Stupidity!
- N rarely paid the monthly pay cheque on time even though there was
plenty of money in the bank. On one occasion, the cheques arrived unsigned.
We were told to return them for signing, rather than new cheques being
written! Pay day was the last day of the month, the same day all my
automatic bill payments came due!
- When Helen the marketer was becoming seriously unhappy, N asked me
what he could do to reverse the trend. I suggested that he give her the
bottle of Grange
she had requested when he asked her if there was anything she wanted. N
said he thought she was joking.
- N complained about Helen drinking too much. Since this was after
hours, I pointed out it was none of his business. "Look at the insanely
great results she's getting! Every insanely great marketer I ever met was
seriously different to the average person. That's Helen's difference."
- The week before Christmas, N decided to sack David "because
business is always slow in January". The reason he chose David was
because he was a recent hire. The logical choice was V who rarely
turned up to work on time. We persuaded N to change his mind in return
for some extra special marketing in January. Helen returned to marketing in
the week between Christmas and New Year when most of our clients' businesses
were closed. Helen figured (correctly) that the business owners would
be at work and they would be answering the phone themselves. Instead of a
receptionist, she was talking to the decision-maker direct, saving lots of
time compared to what usually happened. Needless to say, this resulted in a
record January income!
- Helen sold an amount of Jason's time equal to Jason's annual salary in
February, the same month we discovered we were not covered by worker's
compensation! That wasn't just immoral, it was illegal, too! Jason quit
shortly after that; he's possibly the most moral person I ever met. And a
genius!
- Come annual bonus time, the lion's share went to V. Yes, the very
same V who was regularly 15-30 minutes late for his appointments.
"Because he has been employed the longest". Even though he had
handed in his resignation!
- Helen quit and went to Melbourne. Her salary was triple what N
paid her.
- Helen's replacement had never marketed before, but she was the only
applicant worth hiring. Luckily, she was a quick learner and I had her up to
speed in only a few weeks. But the workload on me during that time is
something I never want to repeat!
- David quit. N hired a replacement against my judgement and
immediately went on a skiing holiday. When I finally managed to track him
down on the phone, he refused to allow me to sack her. The clients she was
supposed to be training how to use a computer taught her how to delete
files!
- At the end of my first 12 months, I tried to negotiate a better salary on
the basis of the huge increase in sales that Helen and I pulled off. N
said that the end of year negotiation in our contract referred to the end of
the year after the first year. So I quit! Wouldn't you?
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