Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men
i have a plate; we all do; it fills up with whatever we're doing; and we talk about it and everything around it; it makes up a good portion of the conversations throughout your lifetime; and i'm fine with that. really i am. i just wish there was a bit of a literal translation to all that talk of plates and filling. literal in the sense that you could actually bend a bit, maybe crane your neck about to take in the portions upon your plate and see how much space you're going to need for additions.
yes, that's right, i've got a feeling that i may have overfilled the proverbial plate. Lets see.
dad sent me a package, and i'll be brief as perhaps this is a bit forced, and perhaps it's almost 3am; but dad sent me a package, and in it were two glad seal bags, one with pegs in it; around 20; and one with three one gigabyte usb memory sticks.
yes, i did just find out something new to do with semi-colons, and yes i realise it's annoying.
now i can explain away the pegs as previously dad sent me a sock in a package to india, and six months later sent to portugal the other sock and a single gumboot, by 2015 i should be able to do some gardening. but the usb sticks had me stumped, three of them, not one, and weirder still there was a four gigabyte sd memory card and reader, none of which i have any use for. dad calls me days later and asks fervently, "did you get the usb keys, rich, did ya get 'em". to which i naturally reply, "yes dad, i did get them alright". "good now look, what ya do is you copy on all your photos, and then you mail those usb keys up to me, that's what ya do". "alright mate, why's that". "did you get the pineapples i sent down as well". "yes, yes dad, i got the entire package, at once". "good, you need to eat them before the go off". "i know dad, i'm chopping up a pineapple right now". "right, well you've gotta eat them, and use the pegs, i put them in a plastic bag next to the rudyard kipling poem". the poem called 'if' for the record. "too easy dad, pegs i can use".
things i'm yet to find out the reason for: one extension cord (used), staples (no stapler), ear muffs class 5 (one pair), chop sticks japanese (five pairs). and yeah, it's not as ridiculous as i paint it, but brush strokes matter.
in other news:
SITTING in my office last week, facing the man whom I had just fired, I thought of the contrast between that interview and our first one, nearly two years ago! Then he did almost all the talking, while I listened with eager interest. Last week it was I who talked, while he sulked like a petulant child.
"Your contract has sixteen months to run," I said. "My proposition is that we cancel it at once, and that I hand you this check for ten thousand dollars."
With a show of bravado he waved the check aside. He would hold me to the letter of the contract if it were the last thing he ever did.
I told him he had that privilege, but I was sure he would see the futility of exercising it.
"Let me review the situation for a moment," I continued: "You came to us as general sales manager on January 1st, 1922, at a salary of twenty-five thousand dollars. It was by far the largest salary we had ever paid in any executive position; but your record seemed to justify it.
"The letters you brought spoke in the highest terms of your sales genius. The only question which they did not answer to my satisfaction was why companies which had valued you so highly should ever have allowed you to get away! When I voiced this, you stated that they merely had been outbid by their competitors -- and I accepted your statement. It wasn't until you had been here a year that I learned the truth. You are a quick starter, but a poor finisher -- no finisher at all, in fact."
"Who told you that?" he demanded.
"Nobody needed to tell me. I found it out from your effect on our own organization."
"Organization!" he sneered. "You haven't got an organization."
"So you have remarked to me frequently," I answered; "and you may be right. Our folks have mostly grown up in our own business; they know comparatively little of the way in which things are done in other lines. That's what we wanted you to teach us, and you were very sure that you could . . . We were all receptive."
"Yes, you were!" he exclaimed scornfully. "Your folks were jealous from the day I arrived. They sat back and dared me to show results. I told you that six months ago."
"I remember you did," I replied, "and my answer is just what it was then. You claim to be a brilliant salesman, and yey you failed in the first essential. You never sold yourself to the people with whom and through whom you had to work. You say they were jealous, but a man of your intelligence ought to know that the answer to jealousy is modesty, hard work -- and results. The would have jumped on your band wagon fast enough if you had made them see the advantage of it. But after waiting around for the band wagon to start, they concluded that it wasn't going to start, and it never has.
"You brought your own assistants, and we paid them high salaries," I went on. "You moved our offices away from the plant and took these expensive quarters in the center of town. You were given a sales and advertising budget more than twice as large as any we have ever had before. Every request you made I granted as whole-heartedly as I knew how, because I believed that your fresh ideas were what this business needed. But twenty months have passed, and the sales simply have not grown.
"That's the stubborn fact which can't be blinked; and now it's come to a point where I must choose between you and my good old wheel horses who, in spite of their mediocrity, have somehow managed to build a very profitable business.
