The Twix Bar Gambit
I've learned on my latest gig that it's very important not to let on to others that there's something you don't know how to do -- especially if it's something you've been HIRED to do. If you make the boss find someone else to do the current task, then why should she not find someone else to do ALL the tasks?
She says it this way: "act like you know." And I call it the Twix Bar Gambit. After all, you've seen the commercials where the guy doesn't know what to say next, so he shoves a Twix bar in his pie-hole
to buy himself a minute.
If you don't know how to do it, then estimate how long it'll take you to figure out how. You are "kinda tied up" until then, you see.
I used to tell people that if they didn't KNOW the answer, they should admit it and commit to GET the answer. (This is what I was always taught to do in job interviews.) I don't say that any more. Now I tell them, just get the answer. Here are some options:
- The pure time delay. "I'm tied up just now, but I'll get back to you in ten minutes." (Or an hour. Or tomorrow.)
- The archive. "Wow, it's been a LONG time since anyone's asked me about THAT. Could you tell me more?"
- The deflection. "Isn't the issue REALLY this?" or "Couldn't you do THIS instead?"
- The volley. "When did this happen to you?" (or, how?)
So what's up here? You do have to show 'em you know what you know what you're talkin' about. And you have to know what they're talkin' about too. But you don't have to do either NOW.
Well, except in a
job interview. Then you're kinda painted into a corner. :-)
Labels: character
What's great about Nomad Pizza
I was strolling through the local Stop & Shop with my daughter on Saturday, wearing my
Barberton Magics t-shirt, when for the first time since I'd moved to New Jersey, someone came up to me and said "is that... Barberton... Ohio?" I told the woman it was and "have you heard of us?" and she said she was from Cleveland! I was about to ask her about the
Indians and their impending victory over the hated Yankees in the playoffs, when she came up with the following question: "Have you found any good pizza in the area?" We agreed that in northeast Ohio there was a decent pizza place on nearly every corner. "And here," she says, "the pizza tastes like ketchup on a cracker." I couldn't go that far, but I did throw out my old saw about pizza places recycling their boxes and spreading tomato sauce on round pieces of box lid.
It was unfortunate that I couldn't tell her then what I know now.
On Sunday I encountered
Nomad Pizza. These guys, with a brick oven built into their classic REO Speedwagon truck, definitely do NOT serve up ketchup on a cracker. Fresh and hot, right out of the oven, with (whenever possible) organic and (whenever possible) locally-produced toppings. I have only one word to describe them: yummy.
They don't have a storefront yet. And let's face it: their idea of the oven truck is such a good one that they can make a good business without a static location. But if they ever want to reach those of us who can't attend the special events that they are catering nearly every day, they'll have to go bricks and mortar sooner or later. When they do, I'm there.
Labels: young entrepreneurs
How interns SHOULD be treated
It's been a long time. Sorry. Really busy at the start of the school year.
I like
Meebo because it allows us to use instant messaging even in places where instant messaging programs aren't installed. (I don't get to do that much, but it's nice to have it in a pinch.) But now I like these guys all the more. Check out what they had to say about their summer interns:
This summer's been great at meebo and a large part of that
is because we had great interns. Last week we said our goodbyes and sent the last of them back to school. We were very lucky to have AJ, Matt, Mila, and Tri join our ranks and the work they've done has both helped the efficiency of meebo and helped our product.
Matt and Tri joined the server-side of things, with Matt on the development side and Tri on our operations side. Many of you have seen Matt's contribution: file transfer! We're really proud of him for starting the project from scratch, spec-ing out the design, and working with Vijay to tie it all up for production. Tri helped out Simon and Bob tremendously with internal operations and there wasn't a day that went by where he wasn't needed for something.
Many of you may have gotten emails from Mila in response to comments, bugs, suggestions, and general questions about meebo. In addition to helping out on customer service, she even got a chance to exercise some JavaScript skills for her hack day project. AJ's been with us the longest, starting out on the customer service side and transitioning to a great front-end developer. He worked on an awesome new system for helping us debug our releases, keep track of bugs, and increase efficiency during release time, and we're now all hooked on his summer creation.
We can't thank our interns enough for all their hard work, they'll all be missed.
This is how interns SHOULD be treated: with meaningful work, and with public praise. A lesson to us all. Be a good
mentor.
Labels: education
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