There’s an article in the July 2 New Yorker about Fred Soper, who led extensive anti-malaria campaigns around the world in the 30’s-50’s. This little bit gave me a laugh.
Soper ran a very tight ship. He organized down to the minute the schedule the mosquito exterminators (called inspectors) were supposed to follow, and tightly enforced it. If an inspector deviated by more than ten minutes, he was docked a day’s pay. He took this policy to the logical extreme.
That, my friends, is a manager.
Sua
There’s a story about one of the professors here that goes like…
Working for Professor S. sometimes was challenging. He was a nice enough guy, but very, very anal-retentitive. He fell a bit short of the mark in communication skills as well. Furthermore, you’d never describe this fellow as a lady’s man. In fact, he appeared singularly uncomfortable in his dealings with female colleagues.
One fine day, he had been hassling his senior graduate student for the overdue results of a crucial experment. Student X didn’t have the data yet but didn’t want to so inform Professor S. Instead, later that day, when he revisited the subject, she said, “Professor S., please don’t ask me about that. I’m feeling quite poorly today. I just got my period.”
The mere mention of menstrual blood flow was enough to send Dr. S. into paroxysms of uncomfortable figeting and stuttering. He left Student X’s area of the lab and didn’t return. Later that week, Student X finished the experiment and presented the data to Professor S.
Cut to a few months later. Same scenario. This time, Professor S. wants a finished version of Student X’s manuscript. Again, he’s been pestering her but again, she doesn’t have the assignment finished soon enough for Dr S. Well, it worked so well a few months earlier, so she used the menstrual line again.
“Dr. S., please don’t ask me for it today. I’m not feeling well. I just got my period.”
For a second time, Dr S. retreated to his office stuttering and fidgeting. However, this time he came back. And looking down at the dayminder he had retreived from his office he told Student X,"
“Not according to my calendar.”