A Class with Drucker - Headway | Work on yourself

122 ■ A CLASS WITH DRUCKER
staggered for the purpose of dinner and socialization at the faculty club.
Also, he realized that he could easily pick up on the subject matter wherever
he left off after the evening meal. After class, this was a little more difficult,
since the class met only once a week. Therefore, at what was
supposed to be the end of class, he did not always stop when the clock said
that the class was over. He stopped when he felt his lecture was complete
and not before. Usually he managed to complete on time, but not always.
The first time this occurred, I was aghast. At ten o’clock in the evening
when the class was scheduled to end, he was still in the middle of a lecture.
At first, I was not too disturbed. I thought that he would tie things
together and quickly wrap things up. All of his students were rabid
<strong>Drucker</strong> fans. However, on this particular evening at 10:15, he was still at
it. And he didn’t stop at 10:30.
I was tired. I had worked all day and was I eager to get home to my family.
Pasadena was still a 30–40 minute drive away. In the morning, I had to
get up early to go to work. Fortunately, at the time I was still working as
Director of Research and Development for a company only a few miles
away from my home. As I noted in a previous chapter, I was to leave this
job several months later.
As the boss of my research and development domain, I was the first to
arrive in the morning. I had an important meeting scheduled <strong>with</strong> my
immediate superior, the company president, for shortly after 8:00 AM But
Peter lectured on. I was sitting right up front in the first row. Were it any
other professor, I would have left as quietly and inconspicuously as I
could, first row, or not. But how could I possibly get up and walk out on
Peter <strong>Drucker</strong>? Not one of the other fifty or sixty students got up and left
either. Finally, a little after 11:00 PM, Peter concluded his lecture. He finalized
his points and the class was over. I arrived home about 11:45. I suffered
a mild chiding from my wife and vowed never to sit quietly past the
time for the end of course again, regardless of whether or not it was
<strong>Drucker</strong> lecturing and regardless of what he or anyone else thought about
my getting up and leaving.
A few weeks later, the same thing occurred. Peter continued to lecture
past the end of the class. I gave him until 10:05. Then I arose from my
front row seat as quietly as I could; I gathered together my notebook and
other class materials, and stuffed them in my briefcase. I nodded good-bye
to Peter. He nodded back and I left. Seeing me leaving, a number of other
students followed my example.