Mr. Wise
For most of us there are only a few people in our lives who make an indeleble impression as we wend our way through life's slalom course. There are many ways a person can be influential. Perhaps they were paternal, avuncular, carefree, funny, focused, philosophical, or just attentive to you. The stickiest characters are the ones who are quirky.

I worked with Bob Wise at Ingersoll Rand. He was a Project Manager and I was a Project Engineer. We worked on a job together for the big contruction company CF Braun. I had only worked with one other PM before and he could not have been more different than Bob.

A couple of things about Bob Wise.
He flaunted organizational skills with multicolored pens, Gantt charts, and liner notes. Papers on his desk were always stacked in perfect tiers, the hand-made titles revealed just so. His array of Flair pens were fanned out in the corner, ready to do his bidding. While he talked on the phone arrows swept from one side of the page to the other. Words got double and triple underlines.

Bob's handwriting was beautiful to look at and almost completely illegible.

He combined a masterery of sarcasm with a readily-accessible bag of quips. During his incessant complaints about the customer he would say in his nasily California drawl, something like These guys don't need Preparation-H, they're perfect assholes! or These guys wouldn't know quality control from venereal disease!

He'd be the first guy to laugh at your joke. Also the first guy to cut you balls off in a meeting. He did it to me once. Maybe that's why he's unforgettable.

Hey, I just said he was memorable, not likeable.