So there was no MD for a few weeks.
The doctor had explained to me when I had visited Mr Richards in the hospital. It wasn't so much the running out of the building that had done the damage, but the shock of the situation. Sprinting won't kill you, but losing $20 million will, I guessed he was driving at. Actually it was $40 million.
I hoped Richards would be fine, and that his heart attack wouldn't spark a mid-life crisis.
I'd seen it before. The CEO of another agency I had worked for years ago ran his business, worked twelve hours a day, had long lunches and stressful deadlines, ate the wrong food too often, smoked, worked weekends .... all the elements of a fabulous, long, happy life.
Then he had a heart scare and went and spoiled it all. He stopped working, converted to some religion not based in the same hemisphere, and joined a 'men's group'. Then he wrote one of those self-awareness books that you see on the front counters of chain bookstores, as impulse gift buys. He called it Relax and filled it with eighty pages of meaningless quotes - Your inner calmness appeals to the goddess of your nature, Your peace quotient resides in the matrix of the soul, The duck's landing is nature's kiss, True fulfillment is anger's nemesis - that kind of thing; interspersed with pictures of lily pads, people doing yoga on mountains, smooth rocks piled up in cairns, a woman playing a flute to a sunset, and sleeping cats.
He told me later he got the lot - quotes and stock photos - from the internet.
It sold ten million copies.
The doctor had explained to me when I had visited Mr Richards in the hospital. It wasn't so much the running out of the building that had done the damage, but the shock of the situation. Sprinting won't kill you, but losing $20 million will, I guessed he was driving at. Actually it was $40 million.
I hoped Richards would be fine, and that his heart attack wouldn't spark a mid-life crisis.
I'd seen it before. The CEO of another agency I had worked for years ago ran his business, worked twelve hours a day, had long lunches and stressful deadlines, ate the wrong food too often, smoked, worked weekends .... all the elements of a fabulous, long, happy life.
Then he had a heart scare and went and spoiled it all. He stopped working, converted to some religion not based in the same hemisphere, and joined a 'men's group'. Then he wrote one of those self-awareness books that you see on the front counters of chain bookstores, as impulse gift buys. He called it Relax and filled it with eighty pages of meaningless quotes - Your inner calmness appeals to the goddess of your nature, Your peace quotient resides in the matrix of the soul, The duck's landing is nature's kiss, True fulfillment is anger's nemesis - that kind of thing; interspersed with pictures of lily pads, people doing yoga on mountains, smooth rocks piled up in cairns, a woman playing a flute to a sunset, and sleeping cats.
He told me later he got the lot - quotes and stock photos - from the internet.
It sold ten million copies.
Comments
Post a Comment