One Year's Experience...

I was at one time the National Sales Manager of a large-ish medical equipment manufacturing company.  One of my many accomplishments.  Many.  Ahem...

I was appointed to that position in their hope that I could turn that company's fortunes around after several losing years.  I was up the challenge.

I started by firing 90% of their sales staff.  They were boils on the butt of humanity.  The reason they hadn't done well is their sales force was bupkus.  That meant I had to replace them.  I had a team running ads for me in major market newspapers to solicit resumes from top sales candidates (the way it was done back in those pre-Internet days).  With me then parachuting in out of the sky to scoop up the resumes and conduct the interviews.  I conducted more than 200 interviews in eight cities in four months during that effort.  (Whew!!!)  And here is the experience I had during one of those interviews...

I welcomed a candidate for the sales position out of Dallas into my hotel room that day.  The sales jobs I was filling were top-tier.  I wanted only experienced performers.  Those ready to grab the brass ring and prove their mettle.  No newfers, thank you.  So this guy steps in and tries to immediately take control of the interview.  He preened with confidence, attempting to convince me he's the only guy for the job.  Plus he dripped with that Texas twang that's so endearing on a hot babe, and so utterly puke-inducing on a guy in a suit.  

He kept bragging about having ten years' experience selling his widgets, as if that in and of itself was somehow important.  His demeanor so reeked with self-assurance that it irritated me.  And I'm big on self-assurance, and hard to irritate!  So I decided to pull out my "Secret Weapon."  And it's a Weapon that worked for me then, and could be used by us voters now, as you'll soon see...

I closed my notebook and put down my pen.  I said to him, "Let's stop the interview for a moment and discuss "experience."  I said, "You've made it a point to emphasize your ten years' experience.  But I'm interested in knowing, were those really ten years' experience, or was that one year's experience repeated ten times?"

Well, he didn't know how to respond.  Most of us wouldn't, frankly.  Because we're not wired that way.  I left him dumbfounded.  We tend to think of our experience cumulatively, as opposed to sequentially.  We tend to think of who we are today instead of a more linear look at how we got here and where we're going.  We tend to think in a way that often results in the "Peter Principle." (look it up).   

And how we got here, step-by-step, is as important, so far as I'm concerned, as where we are.

BTW, that guy didn't get the job.  But Joe O'Biden, did.  O'Biden used to brag about his 40 years of experience in Gubmint.  But if you think about it sequentially, it was just good ol' Joe, hopping on the Amtrak in Baltimore, getting off at the Capitol Building, voting on any one of a thousand bills over the decades, and then back on at 6:00 p.m. clikety-clak back to Delaware that evening.  Five days a week, for 40 years.  40 years experience!  And remember, Joe graduated number 161 in his law school class!  Of 232! 

I may be wrong on that.  It might be 231... 

No, I would submit it was 1 year experience repeated 40 times.  He learned nothing new in each of those years, and now we're paying for it.  We're paying for it in our eroded national security.  And in our border security.  And in our electric bill.  And in our gas bill and mortgage payment.  And in the erosion of our savings through punishing inflation.  And of course, every time we fill up at the gas station.  All I can say is... 

...Vote better next time.