"You can stay here until your contract expires, but you will have no further responsibilites. The news will get around that you are merely hanging on; and when the end comes you will step out, discredited, to look for another job. Or you can leave now with ten thousand dollars, which is the additional penalty I am willing to pay for my mistake in judgment. If you go in the proper spirit, you are still young enough to profit by your failure."
yes, that's right, i've got a feeling that i may have overfilled the proverbial plate. Lets see.
dad sent me a package, and i'll be brief as perhaps this is a bit forced, and perhaps it's almost 3am; but dad sent me a package, and in it were two glad seal bags, one with pegs in it; around 20; and one with three one gigabyte usb memory sticks.
yes, i did just find out something new to do with semi-colons, and yes i realise it's annoying.
now i can explain away the pegs as previously dad sent me a sock in a package to india, and six months later sent to portugal the other sock and a single gumboot, by 2015 i should be able to do some gardening. but the usb sticks had me stumped, three of them, not one, and weirder still there was a four gigabyte sd memory card and reader, none of which i have any use for. dad calls me days later and asks fervently, "did you get the usb keys, rich, did ya get 'em". to which i naturally reply, "yes dad, i did get them alright". "good now look, what ya do is you copy on all your photos, and then you mail those usb keys up to me, that's what ya do". "alright mate, why's that". "did you get the pineapples i sent down as well". "yes, yes dad, i got the entire package, at once". "good, you need to eat them before the go off". "i know dad, i'm chopping up a pineapple right now". "right, well you've gotta eat them, and use the pegs, i put them in a plastic bag next to the rudyard kipling poem". the poem called 'if' for the record. "too easy dad, pegs i can use".
things i'm yet to find out the reason for: one extension cord (used), staples (no stapler), ear muffs class 5 (one pair), chop sticks japanese (five pairs). and yeah, it's not as ridiculous as i paint it, but brush strokes matter.
in other news:
SITTING in my office last week, facing the man whom I had just fired, I thought of the contrast between that interview and our first one, nearly two years ago! Then he did almost all the talking, while I listened with eager interest. Last week it was I who talked, while he sulked like a petulant child.
"Your contract has sixteen months to run," I said. "My proposition is that we cancel it at once, and that I hand you this check for ten thousand dollars."
With a show of bravado he waved the check aside. He would hold me to the letter of the contract if it were the last thing he ever did.
I told him he had that privilege, but I was sure he would see the futility of exercising it.
"Let me review the situation for a moment," I continued: "You came to us as general sales manager on January 1st, 1922, at a salary of twenty-five thousand dollars. It was by far the largest salary we had ever paid in any executive position; but your record seemed to justify it.
"The letters you brought spoke in the highest terms of your sales genius. The only question which they did not answer to my satisfaction was why companies which had valued you so highly should ever have allowed you to get away! When I voiced this, you stated that they merely had been outbid by their competitors -- and I accepted your statement. It wasn't until you had been here a year that I learned the truth. You are a quick starter, but a poor finisher -- no finisher at all, in fact."
"Who told you that?" he demanded.
"Nobody needed to tell me. I found it out from your effect on our own organization."
"Organization!" he sneered. "You haven't got an organization."
"So you have remarked to me frequently," I answered; "and you may be right. Our folks have mostly grown up in our own business; they know comparatively little of the way in which things are done in other lines. That's what we wanted you to teach us, and you were very sure that you could . . . We were all receptive."
"Yes, you were!" he exclaimed scornfully. "Your folks were jealous from the day I arrived. They sat back and dared me to show results. I told you that six months ago."
"I remember you did," I replied, "and my answer is just what it was then. You claim to be a brilliant salesman, and yey you failed in the first essential. You never sold yourself to the people with whom and through whom you had to work. You say they were jealous, but a man of your intelligence ought to know that the answer to jealousy is modesty, hard work -- and results. The would have jumped on your band wagon fast enough if you had made them see the advantage of it. But after waiting around for the band wagon to start, they concluded that it wasn't going to start, and it never has.
"You brought your own assistants, and we paid them high salaries," I went on. "You moved our offices away from the plant and took these expensive quarters in the center of town. You were given a sales and advertising budget more than twice as large as any we have ever had before. Every request you made I granted as whole-heartedly as I knew how, because I believed that your fresh ideas were what this business needed. But twenty months have passed, and the sales simply have not grown.
"That's the stubborn fact which can't be blinked; and now it's come to a point where I must choose between you and my good old wheel horses who, in spite of their mediocrity, have somehow managed to build a very profitable business.
"You can stay here until your contract expires, but you will have no further responsibilites. The news will get around that you are merely hanging on; and when the end comes you will step out, discredited, to look for another job. Or you can leave now with ten thousand dollars, which is the additional penalty I am willing to pay for my mistake in judgment. If you go in the proper spirit, you are still young enough to profit by your failure."