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You might not even realize how important communication is in business until it breaks down, and suddenly nothing gets done. It’s a little like electricity in that way, or a working toilet. You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone, and today was a particularly frustrating day in that regard. And I think we can all guess the reason. (Well, the reason is the communication breakdown, and the reason for the breakdown is just what you think it is.)
The Boss was supposed to be back from his holiday walkabout today. I haven’t even talked to him in a week, but the last time I did I assured him that if we could talk on Thursday, we could get everything straightened out for the end of the year. Today is Thursday, and we still haven’t talked.
I can’t even leave him a message, at least not one that I think he’ll get. He has his office phone rolled over to his cell phone, and his cell phone on voice mail. And he doesn’t know how to access his voice mail. I did leave him a message, but with very little hope that he’ll ever hear it. Hopefully he’s with somebody smarter than he is about those things.
So I’ve been writing him notes and faxing them to his office. He’ll get them when he surfaces, and he’ll either call me or it’ll already be too late. I’ve decided not to care any more. The last note said that since I couldn’t reach him and time was up, I’d made some decisions. I told him what I’d decided to do, and I said that if I didn’t hear from him by noon Friday, I was going to go ahead with my plan.
After all these years together, I think I know him well enough to have the strong feeling that what I decided is what he would decide, if he had all the facts and reports that I’ve been flooding his fax with. I can’t be a hundred percent sure, of course, and some big money is involved, so being wrong would not be good. But doing nothing would be even worse. | 
