Dropped nibbling powder from the ceiling at the auction
Why should you hire someone with a sense of humor?
Well let me tell you a story.
Recently, I was interviewing a gentleman who had made some outlandish claims on his resume. His last job was at an auction house and he claimed that he was able to increase the company’s revenue by more than 5000% in one year. This seemed a bit questionable, so I challenged him with this notation on his resume. I started by leaving him an “out” and asked him if this was a typo, and if he meant 5%, 50%, or was it 500%. He acted horrified that he didn’t believe the 5000% gain in the revenue figure. He told me;
“Well, it was 5000% and it may have been even higher!”
At this point I had to hear his secret. He said;
“It was simple, during each auction session, he would sneak into the rafters and sprinkle ‘stinging powder’ ever so lightly on the crowd below. Bidders couldn’t help themselves and kept picking at their hair, heads and shoulders – and each time they did, the price increased because they were considered gestures to bid higher.”
Well, that’s a creative solution indeed, but was it real? And how did you quantify this? He explained the numbers and the increases and yes, he was close to 5000%. In fact, a 4960% increase when I did the math. I never knew if he actually did that or not, but he was the most interesting person I’ve ever interviewed and was hiring for a position in the R&D department, the title was Director of Innovation, in charge of the entire innovation team. leaders
He gave his statement with such a straight face that I still wonder if it was true. If he made it up, it’s hilarious and should be a cartoon in Barron’s or the Wall Street Journal. If it’s real: “Wow, that’s a pretty commercial story.”
It’s good to have fun people in your company’s innovation center; having interesting people who think outside the box is also a very good thing. Sometimes, as HR professionals, we take ourselves too seriously. We do not treat people as people. We don’t see the human side and how certain personality traits can be so much more important than basic knowledge, college degrees, or years in an industry.
Unique people are valuable to an organization, but if you don’t agree, well, maybe you should hire a group of robots and call it Robotic Resources instead of Human Resources. Oh, and while you’re at it, why not save your company some money and hire a robot to replace it too? Who needs a dull, boring human being in HR? We already have enough. That is probably why we have the problems in this sector that we have today! Think about this human.