MURPHY

My man Murphy, worked under me at my old job. I inherited Murphy and he was the kind of guy that could kill you with cooperation. Mr. Murphy was hired originally to do small color illustrations for stamp sheets, and he was a pretty good illustrator. As the company grew, Murphy was doing less illustration and more design work. Murphy was not a designer. Murphy was a pure and simple man. Very religious was Mr. Murphy, steeped in the traditions of the Catholic Church and his Irish background, and very active with his parish.

Mr. Murphy was also the father of many orphaned and abandoned children that he adopted. So much so that his own sons stopped talking to him because he spent so much time with the adopted children. One of his sons never spoke to Murphy because he had a child of his own, and felt his child should know his Grandfather better than he did. Murphy was married for the second time when he started adopting children, and his sons where all from his first marriage.

Mr. Murphy was a bit of a war hero, having flown off of a carrier during World War II, as a radioman in a dive-bomber.

Mr. Murphy was also very much a tormentor of his superiors, and those that had never met him before. When ever a new copywriter came too town fresh out of school, he or she was paired with Mr. Murphy to do small jobs and corrections. Murphy never liked to do anything but paint. During the day he would be caught painting pictures of a landscape or a still life. So Mr. Murphy devised a way to get the copywriter to believe that he had a lot of weight in the company, and at the same time get out of work! The unsuspecting copywriter would come to him with changes that needed to be made and Murphy would tell the writer that he had lunch that day with the company president and she said she didn’t want to make those changes. Naturally the poor copywriter would get hell from his supervisor because the changes were not made and come back to Murphy with the same request, with a little more force behind it, and murder in his eyes for Mr. Murphy.

Mr. Murphy had a big bulbous nose that was red as an apple. Mr. Murphy liked to tip back a few at lunch time, and would come back from lunch even more determined than he was in the morning not to work too hard. This required a kind and loving hand to intervene and get Mr. Murphy jump-started again. This was a task that was almost daily for me. I would get him going feeling totally exasperated and like I had put in a full day already.

Mr. Murphy liked to wear cowboy shirts with those rope ties and metal knots to hold the tie in place. Smoking a pipe, and painting his pictures, he was a happy camper. He drove a yellow Toyota Corolla, and it was so old that it was held together with duct-tape. I asked him once what he does if he has trouble on the road. He answered: “whenever I hear a noise I don’t recognize, I put on the radio, if I still hear it, I make the radio louder.”

One day in 1991 the company announced that the art department was going to be computerized, and everyone in the art department was going to take courses in the various programs. Mr. Murphy was our big concern. He did not disappoint us. He learned absolutely nothing. So it was left up to me to teach and coach him in the use of not only the computer, but also all the programs, which I was not that proficient in myself. Mr. Murphy was extremely reluctant to learn the computer, but was willing to at least try it. His frustration mounted as he tried, and had everyone in hysterics as he made attempt after attempt to master the machine.

One day as I was going through the rounds with those assigned to me, I came to Mr. Murphy’s cubicle and found his monitor turned off, and on top of his computer was a bowl of water for cleaning his paint brushes. Murphy had finally found a use for his computer. It was then that he told me he as retiring, and suddenly I felt the whole of his world crashing down on him. With all the children he was committed to, he couldn’t afford to retire. I talked him into staying on, and I started giving him the simplest of simple jobs I could find to hide him and get his name on some of the assignment sheets I would have to hand in to Human resources. Then one day the company decided to pare down staff, and offered good incentives to retire to those of retirement age. Mr. Murphy jumped at the opportunity, and chose my birthday to do so. Now every year he calls me on my birthday, and wishes me a happy birthday, I wish him health. I miss Mr. Murphy.