Below is an actual exchange of comments to a post at Movies.com, reacting to the Blu-ray release by The Criterion Collection of Lena Dunham's "Tiny Furniture" – "Criterion Corner #14: 'Tiny Furniture' and the Future of Important Films."
Commenter X:
"Will 'Tiny Furniture' be the first film in The Criterion Collection shot on Canon 7D?"
Commenter Y:
"'Tiny Furniture' will be the first film in The Criterion Collection that should be shot out of a cannon."
I always complain about the general population's low level of intelligence heightened by inertia and group mentality. The gray matter deficit upsets me in its many manifestations: the music that tops the charts (Justin Bieber!), the books that become uber-bestsellers ("Fifty Shades of Grey," judging by the synopsis, didn't really stray too far from 1919 "The Sheik"), the movies that break box-office records ("Pirates of the Caribbean, part XX"), the TV shows that attract most viewers (American Idol – over 6 million watching every airing!), the celebrities who get the most hype (Angelina Jolie, who has not shown us a glimpse of decent acting since 2001 "Original Sin"), etc. Even dear to my heart nerdy world of independent filmmaking is degrading (more about this in another post). Some say, "Stop oppressing people with your judgements! Why do you care anyway?"
I'll tell you, why I care. Only a small group of people can construct their lives in isolation from the world. The rest of us are forced to interact with surrounding individuals, frequently in a very direct manner. The general population is where those unbearable customer service representatives come from, those waiters who screw up your orders, those cab drivers who don't know where to go, those doctors who throw random diagnosis at you and prescribe the most expensive procedures, and so on, and so forth.
Most importantly for the frustrated CFO, this murky pond spews out the job applicants as well as auditors, field examiners, bankers, investors, etc. – people that have an impact on our professional lives. Most are so dull and limited, dealing with them quickly turns an intelligent and composed CFO into the frustrated one.
Once in a blue moon, though, you may get lucky – the wave of professional activities may land on your shore someone with a spark of genuine intelligence in his or her eyes.
I have a client with a trade finance line provided by one of the major banks. Among lender's requirements are periodic field exams of the client's books and records. All banks conduct these reviews from time to time. That doesn't mean, however, that they employ departments full of highly-paid auditors. Instead, they outsource and make the clients bear the cost. There are large and small consulting companies and CPA firms that have built their practices specializing in this type of work.
I've helped this particular client to go through their first field exam. The examiner flew to New York from a medium-size firm in Chicago. My expectations were pessimistic (what else is new?): I was preparing myself for days of explanations about the nature of the business, the accounting principles and pronouncements that apply, the international trade conventions, etc.
But this guy was different. Five minutes after the introductions I knew this was a kindred spirit: someone who is not just smart, intellectually quick, logical, and absorbent, but also a person with the same high standards for the quality of work as I have; someone who doesn't allow garbage to come off his desk. Just like me, he has developed his own analytical tools and instruments that set him apart from everybody else.
Working with him was a gift, an unexpected pleasure. In 3.5 days we have completed the field exercise. Of course, both of us understood that such meeting of professional minds is quite rare, so we felt compelled to share our future aspirations. I genuinely hope that our paths cross again soon.
When he concluded his work and was ready to leave my client's office, I asked him how many other associates in his firm were as good as he was. He said, "Just one other guy." And here you have it, ladies and gentlemen, the real-life statistics on the proportion of professional intelligence in the general pool of employees: 2 to 58, or 3%.
"I have found little that is good about human beings. In my experience most of them are trash."
Sigmund Freud
"My answer is no, ther're not all Michele Bachmann. Half of them are Michele Bachmann. The other half are afraid of losing to Michele Bachmann."
Barney Frank
It has nothing to do with age. Notice, I adorned OLD with quotation marks. It's rather related to obstinateness, which frequently becomes a distinct mark of business ownership. Many CEOs deliberately focus themselves on certain commanding tasks and stunt the expansion of their knowledge in any other areas. For example, your CEO could be a 30-year-old venture capital hot shot, or a 55-year-old veteran entrepreneur; most likely both possess mere basic computer skills.
Of course, they love electronic chotchkies, especially those that bring their huge mailboxes wherever they go. Then again, it's mostly just reading and writing emails, but not necessarily organizing. Most of them can use Word and Excel. Some can even create their own documents, but formatting, formulas, data manipulation, graphs and somesuch fancies are usually beyond them. Leave alone PowerPoint, Visio, Publisher and so on. God forbid they need to look up a customer's contact information in your ERP system – brace yourself for barrage of slander against "your choice" of software.
Obviously, the founders of high-tech startups don't count – everything "computer" comes natural to them. But I had a CEO only a few years ago who called his secretary into the office every time he needed to insert a column in a chart. And the funniest thing happens to these people every time you send them a spreadsheet set for printing on a legal-size paper. It's like a fucking stumbling block – they will spend at least 30 minutes trying to reset the printing area to fit the letter size before crying out for help.
For those employees who don't deal with execs on a regular basis this is somewhat perplexing, considering that most of entrepreneurs are quite capable, and sometimes even brilliant, people. But for those of us who daily interact with these semi-savants, the situation is absolutely clear. The limitations have nothing to do with their natural abilities. Their responsibilities lie in developing the business and creating jobs to fill them with people, who can produce pretty reports and fancy presentations. They don't need to occupy themselves with learning new tricks.
And that's absolutely fine. In fact, if I have to choose I'd prefer them perpetuating the business than learning how to create a pivot table. Yet, some situations are simply maddening.
I've been working on a fairly complicated customer-commitment program with one of my client's owner. Now, all steps developed and all kinks worked out, the project is supposed to culminate in an Agreement document. I drafted the first version and sent it out in the Word format for the boss's review.
An email comes back – no attachment. Instead, in the body of the message, there are multiple paragraphs of my document copied and pasted in black followed by his version of the same paragraphs in blue. The crazy thing is that on the first glance they look exactly the same, but somewhere in the middle there are several words altered. And it's like a half of the document is there. Basically, I have to visually compare both versions of each paragraph line by line to find the damn changes.
I was like, "What the fuck?!" and picked up the phone, "Adam, what are you doing? It seems like you've adjusted only a handful of minor points, but it will take hours to fish them out. Why didn't you make those adjustments directly in the document?" He is perplexed (probably thinks that I've gone momentarily stupid),"How would you know what I've changed then? You would have to comb through the entire document." The truth dawned on me, "You've never used Track Changes or Compare Documents functions before?" "I've never even heard of them."
Maybe I should've been ready for this after so many years of dealing with these people. I was somewhat stunned, nevertheless, and, in stupor, offered a training session free of charge. "Great," he said, "I am very excited. I will let you know when."
I am still waiting.
The Frustrated CFO 