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Liaison, definition: Communication or cooperation which facilitates a close working relationship between people or organizations. Oxford ROM dictionary
Summer. Under-employed.
In a college corridor at the college job centre a staff who knew my face was chatting with me. As I recall, she was frustrated that students were putting on their resume they did “liaison”—and then misspelling that word! She was “liaising” with me because we were acquainted. In passing, she shared another frustration: while she couldn’t post the address of a “one-weekend job” (for stocktaking), she did tell student after student… but the employer was phoning her again and again… because every student failed to appear.
I asked her for the address. Because she knew me, I obtained a weekend of reading serial numbers and folding shirts—hurray! My point is not that those crazy stories about young people avoiding work might be true; my point is that liaison builds trust.
From history, I know that “Liaison Officers” were posted to Allied headquarters during the Great War, a war as unprecedented as any Great Flood or Great Fire, requiring unprecedented cooperation among the allies. Precious leadership was posted away to allied H.Qs because, contrary to expectations, information wouldn’t be naturally passed on between the armies.
Decades later came another War. In the D-Day movie Pressure, based on the stage play, the gifted actor Brendan Fraser plays General Eisenhower. In one scene he dips his head to tell his guilt: The horrible casualties of the beach assault in Operation Tiger happened, in part, because the navy and the army hadn’t shared their radios frequencies. Call it lack of liaison. Later in that war my sad father, at the front of the Canadian advance, often stood on a hill, watching allied troops on another hill, being bombed by our own side. Mum thought it was because when a hill was taken nobody radioed it in.
In a previous essay, where I referenced dysfunctional training in Band of Brothers, I noted that “what you do in practice is what you do in a game.” As for Canadians, I’m still groaning at seeing a tired army coming out of the swamp at first light, passing six foot tables with steaming hot food, and trudging by to do added-on training. Nobody told the kitchen about the change of plans. Partly because, in peace time, there is no reward for liaising, but lots of flak from peers if you try to be earnest. Which doesn’t bode well for combat. Americans haven’t learned either, their frequency problem during peacetime is documented in Blackhawk Down.
If liaison were easy, then everyone would do so, and students wouldn’t put it on their resume.
It was business sage “in a class by himself” Peter Drucker, —who was on a Pentagon civilian advisory committee during Vietnam— who offered a solution: He said (in my own words) an executive must have a practise, a discipline, of asking, after every decision, “who needs to be informed?”
Of course, under the stress of front-line combat, one must pass on only the bare minimum of information when giving “situation-reports-plus-orders.” Meanwhile, back at headquarters, Eisenhower needs as many comprehensive reports as he can get.
I remember once some fool driver struck me head on —I was totally in the right— and my car ended up in the Impound Lot. There, the public enterers a room that feels stained in human despair; with the glass along the counter looking bulletproof. They hassled me about looking at my own car…
Next day I found myself at the auto registries. Beyond discussing the registration papers of the moment, I shared a little extra by telling about my impound situation—and they responded with an excellent suggestion: I could leave my car. Instead of trying to get into the lot to try to pry off my plate, with the bolts perhaps rusted-in-place, I could simply obtain a new licence plate number…
At my bank, people know me. Sometimes after my sharing, in a spirit of liaison, a little more than they need to know, they have relaxed and felt new ideas pop in, then gifted me with suggestions. “You invest through this bank, so… hey, you can have a free card for exclusive airport lounges.”
A discipline, a practice, of friendly liaison is human, considerate and practical.
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Sean Crawford
Calgary
End of September
(Nights will be above freezing all week; only one frost warning so far)
2026
Blog note: This piece has lots of real examples; next week I “swing for the fences” with a very abstract one, looking at racial theories and high schools.
Writer and Life note: May I share? Self-disclose? A “professional fiction writer” of my acquaintance didn’t know (until I told him) about how all over North America seniors have morning coffee klatches at cafes, A&W’s, and the like. Because his mornings are always spent at his “writing practice.”
Meanwhile, thanks to my writing groups, I “have been” putting out as many fiction words per week as I would if I too had such a “practice.” But I don’t, alas.
This matters because entropy has hit my writing groups, “have been,” and now I need a different writing plan than just being accountable to my groups.
Can an old dog learn the trick of a “practice?” Only if the dog values that over other stuff. We will see.
Until today
Maybe I’m fiction lazy, but “at least” —love that phrase— I have been faithfully writing and posting essays for my fans. Until today. My new plan is to only finish an essay as often as my nonfiction group meets, fortnightly. Because I have become skilled enough at essays, and it’s time to move on. (If I can, since I have “the essay bug”)
My time saved could go to writing fiction.
