Blogs

By Dean Norman

For some jobs it is important to show up on time. Retail clerks, airline pilots, kindergarten teachers.

Larry Raybourne was a humorous greeting card writer, and it was not so important to be at work at 8 a.m. After all, he may have thought of an idea for a funny greeting card while he was at home. 

American Greetings had time clocks in all departments, and if a person punched the clock one minute after 8 a.m., he was docked 15 minutes of pay. It didn’t bother Larry very much, so he was often a few minutes late to work. But it bothered his boss, Tom Wilson, who was director of the Hi Brows department.

So Tom was happy when Larry said, “I won’t be late to work anymore. I have rented a house right across the street from our building. I can leave my front door and be here in less than five minutes.”

The next day Larry walked in 15 minutes late.

“You said you wouldn’t be late again,” said Tom. “What happened?”

“I left my house at 7:55, but I couldn’t get across the street,” said Larry. “The traffic was awful. I would have been killed if I tried to cross the street.”

The street was not busy most of the time. But a few minutes before 8 a.m., people would be driving fast to get to the American Greetings parking lot and punch their time clocks.

“So I went back inside, had a cup of coffee and waited until the traffic cleared,” said Larry.

Eventually the time clock was replaced by a sign-in sheet. Then all of the Hi Brow  writers and artists were able to get to work between 7:50 and 8 a.m.

— Dean Norman 

Dean Norman is a cartoonist and humor writer, whose work has appeared in greeting cards,The New Yorker, MAD Magazine, The Cleveland Plain Dealer Sunday Magazine and The Kansas City Star. He's also written comedy for cartoon shows and written and illustrated children's books. He illustrated a cartoon book for Cleveland Metroparks, Cleveland Metroparks Adventures.