When I began working for my current employer almost ten years ago (that milestone will occur in April), I was assigned to a cubicle next to a colleague with whom I became personal friends in short order. Sometimes, you just click with someone, and it probably didn’t hurt that Tom reminded me a little bit of my cousin, but it was great to feel like I had an ally so early on in what has now shaped up to be long tenure with my company. Neither friends nor longevity are guaranteed in any work environment, but it really does help to like where you work and the people around you. I don’t think of the insurance industry as being particularly cut-throat, at least not where I’m on the payroll, and mine has been a great, twenty-plus year career so far.
Those of us in our general area with adjacent cubes would exchange greetings in the morning, back in the days when most of us were present in the office most of the time, and before working from home became the norm. Tom would ask me how I was doing, and I’m sure I would say I was “fine”, even when I was feeling less than enthusiastic. When I would return the question, Tom would sometimes respond that he was, “Just living the dream.” It wasn’t just his words, but also the flat tone in which he delivered them that almost caused me to “spit” hot coffee out of my nostrils on several occasions. We were all living the insurance dream, through overheard telephone conversations, fast and furious typing, and creative ways of using the English language among ourselves to express our frustrations.
Eastern Iowa Airport.
My version of this insurance dream has included business travel to territories in which many of my external clients are located and do business, themselves. I’ve written before here at Curbside about some of these trips, how I usually make it my practice to bring my camera along with me, and the importance of finding ways to make them enjoyable while away from the comforts of my familiar environments. It was on one such trek to Iowa that I spotted our featured car.
Let me set the tone for how this unfolded back in October of 2015, just one day after I had photographed a 1967 Ford Thunderbird I have previously written about. I had just deboarded a flight that was not even an hour long, from Chicago to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The length of time I had spent taking public transportation from my home to the airport was significantly longer than the amount of time the plane was in the air. I had my one cup of high-octane Starbucks something-or-other pumping through my veins when I met the marketing guy at arrivals, and we left short-term parking at the airport to head to our first appointment.
We had been on the road for not even ten minutes when a silver something caught my eye on an expressway exit ramp. Could that be…? No way. It’s morning rush hour on a Monday. In Iowa. Some dude isn’t just casually driving his DeLorean DMC-12 to work like it’s “Back To The Future Day” at the office. I don’t know about that last thing, but this car was definitely instantly recognizable as a DeLorean. My colleague in marketing is probably, by now, very used to my taking pictures on the fly, as he and I have worked together basically since my tenure with the company started.
I wasn’t going to ask him to pull into a gas station or something so I could get a few more shots of this car, as punctuality is important and I wasn’t there to take pictures of cars, but to discuss business and build relationships with clients. I did manage to get one shot of this DMC-12 with its slick, stainless steel body shimmering in the morning light, looking almost as futuristic to me in 2015 as it did when I was a youngster drooling over its Giugiaro-penned, angular, gull-winged, fastback shape.
I don’t have anything of substance to say about the car itself, which has previously been covered at Curbside, with just a couple of those links included below. Suffice it to say that the DeLorean (what percentage of people you know would refer to it by its proper model name, the DMC-12?) was a gorgeous piece of automotive sculpture that wasn’t particularly fast and had a troubled genesis and a sad ending, but remains an easily recognizable cultural icon in the United States, outside of car fandom, owing much to the popularity of the Back To The Future movie franchise.
“Live The Dream” was the tagline used in the featured, period print advertisements for the DeLorean DMC-12, which was perfect, given that I spotted this car during travel for business, where that phrase is still tossed around from time to time. Here in 2021, it appears that what was “the future” way back when I started with my current employer is now here, as I stand on the precipice of a full decade of service. In a job climate that has been rocked by the pandemic, I recognize that I am truly living the dream.
Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Monday, October 26, 2015.
Click here and here for just some of the related Curbside reading to be found on the DMC-12.
Oh boy. Well, I don’t have a lot to say about the car, but the sentiments in the essay sure strike a few chords. As previously determined, we share an industry in common, although my career has been on the agency side since 1994. We came back into the office back in June after 2 months of remote work, but there are still only a few of us actually “Living the Dream” and coming into the office daily. This week I’m covering 3 desks at least partially, having rolled into the office at 7:15 this morning. Throughout 2020 I reminded myself every other day that while so many were out of work or in jeopardy I was still kicking in an industry that has long been touted as “Recession Proof”. As ’21 get underway and the workload get heavier, I still have to keep reminding myself that whether it feels like it or not, I’m “Living the Dream”. Friday’s still payday, and there’s a 3-day weekend on the horizon for MLK Day. Gotta keep that mantra playing….”Living the Dream”. Indeed.
Amen, and amen, brother. Well shared.
The flag-draped corridor at the Eastern Iowa Airport is the cherry on this sundae of an article.
The DeLorean was, after all, simultaneously exotically international on the surface and ploddingly mundane underneath. As someone who appreciates the mundane, I hope that doesn’t come across as a knock on Iowa, or the DeLorean, either. There’s a lot to be said for being stolid.
Not sure where I’m going with this. I like the juxtaposition, though.
