He folded his hands and leaned forward on his desk.
"We're different from other organizations," he said.
[I cannot tell you how often I've heard that one.]
"The lessons learned elsewhere cannot be applied here."
[Why not? Do you employ Martians?]
"In fact, I'm not sure if my managers will even talk with an outsider."
[I've never had any trouble getting them to talk. The difficulty has been getting them to shut up.]
"Frankly, we are suspicious of anyone who hasn't worked in our industry."
[That must be how you get all of those new ideas.]
"And if the employees had any problems, I'm sure that they'd talk to our HR director."
[You mean they'll talk to that person seated over there who flinches whenever you make a sudden gesture?]
"But we'll give it a try anyway. If you want, I'll explain everything to the team in advance."
[That's okay. I think I'll handle that part.]
Or my recent tooth-grinder:
ReplyDeleteMe: Your MArketing Driector is the problem. I've only spent half a day out of a scheduled 5 days talking to your management team; but I can already tell you that your Marketing Director is a sadistic, cancerous thug. He's the root cause of all your problems with morale, staff turnover, reputation and prro margins.
CEO: Yeah, I thought you might say something like that; but he does alway make his top-line number ...
Well, if he makes his numbers then he must be great!
ReplyDeleteAargh.