In Boston, it's not in the cards
This coming Saturday is National Boss Day. Have you bought your card yet?
I have several bosses, and somehow I can't see planting this suggested Hallmark wet kiss on their boots: "I feel LUCKY having someone like you to work with. I know I can always count on your fairness and UNDERSTANDING. And I know that you really want me to SUCCEED -- that means a lot. HAVE A GREAT DAY."
A woman named Patricia Bays Haroski, at the time an employee of State Farm Insurance Company in Deerfield, Ill., launched National Boss Day in 1958. She chose Oct. 16 because that was her father's birthday. Isn't that sweet? Hallmark has been selling NBD cards since 1979, and their spokeswoman, Rachel Bolton, insists that it has been growing in popularity.
The Hallmark website dares to suggest that we should feel sorry for our overworked bosses because they've fired so many employees: "Downsizing in recent years means more responsibility for fewer managers. Managers today typically have more employees -- and less administrative support, while they are expected to be more productive."
Hello?! Is anyone home? Maybe Hallmark should be marketing these cards in Bangalore, India, where these overworked bosses have lots of new staff.
Bolton, who works in the nice city of Kansas City, Mo., simply couldn't believe my negativity. "Are you someone's boss?" she inquired sheepishly. No, but I once was, and believe me, the unfortunates who worked for me weren't sending me any touchy-feely cards. It gets worse. Oct. 16 is a Hallmark twofer. It is also selling cards for Sweetest Day, a Valentine's Day wannabe emanating from America's all-time wannabe city, Cleveland. (Not quite Chicago . . . not quite Boston.) Bolton also insists that this is a growing national holiday, and she seemed surprised when I told her that neither Boss Day nor Sweetest Day had the faintest hopes of catching on here. She then checked Hallmark's sales data. "You know, your city, Boston, is not in the top 20 for either of those holidays," she said. "Your perception is right. You know your city very well. Maybe you should come to work for Hallmark."
But I'd have to make nice with my boss. It may be too high a price to pay.
The spy book
Yale is certainly America's greatest university in one field of endeavor: espionage. It was Yale professor Robin Winks's engaging 1987 book "Cloak and Gown: Scholars in the Secret War, 1939-1961" that documented the close ties between New Haven and CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., carrying on a tradition that began with Nathan Hale (class of 1773) and extends to America's current spookmaster, Porter Goss (class of 1960).
Yale University Press has just published "The Literary Spy: The Ultimate Source for Quotations on Espionage and Intelligence," a fat chapbook of anecdotes and snippets culled from almost every source imaginable -- William Shakespeare to Maxwell Smart. All my heroes are here: former CIA director William "Killer" Colby; my old friend Bill Odom, former director of the National Security Agency; and my former employer Otis Pike, who chaired the House Select Committee on Intelligence in 1976.
The once-famous Cord Meyer, who made the journey from one-world peacenik to covert ops op extraordinaire, makes the book, as does the young Ceylon-based spy clerk Julia McWilliams, who later cooked up a very different career under her married name, Julia Child. James Bond is well represented. His creator, Ian Fleming, had him claim in "Moonraker" that "the best English cooking is the best in the world." I wonder what Ms. Child would have said about that!
The book's editor, "Charles Lathrop," an ex-spook using a pseudonym, has even included an entry for "The Bible Designed to be Read as Literature," the name of the hollowed-out tome in which James Bond stored his Walther PPK in "Goldfinger." Any failings? I was a tad surprised not to find "Powers, Austin" in the index after "Powers, Francis Gary." But that's a small quibble.
The perfect gift for the shadowy someone on your Sweetest Day list.
Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com.
