The art of receiving bad news

My sister turned 21. It was an emotional day. You get a number of those moments in your life where you realize that time is finite. Getting your first grey hair. Your mother stopping to catch her breath on a walk. Seeing your baby sister, whom you taught to ride a tiny bike, become of drinking age.

But absolutely worst of all is being mistaken for your father at your sister’s 21st birthday dinner at a Mexican restaurant by her friend who is a waitress there. “And is this your father?” she asked. Linda, my sister, cracked up. I would have run into the bathroom crying, but the chips and salsa were addictive and they kept refilling it.

In the last five years, I have aged ten years. The economy has not been kind to us nonprofit directors. In fact, it’s been grabbing us by the neck and giving us noogies and stealing our lunch money. Tuesday, I received news that a school we partner with did not receive a major grant that we were hoping for. We had worked on that proposal with the school for weeks. Receiving the notice was like getting smacked in the face with a frozen cantaloupe.

I was at my desk, trying to compose a bad-news email to the staff. We are a small organization, and every staff feels every victory and defeat. It is easy to write victory announcements: “Yay, we did it! Teamwork! Synergy! Eff one-ply toilet paper, we’re going two-ply! etc.” It is much harder to write a defeat email. I was drafting one when Mr. Nguyen, our Administrative Assistant, came by to talk to me.

Dear everyone, I was typing, we did not get the grant. I know this is disappointing. We gave it a valiant effort…

“Vu?” said Mr. Nguyen in his soft, eloquent voice, “your signature is not good.”

“Huh?” I said. Sure, we knew our chances were slim, but I was still hopeful. In the next several weeks, please do not get sick or injured, as we might have to cut your health insurance…

“Vu,” said Mr. Nguyen, “your signature, it’s disconnected.” I looked at the piece of paper he was holding, a form approving some office supplies. “See, you have two parts to your signature. That’s not good. It means you’re distancing yourself from your family.”

I was getting annoyed, even though he was just trying to help. “Yes, thank you for your advice.”

“You should make your signature one stroke. Underline it for support. The line adds confidence, strength.”

Argh! All Vietnamese signatures are the same: loopy squiggle with an underline. Mr. Nguyen was encouraging me to make my signature like that. I like my loop, squiggle, loop squiggle signature and didn’t need him to tell me that it was bad luck, especially when I had to send out an encouraging email to the troops after devastating news.

If we all work overtime to raise funds, and form a task-force to dumpster dive for snacks for our programs, we may just be able to weather this storm with only one or two layoffs…

But maybe he’s right. After signing so many things each week, I have dreaded signing anything, especially expense authorization, so the signature has gotten sloppy. Maybe something good will happen if I listen to Mr. Nguyen and work on my signature. Stranger things have happened at the office. Two years ago, we had some cash flow issue due to a heavy reimbursement check that had been delayed two months due to government bureaucracy. Frustrated and desperate and at the office till midnight, I looked at our one lone houseplant, a money tree. It had been dying, its leaves brown and sad. Not knowing what else to do about our cash flow, I decided to prune the tree of its dead leaves and branches. A week later, the tree started looking healthy, and I swear the check came in, and our cash flow was normal again!

Now the money tree has died. My signature apparently sucks and Mr. Nguyen thinks that’s a sign of poor character. I couldn’t blame the waitress for thinking I’m thirty years older than I am.

Each month, some of us ED’s go out for happy hour. It’s like a support group. There we console one another and talk of a bright and idyllic future. We sip our well drinks and stare into the distance, imagining a nonprofit world where all funds are multi-year and for general operating, where we ED’s could focus more of our attention on improving our services. A world with retirement funds and dental insurance for all our staff, where funders standardize their budget forms. “Hang in there,” we would say to one another, “one day, the economy will improve, you’ll see. It’ll be a beautiful day.” “Golly, Vu, do you really think so?” “Shucks, I know so.” But we all know it’ll take a while, perhaps years, perhaps never. We all dream.

And we all take advantage of senior discounts.