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Rein In Time
I can still recall the first time I received a call from a mobile phone.
The small architectural office I worked in was located in a converted cottage at the city’s edge. Still a student, one of my main clients was a famous and flamboyant retailer. He was one of the first people in Brisbane to have a car phone, taking up most of the boot in his Porsche, and with the amusing prefix 007.
There was a constant stream of new and renovated projects at the concept, design reviews, documentation, and construction stages. There were no set meeting times, just a phone call to summon me to his inner-city office to review the latest project. We didn’t have a fax, and of course, email was years away. When he asked how that plan was progressing, the answer was always- Yes, it was finished. There was no rush. I would complete the project and make my way to the city by taxi or even a leisurely stroll.
He had the most unusual way of running meetings. I could wait in the reception for up to an hour, and then I would be invited to sit at a round table with three or four other people but was rarely introduced. He would run this continuous stream of overlapping meetings, moving from subject to subject at random, often asking for opinions from specific people. Eventually, someone would be dismissed, and another person would take their place.
