As a 1994 graduate of the Dale Carnegie Course, I enjoy reading about the course and its effects on people...
Dale Carnegie and the Parking Attendant
An employee inspired a Florida resort owner to an act of grace.
On Gulf of Mexico Drive in Longboat Key, Fla., I rode past the wreckage of the Colony Beach and Tennis Resort. Once the No. 1-ranked tennis destination in the U.S., its buildings have recently been leveled to make room for a planned new development.
But when the Colony was busy and thriving, two decades ago, I happened upon an act of quiet generosity there that caught me by surprise.
Dale Carnegie doing his NBC show 'How to Win Friends and Influence People,' Jan. 25, 1938.PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
There was a parking attendant at the Colony’s main restaurant who clearly had a problem dealing with others. It wasn’t that he was unpleasant, but it seemed no one had taught him basic social skills. He had trouble even looking into the eyes of the guests of the resort, or of his fellow employees. When he spoke with them it was in a halting, tentative voice. It was painful to observe.
It didn’t go unnoticed, of course. Many people assumed the young man was going to be fired. He was in a low-level position and could easily be replaced.
I had not seen him in a while, and then when on one visit I did, something seemed to have changed.
He told me: “Dr. Klauber found a course for me to take.”
Murf Klauber owned the Colony. He was an orthodontist from Buffalo, N.Y., who had purchased the property around 1970 and devoted his life to it. He died at age 91 this past Thanksgiving—the day after the demolition of his beloved resort was completed.
Klauber had what is euphemistically described as a strong personality. He was a stickler for every detail. A candy wrapper left in the driveway would drive his blood pressure up; a dining table left unbussed would enrage him. So when people started to complain about the parking attendant, I figured the young man would be gone.
Instead—recognizing that no one in the young man’s life had probably ever taken the time to help him—Klauber found, in nearby Sarasota, a Dale Carnegie training course.
Carnegie had written the massive bestseller “How to Win Friends and Influence People” in 1936. He had been dead since 1955. But Klauber was of the generation that remembered Dale Carnegie well. I hadn’t known the Carnegie courses were still being taught.
How Klauber thought to do it, I have no idea. But, out of his own pocket, he enrolled the parking attendant in the course to help him learn how to speak comfortably with others and gain the confidence to look them in the face. The solemn Carnegie promise: how to win friends.
What a benevolent and unexpected gesture. After the young man told me about it, I approached Klauber to say how moved I was. He brushed it off, saying anyone would have done it.
But how many people were even aware that such a course existed? And how many, even if they did know, would have instead taken the easier route of firing the young man?
“Dr. Klauber found a course for me to take,” the young man said. In the steadiest of voices, looking me right in the eye.
Mr. Greene’s books include “Chevrolet Summers, Dairy Queen Nights.”
Appeared in the January 15, 2019, print edition.