Tower Topics ~ Summer 2004

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Profit is in the eye of the beholder

o one ever warned me that the 'non-profit' in the term 'non-profit organization' applies to the employees, too," my friend moaned. Like me, he has worked in the field most of his adult life, and we occasionally meet for a drink and one of our "I just paid my bills," "you can't get blood from a turnip," mutual-pity sessions.

But after the shock of giving all but $27.48 of his paycheck to bill collectors wore off, he sipped his beer and grumbled, "Oh, stop looking at me like that! You know I wouldn't work anywhere else."

I exaggerate, but if you're looking to score big bucks, working for an organization that qualifies for 501(c)(3) status probably won't be a good fit - for you or the organization.

But, as my daughter Emily says incessantly, "You know what?"

In August I will have worked at Conception Abbey for five years. Here are a few reasons my resume is gathering dust:

• Almost every time Abbot Gregory Polan sees me in a hallway, he stops and asks how I'm doing. Not the perfunctory, on-the-fly "How are you?" He stops walking and actually wants to know.
• The comedy team of Helga Sponaugle and Lesa Zeiger in the Abbey kitchen - Conception's own Abbott and Costello, Thelma and Louise, Dumb and Dum... Well, you get the picture. And their fellow cook "Boots" Eckstein. If only my mother were as nice to me as she is.
• It is quite possible that Abbot James Jones knows every single person on Earth - by first name.
• The monks agreed to hire me even though as a kid I was "asked to leave" the Abbey Boys Choir because I was a disruption.
• In contrast to the villains at Enron and Tyco, I've met some really kind rich people (for example, see Big-hearted...).
• When my dad was away on vacation, Brother Mark Kosiba stepped in for Grandfather's Day at my kids' school. The next year, Dad was able to make it. Brother Mark came anyway.
• Visiting the sisters at Clyde. I don't think those ladies know how cool they are.
• Father Peter Ullrich baptized all but one of my children. And he's her godfather.
• Cindy Staten in the Office of Development is the single hardest-working person on the face of the earth, and still makes time to laugh.
• In a two-hour period, I've watched Father Benedict Neenan charm a reporter, a room full of bishops and my wife.
• After 12 years in Seattle, I knew I was a Missourian again when the folks in the Printery House pressroom pulled a practical joke on me. (Not to mention that I started using words like "folks.")
• Father Patrick Caveglia laughs - out loud - at New Yorker cartoons. Now that is funny.
• No matter how badly I write, Gail Moore makes Tower Topics look really good.
• Three-minute homilies at weekday Masses.
• Every year graduation day makes me feel a little sad.
• I get to write self-indulgent columns like this whenever I want.
• The kitchen's seafood chowder.
• Brother Cyprian Langlois' version of the Emcee from the musical Cabaret, which rivals even the great Joel Grey.
• The fact that Brother Blaise Bonderer cracks me up more when he's in a bad mood than when he's in a good one.
• The ladies in my office nag me about my eating habits.
• Scrimmaging against the seminary basketball team when Father Albert Bruecken is the referee. It's a riot, and I'm not speaking figuratively. For him to call a foul someone has to be bleeding like Jim Caviezel in The Passion of the Christ.
• If Father Regis Probstfield is in the room and you are not smiling, you're not paying attention.
• Brother Jacob's Old Testament beard.
• Father Hugh Tasch believes in extraterrestrial intelligence and ponders what proof of their existence would mean to ecumenism.
• My daughter Annie was rushed to the hospital after a tree branch fell on her. A month later people at work are still asking about her. (She's fine.)
• Father Roger Schmit when he growls, "I'm not liberal. I'm not conservative. I am correct."
• Brianna the Abbey dog caught a three-legged deer. I love nature.
• The library staff lets me check out a book even though they know I still have 17 others waiting to be read.
• The way Father Donald Grabner walks into my office and says, "Wow, you're actually working!"
• My 5-year-old, explaining a picture she drew of our family, said her brothers were princes, she and her sister were princesses, her mom was a queen, and I was the Abbot.
• Father Quentin Kathol's holy war against the dandelion.
• Brother Damian Larson's nature trail and Brother John Baptist's flower gardens.
• I drove 33 miles to work this morning and only touched my brakes five times.
• Attending 6 a.m. vigils with the monks, and seeing the surprised looks on their faces.
• My wife and I arranged for a clown to surprise my daughter at school on her birthday and Abbot Gregory encouraged me to leave work so I could see the look on her face.

So much for non-profit.


Dan Madden
Director of Development and Communications

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www.conceptionabbey.org

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