Back in the 1980s we had a smallish client who two of us looked after. They had a bespoke system a few staff used for booking out fork lift trucks.
We had a posh lad join the team, public school, very tall, supremely over-confident, posh voice and thick. Senior management loved him. We couldn’t find anything for him to do that we didn’t have to re-do ourselves properly afterwards.
They took their order for a new mainframe, new financial systems and new bespoke customer management system to our main competitor. It would have been the biggest order we had ever taken.
They had become one of the country’s largest fork lift hire companies.
Senior management laughed it off, saying everyone had to learn. Thicko posh bloke was promoted.
Back in the 1980s we had a smallish client who two of us looked after. They had a bespoke system a few staff used for booking out fork lift trucks.
We had a posh lad join the team, public school, very tall, supremely over-confident, posh voice and thick. Senior management loved him. We couldn’t find anything for him to do that we didn’t have to re-do ourselves properly afterwards.
One day the fork lift hire company phoned up saying they wanted to place an order. Posh boy told them to go away as they were too small for us to deal with. (There were only about 100 people in our company so we weren’t exactly Microsoft!) He told them to “#%©$ off and stop wasting our time”.
So they did.
They took their order for a new mainframe, new financial systems and new bespoke customer management system to our main competitor. It would have been the biggest order we had ever taken.
They had become one of the country’s largest fork lift hire companies.
Senior management laughed it off, saying everyone had to learn. Thicko posh bloke was promoted.