Instead of the Woody Allen movie we went to see the Milton Glaser movie To Inform and Delight and I'm still enchanted. It's almost midnight and I'm in such a trance that I haven't even begun to get the garbage and recycling together for pickup tomorrow. The movie's playing at the Roxie in the Mission; the evening light in the Mission on 16th Street was intoxicating to begin with.
Milton's love for New York City brought my love for San Francisco to the surface. I walked out rejuvenated and full of love for my work and my surroundings. Not only does Milton live for his work, but he loves eating lunch too. You get to meet his wife Shirley in the movie, and also Jean Michel Folon.
To give you an idea of what he's like, here are Ten Things I Have Learned from a talk he gave in London. (Thanks, Meg.) Here's #1. Do you agree?
YOU CAN ONLY WORK FOR PEOPLE THAT YOU LIKE.
This is a curious rule and it took me a long time to learn because in fact at the beginning of my practice I felt the opposite. Professionalism required that you didn’t particularly like the people that you worked for or at least maintained an arms length relationship to them, which meant that I never had lunch with a client or saw them socially. Then some years ago I realised that the opposite was true. I discovered that all the work I had done that was meaningful and significant came out of an affectionate relationship with a client. And I am not talking about professionalism; I am talking about affection. I am talking about a client and you sharing some common ground. That in fact your view of life is someway congruent with the client, otherwise it is a bitter and hopeless struggle.
