I alluded to this story once and Butch actually commented he'd like to hear it, so now he's ruined a perfectly good day of browsing for all of you.
Several years ago, I got a "real job." I stopped working at
BGI and entered the world of start-up companies at what was then known as IIRC, International Internet Recruiting Consultants. In pretty short order, I was working with companies like Dell, Kinkos and Coors, managing their accounts and generally making a successful nuisance of myself. Fast-forward a year and I made the mistake of taking a role in the sales department, thinking I could repeat the success I'd seen in my old position.
Yeah... not so much.
I struggled, didn't get any direction and, despite working my ass off, got nowhere. So, as I tend to do, I got pissed. Not at anyone in particular, just angry I was failing and, seeking a bit of inspiration, put the following quote from
H.L. Mencken on my machine as a screensaver just before I left for some time off:
Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.
In my mind, I'd come back to work and, in simple terms, start kicking ass. Why I believed that, I have no idea, but that was my thought process.
As you can guess, my arrival back wasn't quite what I expected. I noticed the screensaver was gone, my desk was a bit cleaner than usual, and that feeling of "someone has been jacking with my things" was in the air.
However, no one said a word to me. Nothing. I finally asked my friend Scott, who had also come from BGI, if he knew what the story was. His response went a little something like this.
"Yeah, someone read that on your machine and it freaked them out. They were acting like they thought you might come in and go postal on everyone. It was pathetic. I tried to say that they had no idea what it meant and that they were acting ridiculous, but they didn't listen. Then they deleted it. I can't believe they haven't said anything to you."
A couple of my other coworkers relayed basically the same line, which just left me a little dumbfounded. "So, people are afraid I'm the guy that will snap but don't have the balls to say anything to me about it? Nice."
Near the end of the day, I asked one of our C-level execs about it, because I still couldn't believe no one had addressed it with me. As a former, HR executive, I guess his answer shouldn't have surprised me.
"It made some people uncomfortable, so we felt it best to erase it."
"And that's it?"
"That's it. By the way, who's H.L. Mencken?"
It was so anticlimatic that I felt a little lost. Not once did any coworker who expressed concern over the quote talk to me about it, which is what really pissed me off about the whole thing. I turned the other cheek for a while, let my disdain show a little more and began the search for other work not long after.
I've also learned more from reading H.L. Mencken than I ever did at that job.
Read the complete post at http://endurosnob.blogspot.com/2008/05/assorted-snobbery-whos-hl-mencken.html