a reputation as a solid Assistant, so Troy felt very fortunate when she became available to him.

Being who he was, and being who she was, theirs was a very cordial, very professional relationship from the day she started working for him. And from day one, whenever Troy called her into his office, or took her to lunch, or (eventually) to his client appointments, she always carried a ragged brown leather day planner with “FAYE” stenciled in small, neat letters on the front.

Whenever Troy asked her for anything, Faye would open up her planner, thumb through the pages, and somehow find the information she needed to be able to get it for him. When he needed to remember something he had said in her presence – ANYTHING he had said in her presence – she’d dutifully search the planner and be able to remind him. When he needed a name, when he needed details about a person he was meeting, when he needed ANYTHING, her planner held all the answers.

Pretty soon, Troy became very dependent on Faye and her planner - and not just within the confines of his business life. When he needed to buy a gift for a loved one; when he needed to fill out medical forms with information about his health, age, weight, and diet; when he needed to recall what he wore at last year’s holiday party – Faye was always able to find the information in her brown leather sidekick.

As time passed, Troy found himself asking Faye not only for information but also for advice: Business advice, relationship advice, what to watch on television, what wine to buy for a party, what colour shoes to buy – Faye became the person he would go to on just about anything. And she’d always thumb through her planner’s pages before answering, as if it held all the secrets of Troy’s life.

Though Troy never caught even a glimpse of the planner’s pages (it never left Faye’s side), he came to rely on the brown leather book as much as he came to rely on Faye. To him, they were his “secret weapon” in work and in life. In fact, as he became busier, as he went from mid-level mucky muck to C-level mucky-muck, with less and less time for warm ‘hellos’ and pleasant exchanges with Faye in the morning and throughout the day, she and the planner almost became one and the same to him. It was as if they were a single business application, a valuable resource, a ‘thing’ that gave him an edge. Faye, the person, really meant little to him; but Faye and her planner, were indispensable assets.

He paid Faye well. He praised her work. He bragged to his colleagues about his secret weapon. And he thanked God every day that he had Faye and her planner on his side.

Until one morning, when he came into the office and found a short and simple resignation letter from Faye tucked under the lamp on his desk. “Time for me to go” was all it said.

As you can imagine, Troy was lost. He tried hard to find her so that he could urge her to come back, but he realized that he basically knew nothing about her. She had moved from the only address he had for her, and he had no other clues that he could use to follow her beyond that. He spent months looking. He missed appointments. He missed birthdays. He never felt prepared for anything.

When he realized that Faye and her planner were really gone, he finally switched his focus to trying to find a replacement for her. He interviewed hundreds of prospects, even hired a few of them, but no one came close to replacing what he had had with Faye and her planner.

A few years later, after having placed want ads in thousands of listings across the continent – ads pleading for Faye (and her planner) to come back to him – one of the ads must have found her. He came into the office one morning, the day of his birthday in fact, and found a neatly wrapped gift resting on his desk. The simple card attached to it said “To Troy. Happy birthday. Here’s my planner. I hope you find what you’re looking for in it.”

He tore open the wrapping paper, grateful to Faye for this final generous act. And sure enough, there sat the ragged brown leather day planner with “FAYE” stenciled on the front.

When he opened its cover, he saw that its pages, from start to finish, were completely blank. And he realized in that moment, with complete clarity, that they always had been. It wasn't the planner that had held all the secrets of Troy’s life, it had always been Faye who did.

Troy sat down in his chair and he cried for what he had lost.

The End.

MORAL (and clever pun, for those who didn't get my joke the other day): It's not Faye's Book that you should treasure; it's the friends with whom you share it that matter.