When my Co-author Sean O’Neil sent me over the first drafts of the work he had tentatively titled It’s the People, Stupid I immediately was drawn to his almost laboratory like diagnosis for each of his workplace character types. Hey, I knew these guys. I am pretty sure everyone does. In fact, I think I hired, managed and fired all of them.
As we began to add to our ultimate collection of sixteen “Winners, Losers. Misfits and All” the characters began to develop. We created them, named them, gave them a bit of an identity and then rolled out strategies for managing them individually and, eventually, as a team.
While I wish I had the creative mind to conjure up interesting people in a Shakesperian manner, each and every profile is either a person or a combination of people we have run into throughout our respective careers. We drew upon many of our own experiences to tell the stories but, obviously, appropriateness (some of them were real retards) and space greatly limited where we could go with them in the book. So, now….welcome to our limitless and editor-less blog. Let the fun begin.
One of the most frustrating people I have ever had the misfortune of trying to mange was a moron we will call “Gus”; the inspiration for our ADHD Butterfly character.
Gus was completely unfocused. Gus was a Chatty Cathy. Gus was a person who would inspire you to walk to California
This ADHD Butterfly was a salesman who knew everyone and everything about everyone. He knew buyer’s names. He knew their kids names. He knew who was diabetic and needed Diet Coke at the convention. While his peers were working and selling, Gus was busy showing THEIR accounts his baby pictures (he was ugly as a child too, by the way), explaining the intricacies of the product line and getting to know THEM while his accounts were left waiting for him to get back to work! The look on many of their faces by the end of the magical mystery tour that he tried to pass off as a coherent presentation was one of “pass the cyanide”.
Time spent with Gus? Envision a road trip with your least favorite family member…and you are hung over….and it is an “All Milli Vanilli Weekend” on the radio. Unpleasant, huh? I think Gus in anything more than a 38 second dose was way worse that even that god-awful scenario. And, unfortunately for managing an annoying person in a “people” business, just about everyone else exposed to his barrage of annoying superfluity felt the same way.
While I personally thought Gus just needed a trip to the shrink and some really powerful medication I kind of felt sorry for him...well actually I really felt sorry for ME who was accountable for him. But as is the case in most companies, there were others in our camp who relished the opportunity to make him look even more retarded and annoying that god already had. In one instance, our company (which imports and sells silk flowers and seasonal novelties) imported a life size Santa Claus. For shipping and storage purposes the figure was collapsible in a breakdown manner. Gus was the first to learn how to break it down and set it up. He showed everyone how to do it. Over and over and over again. It became a running joke and as I shook my head, praying to the God of Ritalin this man would cut it out, the rest of the team asked Gus every single time they had an account near that thing to come over and break it down.
One would think after 10 or 20 times he would have gotten the joke, right? Not our Gus! There he was, every single time, with a full narrative and Santa was up and down faster than a Hunts Point Hook…you get the point. .
Yes, what they were doing to him was juvenile. It was mean and it was hilarious. The only reason I didn’t put a stop to it was the customers in the general vicinity figured it out and were actually enjoying their time in our showroom taking in our Butterfly Sideshow! “Get him to break down the Santa again” was actually becoming a common request.
As you will see in the next couple of weeks we have had many characters to learn from. Both Sean and I hope our book (In stores May 3…J ) helps you recognize and manage the assorted characters like ADHD that you come across. So, with that in mind, we will leave our strategies out of these blogs so you are forced to buy Bare Knuckle People Management . In fact, if you do not buy it, we are sending Gus over to explain why you need it. And he may have Santa will him. So be very afraid.
Thanks for your support and reading our blogs. And we will continue to shamelessly beg for you to buy our book. Good day! --JTK