That’s a great parallel to point out – the DeLorean’s international-ness and the flags in the airport. I also hope readers didn’t think I was knocking Iowa. I mentioned that state only because I would expect to see a car like this out in the wild in a large, metropolitan area.
“Living the dream” is also a phrase used by my counterpart in our Kansas City office. She often says it to me with such gleeful sarcasm. She also once said at a meeting with executive management “you can’t make chicken salad out of chicken shit.”
As for the DeLorean, I truly do believe they were aiming for a tasty chicken salad. However, there was a whole lot of the other involved with the process. But, I agree, this guy is living the dream.
Yet another priceless phrase from the words of Jason Shafer! LOL
Your phrase reminds me of my rural neighbor who was a pig farmer. I visited him one Sunday morning ah his farm. Late March, drizzling rain, cold and damp. The snow was mostly melted, turning his barnyard into a muddy quagmire. The manure pile nearby held a winter’s accumulation, melting and making its olfactory presence known. My friend was walking with two buckets of pig feed, his coveralls covered in manure, and mud after wrestling an escaped sow back into a pen ; rainwater dripping off his nose.
When asked how he’s doing, he deadpans “It’s just another day in paradise “. .. .. A hilarious and memorable moment, for me anyway.
Somehow, I can just picture John DeLorean, smoking a cigarette while sitting at his desk while his eponymous company was imploding, thinking “On a clear day, I can see my dreams.”
And somehow, the DeLorean in your featured shot — looking flattened as it’s surrounded by minivans and SUVs — manages to look even more futuristic now than it did a few decades ago.
They sent me the brochures all the way to the UK. Head office was listed in Maddison Avenue yet they hadn’t sold a car yet. Nice for the UK tax payer to know that JD was sitting in a wood n padded office. Money well spent…
“Eastern Iowa Airport”, formerly known as Cedar Rapids airport. Wouldn’t you know they would have to change the name of that too. It’s very familiar to me, but in its original incarnation.
We first arrived in Iowa in 1960 at that airport, also on a flight from Chicago. And we used to drive my dad there when he was going to some neurology conference or such. And in the 70s, if I was really bored, we’d go up and have a milk shake or coffee in the cafe, and hope that an airplane might arrive or take off. That could be a long wait, back then.
And yes, we use that expression ironically quite a bit too.
I really wish this car had been a bigger success. When DeLorean announced his project to make a new car brand, the automotive landscape was dismal to say the least. GM had plans for a sub Chevette commuter and we all thought that we would be sentenced to sub Chevette, 50hp commuter boxes. The idea that someone was developing something sexy, exciting, and new with a performance angle was extremely appealing.
Couple that with the fact that we had lost faith in all of our institutions. Watergate and the loss of the Vietnam war meant that we had lost faith in government and politicians and America. America’s industrial base had lost a lot of ground and revelations like Ford decided it was cheaper to let people die in fiery Pinto crashes rather than fit a different gas filler neck meant that we couldn’t trust corporations or their products, which were increasingly shoddy and haphazardly designed and assembled. The world was very ripe for a new voice, new ideas, someone to upend the established crappy order.
Interestingly, a few people have been able to make low volume, expensive sports cars successful; Elon Musk obviously took a large fortune and made it into a staggering fortune with Tesla which is now a volume automaker; Panoz is still in business as a low volume, boutique automaker. Morgan still makes cars. I would be very interested to see what an alternative reality successful DeLorean history would have looked like.
The car was have been a success if it had a better engine than the Fed spec PRV v6 ,better transmission than the cable operated Renault one, door shuts that could hold the weight of those gull wing doors, up to date styling, 80s rather than 70s,remember those rear lights? and better build quality. The design team even thought about making the spare wheel optional to keep the cars weight down .. The idea was better than is execution. It really was a poor car for the money.
Interesting how the ads call it a ‘De Lorean’ instead of the proper spelling of his name (Delorean).
Anyway, I recall reading in one of the biographies that Delorean’s time at GM might have been a significant contributing factor in the demise of his company. After the initial novelty of his car wore off and sales began tanking, Delorean took a very GM-like action. Instead of cutting back production to match falling demand, he actually increased production, which is exactly something GM used to do (particularly during the Roger Smith years).
His legal name was John Zachary DeLorean. I’ve never seen it spelled “Delorean” until just now, or as a typo.
Have you ever considered spending 30 seconds with Google before you comment?
Nice writeup, Dennis. It’s a year to appreciate the mundane, the overlooked, the basics we took for granted.
Joe, you’ve pitched this just right. Great piece we can all relate too. I’ve had colleagues “living the dream” who are probably commenting somewhere about a guy you was often “Mediocre, but holding!”
And a camera on a business trip – every time and one day I’ll pull a post out of them all.
But never a DMC-12. Though I do have one literally kerbside.
The DeLorean DMC-12 is always a fun car to see on the road. Aside from the original dog of an engine they are cool cars in many ways. Kind of a livable 1970’s wedgemobile. Electric conversions take care of the original power deficit and can really haul a@@. A new electric car with some of the DMC-12’s key elements would be a big breath of fresh air in the stagnant/ dying car segment. A guy can dream.