111–120 of 146 posts
"You're not the CEO - You're the Janitor" Would have been a perfectly fitting title. The use of the metaphor 'Janitor' was enough. Honestly does the profanity really add to the impact of the message?
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My grandfather co-founded an engineering company. One of the things he had to do was sales. His trick was that the first time he visited the company, he'd ask to get a company directory. The second time, he'd review that directory (which in those days typically had pictures), and when he walked in he'd greet everyone by name. He was a very effective salesman. (BTW the company still exists, http://cmtengr.com/ is thei…
I was talking to a friend of mine a bit ago; I was saying that I wanted some sort of wearable computer rig to do facial recognition for me; I thought that was one of the things holding me back as a bizdev guy. I'm bad with both faces and names. My friend told me that he could remember faces well, but that more often than not it contributed to awkwardness when he could remember the other person's name, but the other p…
I have been told that, in a sales context, this actually helps. It fires off some sort of feeling that you need to make up for the social faux pas.
(I am truly awful at remembering faces and names - so have never had the opportunity to find out myself :-)
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Thanks for the feedback. I typically italicize and bold things in an effort to break up the black/white monotony of my site but I'll keep the advice in mind and maybe go back and make some edits. As for the 'fucking' I agree, it was actually pretty hard to write too. I grew up in a middle class family in the South most of whom would be appalled by the way this post was written(the language) but I thought it put some…
I wasn't sure why the 'F' was capitalized, that choice made both occurrences very odd with or without the bold/italic artistic license. I would assume someone with the title of 'Fucking Janitor' would be in a very different line of work than what tends to be talked about on HN.
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I generally agree with you, and did upvote you, but I am currently in the largest city I have ever lived in and not really experiencing it that way. I suppose I need to think more about why that is, but I think part of it is that the gaslamp district was designed on a walkable human scale before the auto era. I am not a fan of cars and I find the modern American auto-centric lifestyle and urban design really stressfu…
There is an effect, at least from my perspective, regarding size of cities. It really struck me during a vacation in Sydney. From a certain size on big, read huge, cities tend to break down to almost a cluster of "village communities". within these, you start to know each other. compared to munich for example, there were much more smaller stores and coffee shops right in the center of sydney then in some quarters of…
There's a long video on Prarie Home Companion (on YouTube or Hulu), following Garrison Keillor around as he does the show, and at home in both Minnesota and Manhattan. As he's going through New York, he observes, as you've noted, that it's really a collection of villages.
I've had very similar experiences myself.
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I get very upset when junior employees try to keep me from doing the 'dirty work' I'm preparing to do or already doing. I'm not sure where this whole nonsense of "people who lead can't get dirty or do menial work" comes from. If I had something more important to do for sure I would have delegated, but seeing that I didn't, ask why is this particular thing important or, at most, offer help. Don't tell me I shouldn't b…
Are you any good at it? Maybe they don't want you to do it for a reason :)
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My grandfather co-founded an engineering company. One of the things he had to do was sales. His trick was that the first time he visited the company, he'd ask to get a company directory. The second time, he'd review that directory (which in those days typically had pictures), and when he walked in he'd greet everyone by name. He was a very effective salesman. (BTW the company still exists, http://cmtengr.com/ is thei…
I was talking to a friend of mine a bit ago; I was saying that I wanted some sort of wearable computer rig to do facial recognition for me; I thought that was one of the things holding me back as a bizdev guy. I'm bad with both faces and names. My friend told me that he could remember faces well, but that more often than not it contributed to awkwardness when he could remember the other person's name, but the other p…
The awkwardness is easily removed simply by greeting someone by their name and repeating yours without giving them a chance to 'not remember'.
"Greg! Hi! Mike. How's Sarah? Did you find your dog in the end?"
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Humility isn't thinking poorly of yourself, humility is not thinking of yourself at all.
Yes. More from Mr. Lewis: ". . . . a man is not usually called upon to have an opinion of his own talents at all, since he can very well go on improving them to the best of his ability without deciding his own precise niche in the temple of Fame."
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I'll share a story an interaction with a company that I worked heavily with while we were launching (this is a startup in a fairly niche, non-technical space. A smallish company with around 200 employees): The "CEO": This guy had a large stake in the company. It was his baby, and while the "CEO" title (which I think gets way over applied) fits him, his official title is "managing partner". While we were in the proces…
Reminds me of "Beyond Civilization" by Daniel Quinn. In the end, most of us just want to join the circus. We want to be a part of something special, where everyone is working towards a common goal. We join the circus to be a part of something, not to get something from it. What's the modern day version of a circus (the old-fashioned type, not the commercialized circus)?