Page 612 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
stuck with me was “The New York Times Test”: namely, never do any- thing that you would not wish to see as the subject of a headline in tomorrow’s morning edition. (I was unlikely to fail that test whether or not I had heard of it.) What was handed to me and didn’t stick, however, were three volumes containing about two thousand pages devoted to the government’s regulations with respect to travel. There was no way that I was going to even glance at that; it went unopened and then lan- guished on my bookcase for my entire tenure (almost).
As my responsibilities grew, I had to spend a lot of time flying around the country, primarily to attend meetings not only at the RTC’s five regional offices but also at a few of the more important “local” offices and “hot spots,” such as San Diego. I would have to meet with the attorneys in charge of real estate matters and lecture on the niceties of portfolio sales, the Land Fund, auctions, and—perhaps most impor- tant—the methods by which one would analyze the components of proposed “workouts” (settlements) of complicated loan default situa- tions, workouts that were eventually handled by the “SWAT teams” referred to below.
This amount of travel became quite a burden (although I really enjoyed the work involved), but its side benefit was that it helped me with my normal D.C.-to–New York commute. When I could, I initiated what I came to call “triangulation.” If I were to have a meeting that was on, or went through, a Friday, I would fly directly home at its conclu- sion. This would not cost the government a dime (the airfare from a distant location to New York was the same as it was to Washington) but would obviously be convenient and cost-beneficial to me. And, if I had control over scheduling, I naturally opted to have distant meetings occur late in the week. Ron “Wilburn” (I’m not sure of his last name) was the head of the National Sales Center, with whom I worked closely. A Florida resident, he often made use of his distant meetings to travel home for the weekends. I don’t recall whether he was the first to tell me of the benefits of triangulation, but we certainly attended many meet- ings together and discussed our itineraries.
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